The Unmaking (The Last Days of Tian Di, #2)(28)
Chapter
7
She took the stairs three at a time and burst out into the grounds. If she was right and the Emmisariae had already left, perhaps to seek her out in the desert, there might not be a dragon for her to escape on, but with the help of Swarn’s potion Charlie would at least be able to fly to safety. She held the crystal around her neck in her fist and muttered as she ran, “Kyreth, help me, help me, help me!” Light poured out of it between her fingers. It became so hot she had to let go of it. It slowly dimmed and cooled again. There was no sign that her call had been heard.
She knew the dragons were kept in caverns beneath the Inner Sanctum and so she entered it a second time. There were several chambers branching off from the main hall, many of which were the private chambers of the manipulators of earth. Above one narrow doorway the characters were carved into the marble: Hall of the Dragon. Eliza entered the room. It was bare and plain but for a single pentagonal flagstone on the floor, which bore a mosaic dragon. Eliza knelt before it and tried to think what to do. She knew a few simple opening spells, but she doubted they would be much good in a place as deeply enchanted as the Mancer Citadel. She tried muttering them anyway. As she had expected, the dragon flagstone did not budge. She laid her hands on it and tried to use force but that was equally useless. A sense of her own powerlessness began to creep over her. She shook it away. Now was not the time to lose confidence. She knew another way into the caverns. She had gotten lost in the dungeons with Nell a long time ago. They had smelled the dragons down there.
Eliza ran across the grounds back to the north wing, wondering if Nia was watching her. As soon as she entered the dungeons she was assailed by the abominable stench of the Cra. She could hear their sickening hissing and lip-smacking. They were still held by the Mancers’ barriers but they knew something was happening. She was glad of the darkness, glad to be spared the sight of them at least. Keeping one hand to the cold wall she ran through the maze of corridors, trying to remember her way. She was too frantic to manage a seeking spell or a light and had been going in circles for a while before she felt a gust of cool air and realized one of the larger caverns must be nearby. Once she found it, it was easy – a straight run back towards the Inner Sanctum underground. Halfway there the cavern forked in two and she went to the left, slowing down at the smell of sulfur.
Eliza tightened her grip on the hilt of her dagger. She knew very little about dragons, in fact. She knew they were highly intelligent and deadly. She knew they were impervious to most kinds of simple Magic. She knew they lived a very long time and were not easily mastered. The Mancer dragons were not as vicious as the wild dragons of the cliffs of Batt that obeyed Swarn but their loyalty was to the Mancers and she did not know how they would react to her. The dragon claw that served her as a dagger should, according to Swarn, enable her to command dragons, but she had never put this to the test.
She could feel their hot breath and hear the scraping of their metallic scales as they moved in the darkness. The sulfur of their breath stung her nostrils. She did not know the language of dragons, so she spoke in the Language of First Days and hoped they understood.
“Great beings,” she began nervously, “I am the ward of the Mancers. I have –” and then she bumped up against something hard and screamed, leaping back. It was as if she’d run into the wall, but it wasn’t a wall. She reached out and touched it. It was stone, a tall figure; she felt an arm, a hand. Her heart sank. She moved about the cavern slowly, feeling for more statues, and she found them. Five. The Emmisariae. They must have been planning to go the desert to find her when Nia froze them thus. But where was the Supreme Mancer? Had he heard her plea for help?
“Great Dragon,” she said again in a high, thin voice. She could feel one of the massive beasts very nearby. “If you are willing to take me where I need to go, come with me to the Door.”
Even as she said it, she realized she did not know the spells to open the vast iron door. There was no other way that she knew of for the dragons to get out. Charlie had gone. Suppose she was trapped here, with Nia and the Cra and the army of stone Mancers? Fear spread through her stomach, a cold sick ripple. But she began to walk back down the tunnel anyway and a hiss of smoke soared over her head. She heard the grating sound of scale on scale as more than one dragon lumbered to its feet, and the crash of claws on the stone floor of the cavern. They were coming with her. Not turning around, she walked back to the turn she had taken earlier and carried on straight. To her immense relief, the massive door at the end of the tunnel swung open with a groan as they approached, revealing a bright square of daylight. She did not know if it was the dragons performing this Magic, or even Nia sending her off on her quest, but it didn’t matter. Eliza turned, and now she could see the dragons filling the cavern. The one nearest to her was staring at her intently, its head hanging low to the ground. Each of its gleaming, kaleidoscopic eyes was the size of her head.
“May I...get on?” she asked nervously. The dragon stared. She walked around its head, noting the steam that furled from its pulsing nostrils and the teeth like sabers curving over its powerful jawbone. Its neck was long and serpentine, gold-spiked. She placed a cautious hand at the base of its neck, just before it broadened out into muscled, scaled shoulders. On one of the scales she noticed a mark that seemed to have been branded on to it. It was the character for fire.
“You’re Ka’s dragon,” said Eliza.