The Lake of Death

20

“Feldspar’s dead,” Grannaluured said. She dipped her head for a few moments, perhaps offering a silent prayer. When she raised it, her eyes were watery. “Dawnsprinter told us about it after she crawled down the mountain and we bandaged her arm. She said Feldspar fell into a crevice. Said she couldn’t get to him before the ground swallowed him up, as surely as any big beast.”

She shook her head, then dropped the skillet on the ground near a smoldering fire. “All for greed. Death’s the reward for greed, I tell you. Surprised you aren’t dead, too, Campfire, charging in there like that after that damn sivak. You ought to know better. You ought to know to stay out of the mountain when things are shaking like that. No riches are worth your life. Greed kills as surely as any sword, I say.”

The dwarf who looked like Campfire didn’t reply, just shifted back and forth on his booted heels and tried to look sad. Ragh knew that while he sounded something like the dwarf, he didn’t possess all the nuances of the dwarf’s speech or his mannerisms. Talking or moving around too much would give him away.

“You’re young, Campfire, but if you want to reach my age you’re going to have to be more careful. Understand?” Grannaluured sniffed unhappily. “I suppose you’d like some dinner now.”

Ragh nodded, his dwarf beard fluttering. The draconian actually was hungry, and whatever Grannaluured had been working on smelled delicious.

Behind Grannaluured’s back, Churt was also nodding hungrily, though she couldn’t see him. “I sure am hungry, fellows, and we might as well mourn Feldspar on a full stomach rather than an…wait a minute, Needle, something’s not right.” As Churt brushed past Ragh, his nose began to quiver.

Ragh’s scent was giving him away.

Churt squared his overly broad shoulders, sniffing the air again and glaring at Ragh. “This one doesn’t smell like Campfire, Needle. Doesn’t stink of sweat either. Smells a little like sulfur, though.” Churt’s eyes narrowed. “Got to be the sivak. It killed Campfire and took his body. They do that. Got to be.”

“Yeah, I smell it, too.” Grannaluured grabbed up her skillet again as Ragh edged back. “I suspect most folks wouldn’t notice the sulfur, would think you’re Campfire. Tell me you’re Campfire! Prove it to me!” Grannaluured shouted.

Ragh said nothing.

“See, I’m a miner, and I’ve worked in a smithy, so I know what sulfur smells like,” Churt said. He reached for a pick on the ground; its tip glimmered silver and Ragh knew it had been dipped in the dragonmetal. “Since you’re wearing Campfire’s form, that means you’re a murderer. I know all about sivaks.”

Ragh spread his stubby legs, holding his hands to his sides. “I’ve no reason to fight you.”

“I know all about sivaks, and I know they can die.”

Ragh tried reasoning with them. “Look, I’ve truly no wish to fight with you. There’s been enough bloodshed today. A fight will only…”

“Like Campfire’s blood?” Grannaluured said. “Like you didn’t want to kill him? We all have been around long enough. We all know about sivaks. You wear the forms of the ones you killed! You did kill Campfire, just like Churt says.”

“He didn’t give me any choice. He attacked me. Leave this be.”

Grannaluured and Churt split to the right and left, angling around the sivak. Behind them both, Ragh saw, Feril was stirring. She lifted her head and stared through Churt’s legs to see the dwarf whom at first glance she thought was Campfire. Feril pushed herself to her knees and peered closer to see an inky pool spreading away from Campfire. The dying fire was just enough to illuminate the shadow.

“Dhamon!” Feril murmured. She jumped to her feet just as Ragh let his dwarf form melt away. “Needle, Churt, don’t fight them! You can’t win!”

“Them?” Churt glanced at her, shrugging his broad shoulders. “I only see one enemy, just one wingless sivak, and soon it’s going to be wearing my body. ’Cause if I remember right, sivaks also take on the form of what kills them.”

“It’ll wear my body! I’ll be the one to kill it!” Grannaluured argued.

“Needle, leave them be!” Feril called.

“Them?” Grannaluured echoed mirthlessly. What she saw next made her gasp, however, as the inky shadow that was Dhamon grew into a shimmering dark cloud expanding and contracting behind Ragh. The mass of shadow grew legs and wings and a serpentine neck that stretched above the sivak. “Dragon! A dragon!”

Dhamon released his aura of dragonfear, so Churt whirled and tripped, picked himself up and ran, heading to the south and disappearing into darkness. Grannaluured froze, trembling, legs locked, the skillet slipping from her fingers. The color drained from her face. Ragh and Feril were affected too, but held their ground.

