Key of Living Fire (The Sword of the Dragon) (17 page)

Before him, cut into the mountain’s slope, the gravel landing descended to a gate unlike any he had ever seen. Snow wisped past and he blinked. The gate stood a hundred feet high, and its width was even greater. The gate itself was composed of rods of translucent ice—smooth as glass and ramrod straight, spaced evenly every couple of feet—and a tunnel of ice, behind the bars, bored into the mountain’s depths.

Civilization? He gazed around at the forbidding mountains. In this part of the world? He gritted his teeth and stumbled up to the gate, shivering before its chilly columns. Here he was, at the enemy’s doorstep. How he yearned to feel the great white dragon’s breath down his neck. But this time he must take the journey alone.

Pulling his hood over his head, he wrapped his cloak tightly around his torso and pressed his body sideways to the bars and slipped through. Once through, his feet slipped from under him. With a whoosh of air he slid bodily into the gaping tunnel. Its descent angled steeper, and he clawed at the ice but could not decelerate. The dimming blue-gray walls of ice curved high above him. With a desperate roar, he jabbed the scythe at the ice. The blade sparked and bounced off the ice. He tensed his arm and swung it with all his might. The floor sloped steeper. The walls blurred in motion as the scythe blade stabbed toward the ice. The blade that had never failed to pierce his enemies now stubbed against the ice. Its tip bent, and sparks showered from the point of contact, yet he slid faster.

For the first time in a long time he felt helpless. He rotated onto his back, bent his neck to gaze between his feet at the vast, endless tunnel rushing toward him. He pounded his arm stub against the ice, then relaxed his neck, his head cushioned in his hood.

Long ago he’d been the invincible. He frowned. A thousand years ago he could have marshaled an army of five hundred choice warriors. They would have set off in pursuit of Auron, slain him long before now, and marched across Subterran in search of the Valley of Death. A sigh escaped his lips. It would take an army even mightier than that to bring down Letrias, an army of thousands instead of hundreds, for the dark apprentice had learned Hermenuedis’s teachings all too well. The memories of long-ago battles entered his thoughts, and he smiled at the courage of those he’d known and loved.

The ice tunnel pulled him ever deeper, twisting in large curves, then dipped and gently rose.

Not knowing how long he’d slept, Specter blinked open his eyes. The ice walls streamed past. He pressed his head against the smooth, slipping floor and gazed behind. The ice tunnel ran arrow-straight until it bent out of sight.

He rose over a hump, slid up the side of the wall, and shot downward. But a small bump in the ice jarred his spine. Pain ripped through his back, but the bump struck the back of his head—and everything faded to gray, then white, then total black.

9

BENEATH THE DESERT

T
he fierceness of the desert sun was eclipsed by the ferocity of the sandstorm that slashed Ilfedo’s face and threw Seivar off his shoulder and into the forest. Ilfedo took a step forward and another, yet the storm pressed against his entire body with the strength of a dozen men. He stumbled backward and sneezed, yellow sand lashing his face and filling his clothes.

As he blindly stumbled into an oak tree and groped it, the bark broke off with ease. The howling wind drove sand against the tree’s exposed flesh, drying and cutting it apart.

Farther into the sheltering forest, he ran. The air cleared, and the scent of moist leaves replaced the dryness. He coughed and looked at the forest around him. The Nuvitor waddled from behind a tree. “Master, it is true what you say. This land is dying.”

“Come, Seivar. I will keep you close to my chest and wrap my own face with a shirt to keep out the sand. The Megatraths are somewhere beyond that storm, and so I must go through it.”

“But—Master?”

Ilfedo picked up the bird, stuffed it under his shirt, and donned a second one. Then he wrapped another around his face, leaving a slit through which to see, and marched back into the storm. He cringed after proceeding fifty feet. He could see no farther than a few yards ahead of him, and the sand bit through the slit in his turban. It was nigh impossible to keep his eyes open.

He blinked back the sand and shouldered his way forward. He might as well have plowed through drifting snow. It pressed against his knees and thighs, blasting around him in a yellow blur. The world or some force had set itself against him. He said a prayer under his breath and pushed against the sandstorm.

For what seemed like miles, he trudged forward. His body burned, and he choked on the sand. A more powerful gust swept his breath away. His knee buckled, and he collapsed to his hands and knees. The Nuvitor’s chest heaved against his own as he crawled his way forward. He drew the sword of the dragon, but the armor of light and fire crushed the bird tucked against his chest. He hastily sheathed the weapon and fought to a standing position with both arms shielding his face. However, after a hundred feet or so—he could not determine because of the blasting sand—he dropped to his hands and knees again. He crawled ahead, praying for a break in nature’s fury.

For a couple of hours or more he fought in this manner, until the desert floor gave way under his hands. He rolled underground, instantly feeling relief as the sands whipped harmlessly above his head. He gazed upward. The sandstorm slashed north. There was not a single break in the yellow sandstorm, nor did the wind sound likely to let up any day soon.

Pulling Seivar from underneath his shirt, Ilfedo waited until the bird situated itself on his shoulder. Then, drawing the sword of the dragon, he waited as the Living Fire illuminated the small subterranean chamber in which he stood. He had fallen about twenty feet onto a pile of soft sand. All around him the chamber’s walls curved inward from the floor to the roof. There were no footholds or any other means of ascending to the desert floor. But a tunnel opened ahead of him, and it was high enough to enter without stooping.

