The Passage to Mythrin 2-Book Bundle (17 page)

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The tunnel emptied Simon out onto the triangle of bare red-brown floor in the library. He was alone, but foot-steps sounded not far away. He got up and followed them, silent in his damp wool socks. His wet sweater and shirt clung coldly to his back.

“What's all this stuff doing here, anyway?” said Ammy's voice, suddenly so close that Simon jumped. “Like, what's that for?”

He pushed apart two tall steel-bound books and peered through the gap between them. Mara and Ammy — or somebody who looked exactly like Ammy — stood on the other side of the row of shelving, with their backs to him. They were looking at a cap made of feathers, blue and purple and gold.

“Two different questions,” Mara said. “This place has many doors, to many places. These things are ... what is word? Starts with
S
.”

“Souvenirs,” said Ammy-the-fake. “Samples. Specimens.” Her — no, his — hand rose behind Mara's
neck. Simon took a breath to call out, but then Mara turned around, and the hand fell.

“Yes, specimens.”

“So, what is that hat there for? What does it do?”

“I think just to wear. It does not look dangerous.” Mara picked the feathered cap off the shelf.

“Put it on! Just for a sec, eh? It'll look so pretty on you.” Ammy-the-fake took the hat and stepped behind Mara. He set it on her head and smoothed Mara's tangled hair over her shoulders.

Mara stood perfectly still. Her face wore a listening look. The Assassin waved a hand in front of her eyes. Mara didn't move. His right hand made a snicking sound and shaped itself into a set of gleaming knives.

Simon yelled and pushed hard at the steel-bound books. They shot forward. The Assassin elbowed one of them away. The other one hit Mara in the side of the head and knocked the cap off. She staggered. Blades clashed inches from her neck. She whirled and lunged.

Simon couldn't see what was happening. He ran along the row, looking for a gap. Couldn't find one, so he ran back, climbed up onto the shelf, and wormed his way between the books.

When his head came out on the other side, he looked down on a tangle of bodies. The one on top still had Ammy's shape, but its back shone iridescent purple-green.
Both of Mara's hands were locked around its neck. The knife-blade fingers snapped at her face.

Simon pushed himself all the way through. He fell head-first, breaking his fall with his hands and arms. Landed right next to the struggling bodies. A blade nicked his ear. He yelped, rolled away, came up against a shelf with his nose in feathers. Birds sang sweetly, someplace very near and beautiful but also very far away. He grabbed the feathered cap, rolled over again, and stuck it on Ammy/Assassin's head.

The struggle collapsed. Mara pushed the Assassin aside, sat up, looked into his blank face — he still looked exactly like Ammy — and bared her teeth. “He brought me the ring. He had Amelia's shape. Did he kill her?”

“No. But he did something else.” Simon wiped blood from his ear as he told her about the burned-out book.

“We go.” Mara jumped to her feet. “Where? How can we find her?”

“He will tell us.”

But when they looked at the floor, the feathered cap lay empty. Something silvery flicked out of sight through a gap between the books.

“Let him go! I will know where Amelia is when we are out of this place. Come!” The red angora sweater was torn and darkly smeared, but Mara moved with ease. Simon had to trot to match her long stride.

“Isn't it dangerous to let the Assassin run around loose?”

“For him, yes.” Mara shook back her hair and strode on. “If we meet in my own country, in my own shape, I will bite him in half.”

Simon needed almost all his breath to keep up with her, but he couldn't resist spending some of it on questions. “So your people use this place to travel around?” he asked, between puffs. “Visit different worlds, collect things?”

“No! Only the young, foolish ones come here to try the gates, to prove their courage. Most of them never return.”

“But didn't your people make this place?”

“It was old before we came, and the things in it.” She tossed the words over her shoulder at him but didn't break stride.

“What, even the Book of Lands?”

“Even that. We only put our sign on it.”

“Ah. Um ... and you know about the time difference?”

“What time difference?”

“The difference in time between the worlds. Something like ten to one. You've been in our world three days, right? In your world it'll be more like a month.”

