The Dragons of Ash and Smoke (Tales from the New Earth Book 5) (54 page)

She raised an eyebrow and
made a small gesture. The shield collapsed with a flash and Simon
gaped at her.

“
My apologies,”
she said in a low voice. “It was distracting. Welcome to my
home.”

The wizard stared at her
for a long minute and then took a deep breath and bowed awkwardly.

“
Thank you.
Esmiralla?”

“
Of course. Come
with me.”

The woman turned and
strode off imperiously and Simon hurried to follow her.

“
I commend you on
your courage,” she said as he caught up to her. “Not many
would dare to enter the lair of a dragon. It shows a level of trust
that I appreciate.”

“
Maybe it's just
desperation,” Simon said to her.

She smiled and then her
laughter rang musically around them like a song.

“
Perhaps. I choose
to be flattered.” She gestured ahead. “Let us sit and
talk, shall we?”

In the middle of the empty
expanse of the cavern, two heavy chairs, thickly padded, were facing
each other with a low round table between them. Esmiralla took the
chair on the left, sitting down gracefully. Simon sat across from
her, leaned his staff against one arm of his chair and crossed his
legs.

“
I was surprised at
your call,” the woman said as she caught his eyes. “I
know how much you despise my kind. You have certainly killed enough
of us. And yet here you are. Would you care to explain why?”

“
Straight to the
point,” Simon said. “All right then.”

He looked over the woman's
shoulder into the distance.

“
As I explained this
morning, Pyrathius wants an alliance to help him defeat the dragon
queen.”

Esmiralla smiled demurely
and shook her head once.

“
What?”

“
Nothing,” she
said. “Please continue.”

“
Um, yeah. Anyway,
he says that if we can weaken her to the point where he and the dark
gods can imprison her again, then he'll declare a truce with the
human race and leave us in peace.”

“
So you said. And do
you believe him?”

Now it was Simon's turn to
smile.

“
About as far as I
could throw him. No, he's lying. Of that I'm sure.”

“
Wise, young man.
You are correct. The primal red dragon cannot be trusted. And so, why
are you here if you already know the answer?”

“
That's not why I'm
here.”

“
Oh?” She
sounded intrigued.

“
No. I'm here
because, while I think Pyrathius will betray us once he gets what he
wants, it is the other part of his request that interests me.”

“
His need for your
help to deal with the queen,” Esmiralla said. It wasn't a
question.

“
Exactly. I think
he's telling the truth about that. Do you?”

She studied Simon's face
and he resisted the urge to squirm under her scrutiny.

“
Yes,” she
answered finally. “Yes, I do. Pyrathius is very powerful, but
he is no match for his mother. No dragon is. I suppose you should
consider his request as a compliment, Simon O'Toole. Your reputation
as a killer of primals apparently makes the red dragon believe that
you could be helpful.”

Simon grimaced and folded
his hands on his lap.

“
Not exactly a
reputation I care about.”

“
Nor should you. Now
I suppose you must decide whether you wish to aid him or not.”

“
It's suicide either
way, don't you think?”

Esmiralla tilted her head
to the side slightly and her remarkable eyes widened.

“
Is it? You can't
know that. Right now, the queen is enraged by her offspring's
actions. She knows that he plans to lock her away again and is
focused on that. And Pyrathius is equally engaged in his clash with
his mother. You and your people are, for the moment, safe from both
of them. This war between them could go on for years, no matter how
badly the gods of Chaos would like a swift end to the conflict. In
the end, neither of them gives a damn about the gods and they never
did.”

“
But what does that
matter?” Simon asked her plaintively. “One of them will
win in the end and then we're doomed, aren't we?”

“
Are you? Young man,
as I sit here speaking with you, I can feel the power flowing from
you like pulses of light. You are infused with more magic than any
human that I have ever known, and I knew wizards of legend from the
recesses of time who strode across this world like gods. And your
power is only increasing. I do not know what the lords of Light have
done to you, but your potential is limitless. If the queen and the
primal red dragon give you the time, you may well be able to deal
with the winner of their war. Perhaps.”

Simon stared down at his
delicate hands; long, slim, agile but weak, and laughed to himself.

“
I wouldn't presume
to argue with you, but I find that hard to accept.”

“
Yes, I know. And
that may be why the gods saw fit to gift you with that much power.”

Simon looked at her
curiously and she seemed amused.

“
You simply do not
have the temperament to become a tyrant. Give a small-minded human
some power and the results are almost always tragic. You are one of
the most self-deprecating, gentle souls that I have ever met. And
before you say anything, that is a good thing, not a weakness. You
will never try to rule over others because you have no interest in
such a thing. Is that not so?”

“
Of course I don't
want to rule! Why would I? I have enough problems dealing with my own
day to day life without sticking my nose into anyone else's.”

“
Precisely. And so
you have been allowed to tap into the deepest magic. Accept that and
you may find that even the primal red dragon cannot stand against
you.”

“
And the queen?”

“
Ah yes, the queen.”

Esmiralla made a gesture
and a globe of silver appeared between them, floating above the
table.

“
Have you seen her?”

“
Seen her? Of course
not. No one knows where she is.”

“
I do,”
Esmiralla said simply. “The silver dragons always had that
ability, to sense other dragons. It was one of the things that made
us so hated by the evil brood. We could target them, you see, and
send attackers against them. Look now and see what Pyrathius fears so
much.”

