The Dragonstone

CHAPTER 80

Shaking with terror, Ferret wept in Delon's arms, the bard stroking her hair, gently rocking, softly humming. Arin and Egil stood at the rear of the ledge, the Dylvana replacing the Dragonstone in its leather bag, preparing to put it once more in the silver chest. Aiko and Burel stood on the lip of the ledge looking down at the Boreal Sea. There was no sign of Alos, nor of Ordrune, nor of the Dragon Raudhrskal, for that matter. Of a sudden, Aiko turned and clutched Burel and began to weep softly.

"What is it, my love?" asked the big man, holding her close.

She looked up at him, tears streaming down her face. "Alos-he was like the man my father became in the year after I was revealed, in the year I awaited banishment. And in that year when he lost all honor, my father became yadonashi, yopparai."

Burel looked down. "Yadonashi? Yopparai?"

"Outcast. A drunkard," replied Aiko. "I loathed what he had become. Even so, I loved him still."

"I am sorry, my love. -Oh, not sorry you loved him, but sorry he came to be someone you did not know."

Aiko wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands and looked again down into the sea. "Alos was someone like that… someone I did not know. And I think I loved him too, at least a little. He died an honorable death."

They both fell silent and stood gazing out on the moonlit waters, but at last Aiko turned and looked toward Arin and Egil kneeling at the silver chest. "My tiger now does not whisper of peril, though she is uneasy in the presence of the Ryuishi, of the Dragonstone, as if she doesn't… trust it."

"The stone holds a peril?"

"It is difficult to tell, but obvious peril… no."

"Then the peril the tiger sensed earlier must have been Ordrune coming upon us at the very same time Ferret dragged the chest out from the cavern, eh?"

Aiko looked at Burel, her eyes wide in revelation.

"Indeed, my love, you are right."

As twilight fell, they reassembled their packs and prepared to descend that very night. Finally they stood on the precipice one last time, a waning half-moon shining, and they looked out upon the Great Maelstrom rumbling afar.

Ferret peered over the brim at the sheer fall below and said, "I can't believe I nearly lost my life just to save a chunk of jade."

Delon squeezed her hand. "This is no ordinary chunk, luv, but a long-lost token of power. Perhaps now the horrors of Dara Arin's vision will not come to pass."

"Nevertheless…" replied Ferret.

"Thou wert a heroine, Ferai, and none shall forget," said Arin.

Egil looked long at the Great Maelstrom, then said, "Alos is the one-eye in the dark water, love, the one of your prophecy."

"Nay, chier," replied the Dylvana. "He was but one of the one-eyes in dark water. Thou wert the other."

Ferret laughed. "Don't forget the honeyed Ogru eye and the peacock feather. Without them, Raudhrskal may not have been won over."

"Speaking of Raudhrskal," said Delon, "I suggest we get gone from here ere he returns."

Burel grunted and hefted the silver chest now strapped to the frame of his pack, and they turned to the north and strode across the ledge toward the way down into Jord. And as she reached the end of the shelf, Aiko turned and whispered, "Dochu heian no inori, Alos, sonkei subeki ningen toshi totta."

And so, down from Dragons' Roost they went, down by the route they had come, the way eased by lack of having to bear an old man along the difficult path, the way made harder by not having to bear that very same old man.

Just before midnight, they reached the narrow boxed canyon where the cattle and horses and mules were penned, the animals, especially the horses, glad to see them.

They set no camp, but instead turned the cattle loose to fend on their own on the wide-open lush plains. And they laded one of the balky mules with the silver chest, and saddled the horses, and immediately set off at a goodly pace for the town of Hafen.

It was sunset when they rode into the seaport, and a great stir went 'round, for the strangers were back, all but the one-the old drunk, you see, was missing.

That night the Sea Horse inn was jammed, but the strangers were close-mouthed when it came to answering questions as to where they had been and what they had done. Even so, they did indicate that they had been to Dragons' Roost. And they told that the old man had died to save them all. But other than that, there was precious little they revealed. Still, they guarded a canvas-wrapped box they had brought back with them, "… and I shouldn't wonder if it isn't full of Dragon jools," said the barkeep when they'd gone up to their rooms.