Taking his compass from the pack, Ilfedo waited for the floating red arrow to settle. When it did he smiled, tucked the compass back in the pack, and stroked the Nuvitor’s chest as he slid down the sand heap. The tunnel headed south, the direction of Vectra’s subterranean home. He walked inside and followed it for a while. It continued southward in a direct line.

The tunnel steepened, leading deeper and deeper beneath the desert floor. The howling sandstorm faded behind him like a monstrous mouth yearning to be fed.

Eventually trickling water sounded from somewhere ahead. The light of his armor and sword revealed every crack in the stone that formed the tunnel. The stone was sandy yellow at first, but as he descended it turned red. He spat on the reddish dirt and wadded it into a ball. It held together, proving that high concentrations of clay were interspersed with the solid rock. But not much farther along gray and black washed out the red. He had dropped under the dirt and clay. Here he traveled in a new world made of stone and sand.

For a long while he followed the straight passage. Always it headed south, true as a compass, but it also maintained a steepening descent, as if the world had vowed to drop him into its dark heart. Seivar cawed and huddled against his master. The bird’s call bounced into the unseen reaches of the tunnel before them.

The light of his sword sparkled off a trickle of water along the tunnel wall ahead. He hesitated and tasted it with a finger before spitting the bitter stuff out. The water trickled ahead of him, following the small cracks in the stone floor, and he walked on.

Eventually the tunnel widened and opened to the right. He stood at the juncture, dug into the pack on his back for some dried fruit, and divided a few pieces between his mouth and Seivar’s beak. Munching on the fruit, the Nuvitor half-closed its eyes and cooed.

With sweet dried cranberries in his mouth, Ilfedo stepped forward. He would stay on the path directly south, for that was where the Warrioresses had first found the Megatraths, and to the Megatraths he must go.

10

A HAND OF ICE

I
t must have been a new day when Specter awoke, still sliding through the tunnels in the ice mountains, for his stomach gurgled and his neck and head did not throb or even ache, as one would expect from an impact strong enough to knock him unconscious. He dug into his cloak, and his fingers touched a large apple. “Creator of all, I thank you for food”—he smiled—“in a barren place such as this.”

He sank his teeth into the apple, and its juices sweetened his mouth and ran down his parched throat. He smiled as he thought of the little girl who had given him the apple. Her name was Brianna. She had foggy gray eyes and hair as red as the apple’s skin. He took another bite. “And thank you, little Brianna, for insisting I put this food in my cloak.”

Somewhere ahead a crackling sound drew his attention. He raised his head but saw only the endless corridor of ice. It stretched straight ahead, and something green speared up through the white floor. As he slid toward it, fast as ever, the ice crackled. Cracks slivered along the ice, and shoots of green penetrated it. A meadow grew, and the ice walls ahead of him became transparent, revealing a familiar mountain valley. He slid onto the grass and rotated onto his side, stabbing the scythe blade into the grass and ice. At last he came to a halt, and for a long moment he closed his eyes. At last the terrible descent was over. Yet returning here would not have been his choice.

When he opened his eyes, the ice melted away and the tunnel walls vanished. Once again the Mountains of Ulion stood around him, and the distant faint laughter of the beloved children drifted into the valley. Long morning shadows spread from the mountain tree line, and the ground trembled. Something enormous, something powerful, marched toward him. The grass brightened to yellow and shivered. An indiscernible form shimmered before him, and a cool breath washed over him.

“This time you will not escape, Specter,” a voice boomed out.

“Ulion?” Specter stood, and frustration welled up in his soul. He spun the scythe in his hand and widened his stance. “I’ve had enough of your grudge against me, mighty prophet. God’s favor is on my side in this matter, and I tire of your mood. It shifts like an errant breeze.”

“Against me, oh Warrior, you cannot hope to stand. For how can you fight the unseen?”

“Fight a ghost? A spirit? I have done that in the bowels of Al’un Dai and will now do so again if you stand against me.”

“Then prepare thyself, for you have determined to enter the lair of the water skeels, and you possess knowledge of my children and this sanctuary. I cannot allow such knowledge to pass into the ice mountains, for, should Cromlin capture thee, he would surely draw such memories and knowledge from your mind and turn it against me.”

“I would never betray you! Nor would my mind be broken. You presume to know me, when you know me not at all—”

“Such fire in your words, I almost am made to believe you. Maybe I do believe you. But you don’t know the enemy as do I. Cromlin is king of the water skeels. They are a vicious, most powerful race, ancient—and Cromlin is cunning. Thou art reckless to plunge after your fallen pupil without consideration for the unknown. Some places have been hidden in this world, hidden deep that none may find them or be harmed by them. Thy heart leads you like a lamb into the tiger’s mouth. You can kick with your little hooves and bleat until you run out of wind, but the tiger still has you.”

Specter flexed his stub of an arm. “
You
are that tiger, lusting for the power you have over me. Yet my spirit remains untouched. And one day the lamb may kick out the tiger’s eyes and laugh at its arrogance.” He swiveled the scythe behind his back so that the blade pointed over his shoulder. “Come now, let us duel. Or else be gone and return me to the journey I have set myself to.”