“The dragon won’t hurt you, Needle.” Feril stepped behind the dwarf and put her left hand reassuringly on her shoulder. “He’s a friend of mine.”

“D-d-d-dragon’s a f-f-friend?”

“Yes, and I promise that he won’t hurt you. I swear!” Feril exchanged looks with Dhamon, who gradually suppressed most of his fear aura. As he did, the elf stepped in front of Grannaluured and walked slowly toward the dragon.

“Feril…”

“My arm’s broken, Dhamon, but I’m all right.” She told him that during the quake her arm had become trapped between shifting rocks. “I got it out. I can make stone move,” she explained. “It’s how I knew I could get the scale if it was wedged—making the stone flow around it so I could pull it out.”

Dhamon nodded. His old friend Maldred was able to perform the same magic with stone. Feril hadn’t been so accomplished with her nature magic when he knew her years earlier. He wondered what other surprises she had in store.

“I tried climbing straight down, but everything was shaking so badly. I ended up crawling like a baby to get here. Churt and Needle set my arm.”

Cuts crisscrossed her face and arms, and there were welts on her legs from where rocks had pelted her. She was favoring her right side, and Dhamon suspected she might have cracked some ribs. A nasty bruise decorated her cheek.

“I feared you were dead,” Dhamon said. Even though he spoke softly, the ground rumbled, and Grannaluured, all but forgotten momentarily, whimpered in fear.

“I wasn’t sure I was going to make it, Dhamon. Terribly foolish of me to go in there tonight. Unforgiveably foolish. Feldspar would be alive if I had waited. My curiosity and eagerness be damned. Too much ale, too much…Feldspar shouldn’t have followed. Now I’ve blood on my hands.” She tilted her head down sorrowfully. “Maybe Campfire would be alive too.”

“Doubt it,” Ragh said. “Campfire was looking to die.” The sivak glanced at his clawed hands, blood still drying on them. Then he looked to the female dwarf, who was still wide-eyed and shaking. “What are we going to do about her, Dhamon?”

Feril raced to Grannaluured’s side. “Needle? You’re going to do nothing about Needle.”

“Got to do something with her,” the sivak pressed. “Can’t leave her here alone, can we?”

The female dwarf blinked, looking up dully at Feril. “D-d-dragon. We should run.” Her legs had stopped shaking, but she was still locked like a statue.

The complicated explanation tumbled from Feril’s lips, about how Dhamon was once a man and had been cursed by a shadow dragon to become a dragon. How he could turn himself into a shadow form. How they were in the mountains looking for an overlord’s scale that might help make Dhamon human again.

Grannaluured didn’t catch everything, and Feril had left plenty out in her effort to explain quickly, but the explanation seemed to be enough to get the dwarf to relax slightly. She took a few tottering steps and breathed deeply.

“Dhamon won’t hurt you,” Feril repeated. “I promise.”

“Churt?” Her words were coming out strangled. “Where’s Churt?”

“He ran,” Feril said. “The dragonfear took him.”

Dhamon nudged Ragh with the tip of his snout, so that the unprepared sivak stumbled forward. “Oh, so I’m elected to go look for the stupid dwarf? Wonderful. Fine, fine. I suppose it’s better than staying around here and staring at an old maid dwarf who probably isn’t going to serve a decent dinner now.” He jogged off into the darkness, in the direction Churt had fled. “Shouldn’t be that hard to find him. Dwarves have stubby legs. He can’t have gone too far.”

Several minutes later Feril was helping Grannaluured stoke the fire. Dhamon stayed nearby, and though the dwarf could see him clearly—and he certainly looked terrifying—gradually she seemed to be calming down.

“D-d-d-didn’t see you come out of the mountain with that scale you were looking for, Feril,” Grannaluured said. She had seated herself by the fire, back propped up against her pack, eyes glued warily on Dhamon. She twitched each time he moved, but she made no attempt to get away. “Too old to run,” she told Feril. “If that dragon’s gonna get me, isn’t anything I can do about it.”

Feril smiled sadly. “We found the scale, but it was cracked, useless. We need one that’s undamaged if we’re to have any chance to make him human.”

“Turning humans into dragons? Turning dragons back into humans? I’ve seen some odd things in my time, but I don’t think that’s something I want to be seeing.”

Feril put a hand on the dwarf’s shoulder, stroking it gently. “I’m hoping to see it. I’ll not give up on Dhamon. I’m determined to find another scale.”

The nervous Grannaluured tried unsuccessfully to appear at ease. “Might be more scales in those mountains. If there was the one, why wouldn’t there be more? The quakes could have busted them all, I suppose. Yeah, ruined the mine, probably ruined just about everything in this part of the mountains.”

