Burn Me Deadly

TWENTY-SEVEN

I had no real plan, of course, except to retrieve the broken eggshell I’d found before and use it to stall for more time. If I could get physically between Liz and Candora, I could finish this in a blink. But he was too smart to make that very easy.

Trusting Candora to keep his word while Liz dangled like a side of beef did not reassure me, either. The sight of her so vulnerable and helpless, her eyes filled with pleading, cut me deeper than any sword ever could and brought back memories of every person I’d tried and failed to save. Most vivid was the first one, Janet, who was the worst of all unless I messed this up and lost Liz, too. But these memories had no place in my head now. I had to move fast, and hope to hell another, better idea came to me soon.

I rode back to the crevice. The horse, slowed by the weight of the box, would approach no closer than before, and I didn’t have time to fight with him. I took the canteen and strip of sash cloth back up the hill, soaked the cloth with water and tied it over my mouth and nose. I had no idea if it would work or not, but it was the best I could do.

I left the box at the edge of the hole and climbed down again. Either the gas was weaker now or the cloth did its job, because I could barely smell the rank odor from before. The wavering line of blue light had also vanished. The moon’s position now sent light deeper into the tunnel, so I could see better and farther than before.

I found the eggshell where I’d dropped it. I was supposed to bring back evidence of two eggs, though. Even old Lesperitt had said there were two. Maybe Laura and her father had bought or created this fake as part of some elaborate con that got out of hand, and farther down I’d find the other one. I continued on, still staying low to avoid the fumes. This far in, there was not even moonlight, so I dropped to my hands and knees, feeling for more pieces of fake eggshell.

Finally I hit a dead end; the cave was not very long at all. My fingers felt the edge of a ragged piece of cloth. I carefully tugged on it, and it slowly came toward me. It was coated with something that made it stiff and unyielding, and I felt weight on it. I changed my grip and gently pulled the top of the blanket off the object it had been swaddling.

I stopped. My position thoroughly blocked any stray moonlight from the entrance, yet a faint reddish light came from the thing’s surface. I bent closer. It was egg shaped, and about eight inches long. Far from shining with reflected light, it glowed from within, faint but unmistakable. The surface was a swirl of multi-colored patterns similar to lamp oil on a puddle’s surface and identical to the shards in my pocket. I also felt distinct heat from it.

I nudged it with my knife. It rocked back and forth; it was no empty shell, but had weight and volume. Then it shivered as something inside it moved on its own. The red glow momentarily intensified.

I suddenly grew weak in a way that had nothing to do with the fumes. I sat back against the cave wall and stared at the glowing thing resting on its fireproofed nesting blanket. My heart battered against my ribs and sweat popped out all over me. I’d had one other moment like this in my life, when my entire sense of the universe had to change to accommodate the reality of an incarnated goddess, and I hated it. I was too old to keep having epiphanies.

Yet here was another one. No matter what I’d previously thought, regardless of what common sense dictated, it appeared that Candora and Argoset and Marantz and Tempcott and Laura Lesperitt had all been right. Dragons were real, and this was, in fact, an actual dragon’s egg, lain dormant for centuries. Its possession by either Marantz or King Archibald could alter the balance of power in this whole region, maybe throughout the world.

Wait. There was only a single egg on the blanket. Then the other one I’d found, the broken one, must have…

I shook my head. That was crazy. I’d taken a blow to the skull, sure, but it wasn’t hard enough to make me buy all this. I was a cynical ex-soldier and a well-educated, well-traveled guy. I knew better. Dragons might have existed once, but this egg was a fake, and a clever one, created by Laura Lesperitt and her father for who knew what reason and abandoned when Laura was killed and Lesperitt went into hiding. Maybe they’d planned to con Marantz, or even King Archibald, with it. Chemicals could mimic the effects of heat, light and movement, and a good potter could probably turn out fake eggs all day. An animal, probably a coyote or a bobcat, had broken the other one and eaten the contents, or perhaps the broken shell was part of the scam. No living egg could survive untended and intact for as long as everyone insisted this one had.

Regardless of its true nature, though, I needed it now to rescue Liz. I reached for the egg and felt the heat on my fingertips several inches away. It didn’t seem unduly hot, and the blanket was undamaged, but I couldn’t bring myself to take the chance. Burns from dragon flames never heal, Harry Lockett had said. Lesperitt’s hands were burned, certainly, but that could’ve been faked, too, or just the result of an unrelated accident. Hell, if he was crazy enough, he might’ve burned himself deliberately just to help with the ruse. Laura might’ve done the same.

Yet I withdrew my hand. I’d been cut up a lot, and burned a few times, and let me tell you, burns are worse, even the small ones. A burn that never healed would be torment indeed. I couldn’t bring myself to take the chance.

For every moment I hesitated, Liz hung helpless for Candora’s pleasure. Perhaps I could bluff my way through with the broken shell, and claim that someone else, either Laura and her dad or Liz and Marion, had broken both eggs and this was all that was left. Not that I expected to free Liz without killing Candora, but he was a pro and I’d have to put him off-balance to stand a chance. The one thing I couldn’t do was give the bad guys access to what might be a real dragon’s egg.

The egg shifted again. It made a wet sound, like something sliding around in the liquid interior. It spooked me, and I turned toward the entrance. Then I froze.

I heard a sound like a sail rippling in the wind, followed by the noise of nails scraping on rock. Something obstructed the tunnel opening. Backlit by the moon, it was a roughly triangular silhouette that reached from floor to ceiling, and held before it that same blue-flaming brazier. The cave suddenly filled with the nauseating gas stink.

The blue light was low to the ground, and swayed back and forth as much as the narrow tunnel allowed. I heard a sound like heavy cloth or leather rustling. Something snorted, and for a moment the blue light flared enough for me to plainly see what now blocked the only exit.

“Oh, shit,” I whispered.