“Month?” She frowned back at him.

“Thirty days.”

Mara stopped dead and grabbed his arm. “This is true?”

“Close as I can figure.”

“They will think I am dead!” She dropped his arm and sprinted. He raced to catch up.

They ran, dodged through gaps, ran some more. When they came to the head of the stairs Simon started down at once. He had reached the landing before he realized Mara was not right behind him. Then came a sound he remembered, the crunch and click of heavy, clawed feet. Only now the sound came from above him, not from below.

That's got to be Mara. It's okay.
But his stomach tied itself into a knot and his heart tried to hammer its way out of his rib cage.

He ran down the stairs. Yellow light painted the walls. At the bottom, an arched opening framed a peach-coloured sky. Simon shot out of the door and skidded to a halt.

A breeze blew his hair into his eyes. The air smelled of warm stone and green, growing things. In front of him the stony ground slanted down a couple of yards and then ended. A big boulder stood on the edge of the drop. Much farther away and lower down lay a plain covered with long silvery grass. In the distance, red peaks and pinnacles rose out of a pinkish haze.

So this was it. This was Mythrin. The world of the Urdar. He caught his breath. “It's beautiful!”

He walked forward. And stopped short again as the boulder unfolded itself and turned a questioning head over a scaly shoulder. The scales were dark green. The eyes sparkled yellow. The jaws widened in a smile.

“One of the little demons!” Its voice was a velvety rumble. “Come here, tidbit.” It turned its body all the way around and reached for him with a long-taloned paw.

Something hit him hard between the shoulder blades, knocking him flat on his stomach. A red shadow floated over him. A tangle of screams and snarls broke out, and then suddenly cut off. Silence then, except for a thrumming sound. He raised his head cautiously.

“Gone,” said Mara. She purred like a houseful of satisfied cats. She turned her head over her shoulder on the end of a long, shining neck. “You are not hurt?”

There was no doubt about it now. In one far back corner of his mind the hints had been piling up, getting harder to ignore. But still it was a shock to see the truth for himself.

Mara was a dragon, and this was a dragon world.

Simon got his feet under him and stood up, brushing dust from his clothes. Mara crouched on the very edge of the drop and gazed straight out across the plain, towards the hazy horizon. Her whole huge body was quivering.

This close, Simon had a much better view than he really wanted. Her skin looked like a flexible coat of armour made of overlapping ruby scales.

Each rear foot had four clawed toes in front and a fifth claw in the back. The front legs — no, they were more like arms — ended in five-fingered paws, with the thumbs curving in the opposite direction from the other four, like a human hand. Each claw was an inch thick at the base and narrowed to a point invisibly fine. The ring of the Urdar chiefs fit snugly on the left thumb, just above the claw.

“Can you ... um ... feel Ammy out there?” he asked, although he really didn't want to draw her attention.

Mara didn't look at him. “They are coming,” she said in a deep, vibrant voice, like a cello.

Simon looked, but the only new thing out there was a wide band of cloud. It had to be cloud: a dark bar that crossed the sky from side to side as far as he could see. But it was rising fast, faster than any cloud should be able to move.

“They are coming! My people!” Wings, each bigger than the side of a bus, quivered along Mara's body.

The cloud was getting wider as it soared nearer across the sky. Not a cloud, Simon realized. Dragons. There must be hundreds of them. Thousands. All coming here.

“Why ... what do they...”

“They know I am here. They come to meet me.” Her voice dropped to a hissing whisper. “Or to kill me? I have been away so long. Will they think I deserted them?”

Her wings unfolded with a sound like silk sliding on silk. They arched above Simon, a crimson tent. The air glowed red beneath them.

“Mara, we've got to find Ammy!”

She turned her head and pinned him with her emerald eyes. “
You
must find Amelia.”

“Me? By myself?”

“She needs me, I want to find her, but” — she hissed in and out — “my people need me. And there is war.”

“I can see you're in a fix, all right. But how am I going to find her?”

