Witchbreaker (Dragon Apocalypse) (10 page)

“Right.”

“But my task would be easier if I could find Avaris, and have her teach me the full arts of weaving.”

“Maybe the dancing castle in the letter is her secret hideout,” said Brand.

“Maybe. And maybe some of these symbols I can’t read are directions. I think this might be the symbol for ‘east.’” She tapped the page. “On the other hand, it might be the symbol for ‘star.’ A lot of these glyphs look alike.”

Brand chuckled.

“What’s funny?” she asked.

“You weren’t happy with the idea that the church could help my brother. What if I told you the church could help you?”

Sorrow frowned.

“There are monks who spend their whole lives studying dead languages and copying ancient documents,” said Brand. “I’m guessing somewhere in the church there’s a monk who could read this letter.”

“I can hardly stroll into a monastery and ask,” she said.

“I could,” he said. “My father is a great patron of the church. I’m guessing a little name dropping and a few coins in the poor box would have this thing translated in no time.”

“An interesting theory,” she said, keeping her voice neutral. Would it be that easy? Could she risk placing such a potentially valuable document into the hands of her enemies?

“I need to think about what to do,” she said.

“Whatever.” Brand shrugged. “It’s past my bedtime. I’m dead on my feet.”

“There might be more hidden chambers,” she said.

“Holding letters we can’t read? That’s totally worth staying up all night.”

“There’s no need for sarcasm.”

“See you in the morning,” he said, going up the stairs.

As soon as he was gone, Sorrow scratched her thighs beneath her buttocks vigorously. She listened carefully at the stairs to make sure he wasn’t coming back, then undid the buttons on her pants. Slipping her britches down her hips, her heart froze when she found both her thighs now oily black, covered with smooth scales. Her genitals were still untouched, but only just barely.

Had the changes stopped? Her skin itched almost to her belly button. Worse, the bones of her legs ached, as if invisible vises were clamping down, slowly warping them, the way her toes had been fused and reshaped into a tapering point.

She pulled up her pants and sat down on the stone floor. She took a deep breath. She’d always known that her quest for power would involve sacrifices. She’d forever scarred her own scalp, reworking her very brain with self-inflicted surgery. If she wound up covered in scales, well, what of it? She would pay any price.

Just as her father would have paid any price for what he believed in.

Was Brand right? Her father still had the physical form of a man, but at some point he’d turned into a monster. Had he felt the change? Had he understood the moment when humanity slipped away from him? Would she know if she herself crossed such a threshold?

She swallowed hard. Her vision blurred as she looked down at the letter. She wiped tears from her cheeks. “Don’t be silly, girl,” she whispered to herself, her voice trembling. “You’re stronger than this.”

She didn’t feel it. Brand was right; she was exhausted. She lay flat upon the stone floor, staring up at the flawless black of the slate roof. It was like an endless void, and she felt as if she were perched upon a precipice, ready to fall into the dark.

She turned her head, staring at the glorystone, a small fragment of the sun. She idly reached out and ran her fingers along its faceted surface. She wondered what had become of Stagger. During the height of the blizzards, she hadn’t been able to tell if the sun was following its normal path, though now that the storms had withdrawn the length of a day felt right to her.

She sat up as she heard a faint voice say her name. Craning her neck, she saw she was still alone. Had it only been her imagination?

Stranger still, she recognized the voice. She placed her fingers on the glorystone once more. She said, quietly, “Stagger?”

And then she fell.

CHAPTER FIVE

ART THOU A DEVIL?

T
HE SLATE CHAMBER
vanished as Sorrow once more found herself falling through blue sky toward a vast green ocean. Before, she’d been only a disembodied spirit, affixed to Rott by an ethereal silver cord. Now, wind rushed across her skin and her stomach lurched as she tumbled. She landed with a splash in the warm ocean, gasping for breath as she floundered to the surface. She shuddered in horror as she looked down.

Her legs were gone. Her hips now flowed into a black, serpentine neck leading to Rott’s body. Her still human torso served as the primal dragon’s head. She had little to judge scale by in the trackless ocean, but she felt as if the human portions of her conjoined body had grown to giant size to better mesh with her draconian half.

She looked around and found the ocean empty. None of the other islands were present. Above, the golden disk of the sun hung motionless.

“Stagger!” she shouted.

A giant face appeared in the disk of the sun, with a scraggly beard and a mostly bald scalp. The face opened its eyes in a look of surprise. “Sorrow?”

“Where are we?” she shouted. “How did we get here?”

“I don’t know!” Stagger said. “Something happened like this a few days ago, but I thought I was daydreaming. Things are a little boring up here. My mind wanders.”

“I had the same dream!” she said. “The primal dragons were debating whether or not to destroy mankind!”

“The Black Swan told me she was trying to stop the dragons from wiping out mankind,” Stagger said. “But, except for Hush and maybe Kragg, the dragons didn’t seem keen on the idea.”

Before they could speak further, the sea erupted in the distance as steam and stone shot into the air. In seconds, a mound of glowing stone rose from the boiling ocean. Flame spewed from the tip of the still growing mountain, curling and coiling into a giant serpent of fire.

“Greatshadow!” Stagger shouted.

The flame-dragon nodded. “I see you’ve learned to journey to the convergence on your own.”

“The convergence?” Sorrow asked. “What is this place?”

“This is neutral ground,” said Greatshadow. “Here, we dragons may meet in private without doing great harm to the world. If we met in the material realm, our combined might could shatter the earth beneath us.”

“How did we get here?” asked Stagger.

“You must have called one another,” said Greatshadow. “Do not do so again. When the other dragons learn that the two human interlopers have met in private to scheme against them, they will not be happy.”