Dhamon had been edging closer until his head was directly over the fire. He could feel the warmth on his barbels. He savored the warmth, happy to feel something other than pain. Grannaluured, eyes wide, watched his every move.

“My elf friend Obelia…” Feril began. She was going to tell the dwarf about the Qualinesti spirit in the flask in her backpack, but a look from Dhamon warned her against it. Perhaps Dhamon thought the dwarf had dealt with enough this day—a sivak, a dragon, the quake, and the loss of two of her companions. She didn’t need to know that a Qualinesti ghost rested a few feet away, swirling his fingerbones around in water taken from Nalis Aren.

“Dhamon, we have little choice,” she said. “We have to try the swamp.”

Grannaluured spoke before the dragon could. “So interesting the lot of you are. So very, very interesting.” The gray strands that had come loose from her braid looked like cobwebs in the firelight. “I think maybe I’d like to be going along with you, Dawnsprinter. Bet you could use a cook…though I doubt I could fix enough of anything to fill up that dragon. Yeah, I should come along. The sivak’s right. Don’t leave me here alone. I might be helpful in a swamp.”

Dhamon and Feril exchanged looks. “Maybe,” Feril said.

More than an hour passed before Ragh returned, shrugging his shoulders and showing he was empty-handed. “Don’t know where he went. Too hard to sniff him out, all this dirt and stone flying. Lost his tracks. Don’t have wings to hunt from overhead.” He settled close to the fire, ignoring the nervous looks he got from Grannaluured.

Grannaluured was fixing some sort of spiced meat and roots that made the sivak’s mouth water. The skillet simmered over the fire. He waited for her nod, then snatched a piece out of the skillet, blew on it, and stuffed it in his mouth. “By the Dark Queen’s heads, I’m hungry, and this is very good.” Despite herself, Grannaluured beamed at the compliment. The sivak ate several more pieces, noticing she was staring at his dragonmetal-coated talons. “Dhamon, if you want to hunt for that dwarf when the sun comes up, I’ll go with you, but I’m done looking tonight. By the Dark Queen’s heads, I’m tired. This is very, very good.”

Grannaluured nudged Feril, who also took a piece of root mixture and started eating. “Don’t worry, Dawnsprinter. Churt’ll come back. Eventually. Unless some big critter out there got him,” Grannaluured said. “Churt’s too greedy to leave the find, an’ the mountains are his home after all. Probably won’t come back until we’re long gone, though. His hair is probably turning white just thinking about that dragon.” She paused, pushing aside a stray strand of gray hair. “Just where is it you said we’re going to look for a scale?”

“The damnable swamp,” Ragh was quick to answer between bites. “Who said you’re coming with us?”

Feril gave him a sharp look.

“Like I said,” Grannaluured continued, “Churt probably won’t show himself until we’re long out of sight.” She glanced up at Dhamon’s snout. “He doesn’t know you’re not a…ahem, bad dragon, and he doesn’t care for elves…or draconians for that matter. He’ll bide his time and pray you’re long gone. He’ll come back, ’cause he won’t easily give up his share of the find.”

Ragh chewed on the last piece of meat. “You mean the dragonmetal?”

She put on a sour face. “You found it, I can see that plainly.”

Ragh wriggled his fingers for Feril’s benefit. His talons gleamed in the firelight. “Campfire had a pick coated in it. Tried to kill me with it.” Ragh turned and squared his shoulders, boasting the wound the young dwarf had given him.

Feril shook her head, annoyed with herself that she’d paid no attention to the sivak and hadn’t noticed his wound before this. She gingerly stepped toward the draconian, knelt next to him, and prepared her healing magic.

“Don’t you think you’ve got enough to do, healing yourself?” Ragh asked.

“My arm is already feeling better, thanks to Grannaluured, who set it properly. Its healing will continue.” The warmth flowed from the fingers of her left hand into his wound. He closed his eyes, allowing himself to enjoy the healing.

“Thanks, Feril.” To Grannaluured, Ragh added, in as friendly a tone as he could adopt, “I see you’ve got a pick dipped in the dragonmetal, too.”

She nodded. “Not as good as one forged from it, but good enough. Actually, I’ve had it dipped a few times. Working on stone, the coating wears off eventually.”

“You want to go with us? You don’t want to stay with Churt and mine some more of this priceless dragon-metal?” The sivak looked at her meaningfully. “I can’t imagine a dwarf giving up on something like that. It’s the find of a lifetime.”