Simon leaned forward as
the globe expanded until it filled his vision.

He was looking down at a
desert. Sand dunes, blowing winds and searing bright sunlight made up
a scene of desolation.

“
Where is this?”
he wondered aloud.

“
In your old world,
it was called the Sahara, I believe,” Esmiralla's disembodied
voice told him. “One of the driest places on this planet.”

“
And what am I
supposed to see?”

“
Patience. Wait and
watch.”

Simon looked around the
empty landscape but the sand dunes stretched all the way to the
colorless horizon and nothing disturbed the alien look of the place.

One of the dunes started
to shiver and an avalanche of yellow sand began to sift down the
sides. The quivering extended to another dune and then another. A
rumble filtered up through the bone-dry air and Simon watched in awe
as it seemed the entire desert was now shaking and convulsing.

“
Earthquake?”
he gasped.

“
Not exactly.”

For hundreds of feet in
all directions, the sand began to spin slowly in a clockwise
direction. The motion became faster and then faster still, until the
surface of the desert resembled a maelstrom at sea. A funnel of sand
shot straight up and the noise was deafening.

And inside this funnel,
more yellow than the pale sand around it, was a snake-like figure
that spun and twisted and writhed at incredible speed.

“
What the hell is
that?”

Esmiralla didn't answer.

Slowly the tornado of sand
and grit began to dissipate and collapse in upon itself. But the
enormous writhing yellow snake continued to spin and spin, undulating
on top of the dunes and cutting deep ditches in the soft ground with
its body. It was a mad show of mindless speed which seemed to have no
purpose.

Simon had no point of
reference. He couldn't tell how large the creature was.

“
Is that the queen?”
he whispered.

“
It is. No need to
lower your voice. She cannot hear you.”

The creature suddenly
stopped, slipping and slithering on the sand. It coiled itself around
and around like a monstrous snake and glared as if sensing their
presence.

“
Oh wow,”
Simon said as he got a good look at the dragon queen.

She was yellow, yes, but
her scales were slightly reflective like metal so that she seemed to
be made of dull brass or gold. He couldn't tell how big she was
against the featureless sand, but he guessed that she was immense.
From the tip of her snout all the way to the end of her serpentine
body, a row of long spikes ran down her length like a bizarre mohawk.
The spikes were wickedly pointed and looked wet.

“
Poison,” the
silver dragon said as if she could read his mind. “Those points
are hollow and exude a virulent toxin that is fatal to anything it
touches.”

Her snout was elongated
and pointed, and twisted horns grew up from just over her eyes and
slanted backwards. One was snapped off halfway down its length.

She extended her head
skyward on top of her coils and bellowed at the empty heavens. Rows
of blackened fangs filled her mouth and her eyes, not yellow but as
red as fresh blood, glared around with a mad glint in them.

“
She
looks...crazed,” Simon said hesitantly.

“
She is more than
crazed, young one. She is quite mad. The queen was created for one
purpose by the lords of Chaos; to lay eggs. The gods wanted the five
primals as servants and eggs to replace any lesser dragons that fell
to battle or misfortune. But once that was achieved, the queen was
only needed as a conduit for their orders. She did not need to be
intelligent or even coherent. She only needed to be alive and under
control. Well, she developed a kind of crazed intellect in her
endless captivity; a mad blood-lust and hatred for every living
thing, including her own children. She will destroy this world to try
to ease her own pain, Simon. That is what Pyrathius fears. That is
why he wants to stop her.”

“
She has no wings.”

“
Of course not. She
didn't need to fly as long as her children could. The Chaos lords
only gave her what she needed to procreate and nothing more.”

“
My God, they're
vicious.”

“
That is an
understatement.”

The dragon queen seemed to
lose interest in whatever she might have sensed. She uncoiled her
body and began to undulate away across the dunes leaving a glistening
trail of poison behind her like some monstrous snail.

“
How big is she? I
can't really tell.”

“
She could coil
around that castle your friends live in, the one they call
Nottinghill, at least twice.”

“
Yikes,” Simon
said. “That's crazy.”

“
Yes. Well, we've
seen all we need to see for now.”

The view fogged over and
then the globe faded out of sight and was gone.

Simon sat back in his
chair and met Esmiralla's eyes.

“
And that was the
dragon queen,” she told him. “If you survive a battle
with the primal red dragon, assuming that you decide to fight him,
you will have to destroy her. And good luck with that.”

“
That isn't very
encouraging, you know,” he told her.

The woman smiled faintly.

“
I don't believe in
giving anyone false hope. It serves no purpose.”

Simon was sure that the
low table between the two chairs had been empty, but now a delicate
green bottle sat there with two crystal glasses. Esmiralla leaned
forward, poured a sparkling liquid into both and offered him one.

“
Have some
refreshment, young one,” she said graciously.

He sniffed the liquor
suspiciously and the woman's expression became cool.

“
If I wished to kill
you, child, I would not stoop to poison.”

Simon reddened and
hastened to taste his drink. Whatever the liquid was, it was mild and
sweet and seemed to sharpen his mind and refresh him at the same
time.

“
Delicious. Thank
you.”

Esmiralla sipped her wine
and smiled in a more friendly manner.

“
You are welcome.
Now, I have shown you what you will face in the future, but the queen
is far away and poses no threat to you and yours at the moment. So
what are your plans now? Will you join with Pyrathius or attack him.”