Weary with lack of sleep, the six took to their beds. And wonder of wonders, as the morning approached, Egil slept soundly straight through.

"No ill dreams, chier?” asked Arin, clasping her love.

"None whatsoever," replied Egil.

"Mayhap they are gone, now that Ordrune is dead."

"Perhaps. But ill dreams or no, the memories remain."

Three mornings later, after provisioning their ship, they set sail in their sloop. Many villagers came down to the docks to see them off, for after all, they had been to Dragons' Roost and had survived.

It was the twentieth day of May when the Brise left at the turn of the tide, heading west, but where bound was anyone's guess.

Westerly through the Boreal they fared, and into the Northern Sea, and finally into the Weston Ocean where lay their goal, the weather fair and foul by turns as onward they sailed.

At last, on June the twenty-second, the day of the summer solstice, at the mid of day they arrived at Kairn, the City of Bells in the west on the Isle of Rwn.

Water thundered down into the sea from the Kairn River flowing through the heart of the city and over the hundred-foot precipice above, but the sloop did not reach this flow, for they came to the docks from the north.

And as the six made their way up the cliff and to the city atop, the air was filled with the sounds of bells marking high noon.

Shortly thereafter they were ferried across to the small river isle upon which sat the Academy of Mages, five towers arranged in a pentagram, with a sixth tower in the center.

An apprentice led them to the central tower for their audience with the regent-Mage Doriane, recently returned from Vadaria, or so the apprentice said. He led them to the chamber on the first floor, and after a short pause, they were admitted in.

Black-haired Doriane stood to greet them, her pale blue eyes widening slightly at the sight of the Ryodoan and the Dylvana.

Burel set the burden he bore down on a table nearby, and after the introductions, when Doriane asked what brought them here, he unwrapped the canvas to reveal the untarnishable silver chest.

Although she didn't know it at the time, Doriane would receive no other visitors for the rest of the day.

"Oh, my, but what a tale," said Doriane. She looked at the Dragonstone, the pale green ovoid sitting on her desk. "We thought it gone forever, but this is indeed the genuine stone."

"How can you tell?" asked Ferret.

"Why, Dara Arin could have verified that it was the true Dragonstone."

Arin glanced up at the regent. "How so?"

Doriane smiled. "Simply look at it, my dear, and attempt to ‹see›."

Arin turned her gaze toward the stone, then gasped, "It's gone! I ‹see› nothing whatsoever."

Doriane laughed. "Exactly so, Dara, for it is the mysterious Dragonstone: it defies all scrying and seems to have a hold over the Drakes themselves. That you were able to have a vision of the stone defies all we know of it. I can only attribute it to the 'wild magic' you hold."

Arin turned to the Mage. "Wild magic or no, it is the stone of my vision. But what I want to know is, now that the stone is back in the safety of Magekind, will the vision come true?"

Doriane frowned. "That, my dear, I cannot say. All I can promise is that the stone will be safely locked in the vaults below, and this time none shall steal it, for we will set deadly wards all 'round."

At the late meal, Doriane said in response to Delon's question, "As to the fate of the Drake Raudhrskal, I think he did not survive, for two Krakens are too many for any Dragon-even Black Kalgalath, even Daagor."

Delon grinned and turned to Ferret. "See, luv, this is why a man should never have more than one lusty mate, for one is more than enough to kill us dead."

Aiko looked at Burel, her face turning red.

That eve in the City of Bells, as mid of night came, peals rang across the town. Only four times in a given year did the midnight bells sound: on the equinoxes and on the solstices. This night they signified that the summer solstice had come again.

And in a grove on the Isle of Rwn, Arin and her comrades celebrated the event. The dark of the moon fell on this day as well, yet whether this signified something ominous or instead a new beginning, Arin did not know.

But dark of the moon or no, she and the others glided through the rite, females and males stepping in point and counterpoint-Arin and Aiko and Ferai, Egil and Burel and Delon… Arin singing, Delon singing, the others joining in roundelay, harmonies rising on harmonies… step… pause… step… shift… pause… turn… step. Slowly, slowly, move and pause. Voices rising. Voices falling. Step… pause… step. Ladies passing. Lords pausing. Step… pause… step… the dance of life goes on.