She laughed, the sound of her laughter craggy and weary. “I’d guess that last quake pretty well buried everything, priceless or no. I’m liking the idea of a new adventure. I don’t like mining alone anyway. If you’ll have me, I’ll go.”

Ragh rolled his shoulders, obviously pleased that Feril had taken most of the pain away. “The clay jugs you had stacked up inside are smashed for certain, and the pool you were working is probably covered, but it could be dug out again.”

“I’m sure Churt will do just that.” Grannaluured started scrubbing at her skillet.

“Campfire said there were more pools.”

“Supposedly.” Grannaluured chewed thoughtfully on her lower lip. “I came across them three—Churt, Feldspar and Campfire—not long ago, but I already told you that. They needed a cook, or so I convinced them, and I needed the company. Well, I found me some new company today. Oddest company one could come across. I’ll keep with you for awhile. Churt can find some new partners.”

Ragh still looked skeptical. “You’re really not interested in the dragonmetal?”

Another laugh, this one longer and sounding wholly genuine. “Sivak, take a long look at me. I’m an old woman. I figure I don’t have too many winters left in me, certainly not enough to spend them digging in the mountains for a fortune I won’t likely live long enough to spend. Those other dwarves weren’t the best company anyway, truth be told. ”

Ragh smiled, showing his jagged teeth. He decided he liked the dwarf. She grinned back at him, shedding her nervousness. He wondered just how old she was.

Finished with her healing spell, Feril headed toward the pool. “I’m going to check on Obelia now, if you don’t mind.” Dhamon rose to follow her.

Grannaluured cocked her head in the pair’s direction. “Obelia. I heard her mention someone called Obelia before. Elf name sounds like. Are we meeting up with him somewhere? ”

It was Ragh’s turn to chuckle. “You definitely have found yourself in odd company, Needle. You’ll probably meet Obelia soon enough, sooner than you’d care to.” He coughed. “Ahem, you called yourself an old woman. Just how old are you?”

“Sivak, I’m…”

“Ragh. My name is Ragh.”

“Ragh, then. I saw my four hundredth birthday some years back. I stopped counting at four hundred.”

“That’s old for a dwarf. Ancient.”

She scowled. “Not so old as you, I’d expect.”

“No.”

“You’re older than the elf.”

“I don’t know how old Feril is.”

“She’s got some age to her. I can see it around her eyes. Women are better with age, Ragh. Wiser in all ways, more patient. Should be that way with all the gods’ children, I think. Gonna tell me how you fell in with a dragon and an elf?”

“First I fell in with a human…” Ragh began. He proceeded to entertain Grannaluured with the long story of Dhamon and the scale while he sorted through the baubles in his satchel, making certain nothing had broken during the quake. He left out parts, embroidered others, and considered that he had done a good job of telling the story—judging by Grannaluured’s rapt expression.

“So now you want to make your friend human again.” Grannaluured put her skillet back in her pack. “Odd company I’ve embraced, indeed.” She tugged a small pillow out of the pack and laid her head on it as she stretched out on the ground. She smiled at Ragh then, and within minutes she was softly snoring.

The sivak lay down and closed his eyes too, but he didn’t go to sleep right away. He was thinking about the reflections Feril and Obelia had conjured up in the mountain stream. He remembered spying a large black scale next to a totem of bones in the swamp. He shuddered—the totem was a collection of dragon skulls, prizes Sable had earned during the fabled dragonpurge. The dread totem was a source of magical power for her, but the draconian had no desire to visit it.

The reflections had shown another scale, at the edge of a pool of quicksand in a small glade ringed by old, moss-covered trees. Ragh thought the glade looked somewhat familiar, and now he decided he should talk them into going there first. The scrying spell had shown others—several more scales, all broken or cracked at the edge of a marshy tributary. Two more were near a stand of strange, ancient stones that Ragh was certain he’d seen before. The stand of stones might be even closer than the glade. The last scale he remembered seeing had been set atop a carved wooden statue and was painted with strange symbols. Maybe it marked bakali lands, because he knew some of the tribes worshiped beings with cryptic names, or the statue could belong to lizard-men, weaker cousins to the bakali.

The last image the sivak recalled was near Dhamon’s cavern lair deep in the swamp, with the hoary shaggy-bark nearby, and the king snake that was often wrapped around the base of a thin cypress. That was Dhamon’s favorite stretch of water, filled with giant alligators and gar, the one most recently visited by Sable’s minions. Not far from it were fetid, stagnant pools and endless swarms of insects.

“Damnable swamp,” he muttered, before finally drifting off to sleep.