“Look for a dragon that looks like Amelia.”

“A what?” Simon nearly fell over. “You don't mean —”

“She is in dragon form. How it happened — I think the Assassin. A joke, perhaps.”

“Joke!”

“The blame is mine. He could not have done it but for me. She shared my dreams.”

He puzzled over that for two seconds, then put it away for later. “Where?”

“That way.” Her head snaked out. “I think she is in Sissarion. Not good, if my brother still holds the city.”

“Let me get this straight.” Simon's legs folded up and let him down hard on the rock. “I have to go and get Ammy — who is a dragon — out of a city of dragons. Enemy dragons. And I don't even know which one she'll be.”

“Look at the eyes. The eyes are the last thing to change.”

“That's a big help.” He dropped his face into his hands.

“Are you afraid?” A growl rumbled up her throat. “Then go back now.”

“Of course I'm afraid!” His head snapped up. “But I can't go back without Ammy!”

“Find her, then. You speak of fear, but I know you are brave.” She turned again and crouched. Then paused and spoke over her shoulder. “And go quickly! If my people find you here, they will take you for a demon. They will eat you.”

With a downbeat of wings that blew Simon's hair into his eyes and sent pebbles flying, Mara leaped into the sky. He watched her soar towards the distant cloud. It was so close now, he could make out thousands of beating wings in a dozen different colours.

“Find Ammy, she says.” He looked out over the grassy plain. Those pinnacles poking out of the pinkish haze over there, that was Sissarion, city of the Urdar. A good two hours' walk, he estimated, just to be somebody's lunch.

“Find Ammy. Right. And come back alive?”

He climbed to his feet and turned around. There in the cliff was the arched gateway. The way back. For a moment he wavered. It would be so easy just to run up those stairs, back through the library, back home. Home.

Where Ammy's body lay. Alive, but empty.

“Okay.” He turned and looked down over the edge. “Now, how do I get down from here?”

§

Amelia called Mara's name twice, and then no more. The lingering echoes were her only answer. They gave her the creeps.

Where am I?
she thought.
Too dark to tell. How did I get here?
That, at least, she could guess.

It happened so fast. Mara had met her eagerly at the top of Founders Tower. “The book?” She'd snatched it, thumped it down on the stone floor, and knelt to turn the pages. Then stopped and said, in a businesslike tone, “There. That one.”

“That one” was a black square faintly streaked with stony grey. She'd grabbed Amelia's hand and slapped it down on the square.

Next moment — darkness. A white square stood within a leap or two. Amelia yelled “Mara!” and took two steps, then flinched back, an arm over her eyes, as the white square filled with roaring fire. Then it vanished.

Leaving her sure of only one thing: That had not been Mara on the tower.

She was afraid to move. She couldn't see her hand in front of her face: she'd tried. The next step, or the next, might drop her into a pit full of sharp rocks, or icy water, or ... or centipedes.

I may die here!

For a time that could have been minutes or hours — she had no way of measuring — she stood rigid.

Rooted to the ground, like a stalagmite. When that thought crept through her brain she guessed it was a message from her senses.
I'm underground. I'm in a cave. That's why there's no light.

Cool air stroked her face. Air, moving ... it must be moving from somewhere.
All right
, she thought. Take a chance. Move in the direction the air's coming from. Maybe that will lead to the way out.

Holding her hands out in front, she slid her feet across the rough ground. Something small ran across one foot. She jumped back, lost her balance, and sprawled. She picked herself up, rubbed her bruised elbows, and found the direction of the air again. After that she tried not to think of what might be running around down there.

At last her hands met a stone wall. Feeling to the left, she found a smooth opening in the stone. She traced its shape: a low, narrow archway, just big enough to squeeze through if she stooped.
Yes! Civilization!

Sounds came from beyond. She ducked through the archway and found a long, dim tunnel with a rounded roof. It would have been pitch-black to anyone who hadn't spent an hour or so in real darkness. The far end curved into a suggestion of light. She tiptoed as far as the bend. The sounds grew louder.