“We’re not scheming against anything,” said Sorrow. “I don’t even know what I did to come here, or why I look like this.”

“Your form reflects your truth,” said Greatshadow. “When you first joined your spirit with Rott, only the faintest trace of your soul seeped into his elemental form. But as you’ve continued to use his power, more and more of his essence bleeds into your world, finding purchase in your body. In exchange, more and more of your spirit flows into his form. Rott’s mind perished long ago. He survives only as a bundle of instincts; his chief drive is hunger. As he consumes you, Sorrow Stern, your mind will flow into the vacuum of his now absent will. For a time, you will be the intelligence in command of his power, until the entropy destroys your mind as well.”

“There must be some way to stop that,” she said. “Help me avoid that fate!”

“If a thing can be avoided, it was not truly fate,” said Greatshadow. “For now, I bid you both to depart. You’ve each stumbled onto the discovery that, like other primal dragons, you’re no longer bound to a single physical body. I recommend that you master your new abilities quickly. You may need to defend yourselves sooner than you guess.”

“From what?” asked Stagger.

“Return to whence you came,” Greatshadow said, turning his back to them.

Sorrow’s eyes snapped open. At first, she thought she was blind, until she realized she was simply staring up at featureless black stone. She sat up and banged her head against the rock. She rubbed the top of her head, utterly confused. Had the ceiling gotten lower or had she somehow gotten taller?

She looked down and began to scream.

S
ORROW SLID THROUGH
the hole that led from the top of the stairs into the grave. Already she could hear Brand’s footsteps as he ran toward the pit. She pulled the flat slate slabs surrounding the hole closer, concealing her body from the waist down. She finished just in time. Brand skidded to a halt at the edge of the pit a moment later, his body a dark silhouette against the pink morning clouds.

“Are you all right?” he asked, panting.

“Of course,” she said, faintly. She swallowed hard, then said, in a louder, raspy voice, “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“We heard screams. We thought it was you.”

“Oh, that,” she said. She did her best to force a feeble smile. “I had a nightmare. I’m fine now.”

“It sounded like you were being murdered!”

“Obviously I wasn’t.”

Brand looked skeptical. “Are you sure you’re okay? You’re voice is kind of quavering.”

“I slept all night on cold stone,” she said. “I’m a little congested.”

Brand nodded. “Come on out and we’ll warm you up with some breakfast.”

“I’m not hungry,” she said. “And I don’t want you spending any more time at my camp. Pack your things and go.”

“Your camp? Aren’t you being kind of possessive?”

“Nothing of the sort,” she said. “But... having thought further about our discussion last night, I’ve decided that I no longer care for the company of a person who thinks that I’m in any way like my father.”

Brand squatted at the edge of the hole as he said, “Oh. That. I guess I did cross a line. I’m sorry. You shouldn’t take what I said too seriously. Fortune telling is mainly the art of maintaining a straight face while spouting bullshit.”

“I don’t accept your apology. Take the dragon bones and go. You came here looking for wealth. You’ve found it. You’ve no further reason to stay.”

“You came here looking for knowledge,” said Brand. “Have you learned what you needed to learn?”

Sorrow shook her head. “I believe I know less now than I did when I came here. But mapping the contours of my ignorance has its own value.”

“I’m not going to argue myself into more digging,” said Brand, standing up and stretching his back. “I’m sore as hell.” He looked around and said, “So, how do you want to divide up these bones? Are there any parts you—”

“Take them all,” she said.

“But—”

“Take them all and go!”

Brand furrowed his brow. Finally, he turned away. She could hear him moving around. Less than a minute later, he was back at the edge of the pit.

“Your kicking us out wouldn’t have something to do with our missing patient, would it?”

“Who?”

“What do you mean, who? The guy we dug up.”

“He’s missing?”

“There’s just an empty blanket where he was sleeping. You didn’t know this?”

“I haven’t left this chamber,” she said. “How could I know?”

“Climb out and let’s look for him,” said Brand. “He might be wandering around in delirium.”

“What do I care?”

“He saved your life!”

“And I saved his. He was free to leave anytime he wished. Just because we saved him doesn’t make him our property.”

Brand scratched his head. “Are you sure you’re okay? You just seem—”

“Leave!” Sorrow said, clenching her fists. “Stop wasting my time with your prattle!”

Brand grumbled something she couldn’t make out as he turned away. Time slowed to a crawl as she listened to Brand and Bigsby gathering bones around the grave. The sun grew ever higher in the sky, and she adjusted the slate tiles around her to better support the weight of her elbows as she leaned forward. She couldn’t believe how much time the two men were taking.

At last, Brand and Bigsby both returned to the edge of the pit.

“We’ve packed all we can carry,” said Brand. “Are you sure you don’t want us to stick around? It’s dangerous out here alone.”

“I believe I’ve shown myself capable of handling any threats,” said Sorrow.

“I bet she’s found a bigger treasure,” said Bigsby. “She doesn’t want to share, so she’s getting rid of us.”

“Or maybe I’m just sick of the company of a brain-damaged dwarf!” Sorrow snarled. “Get out of here, you little freak!”

Brand shook his head woefully as he and Bigsby turned away. “You weren’t exactly friendly before, but I didn’t think you were flat-out mean.”

“This just proves how bad you are at reading people,” she grumbled.

Brand and Bigsby left. She could hear their voices for a little while, growing ever more distant. She waited until they’d had time to move far beyond the graveyard. Then she waited another hour.

Sorrow knew she couldn’t sit in the hole forever. Despite her... handicap, she’d obviously had the power to make it to the top of the stairs. She just needed the courage to push on a little further and make it back to her tent. She placed her hands upon the edges of one of the stones, prepared to push it aside. She stared for a long time as her arms refused to move the slate.