Dragon Stones (12 page)

She spied a small, thin craft drawn up on the rocks near a waterfall.  She made her way to it, tasted the little canoe, the nearby stones.

Men.  Perhaps there were still some alive on the island for her to interrogate; they had not yet returned to claim their tiny boat.  She pierced it with two of her talons in order to sink it; then, deciding that the damage would be too easily repaired, she picked it up and ground it to kindling.

That done, she followed the scents the men had left behind as they climbed the low wall, then stayed alongside the stream as they moved into the interior of the island.  Four of them, she thought, three similar to each other, one different.  She slunk along the same path, continually tasting the air to make sure that she didn't lose the trail, finally coming to a near-vertical wall of rock.  A rope dangled down the palisade, indicating that the men had climbed up to the cone.

No doubt remained:  They had come here seeking the stones that grew in the volcano, as if the ones they had so cruelly cut from her hatchlings had not been enough.

She spread her wings and lifted herself into the air, landing on the edge of the crater.  She circled it slowly, scanning the darkness for the men.  Eventually she found one, a single body, nearly invisible against the surrounding heat of the rock.  He was curled up, apparently asleep; she did not think he was dead.

Could this single human have killed all those others?  She didn't know much about men, but she doubted it; there must be others somewhere.  Perhaps this one had somehow escaped their attention.

He would not escape hers.

Ponn hurried along a jungle path, running at top speed toward his village, paying no attention to dangling vines, protruding roots, moss-slicked rocks.  He reached the main gate of the stockade, found it closed; but with a great push, it swung inward, then fell off its pivot with an echoing crash.

He ran through the opening.  The town was quiet, deserted.  Houses which had been in good repair when he had left lay in ruins, thatched roofs torn away, interiors open to the sun and rain.  He raced to his inn; miraculously, it stood undamaged, exactly as he remembered it.  He went inside.  No guests, no fire, no family.  Ponn crossed the common room, entered the apartment.  The children's room was bare, just walls and floor, bedding and toys gone.  He moved on to his own room, which still contained its accustomed furnishings.  A shape lay in the bed, covered by a blanket.  Plenn?  He went to the bed, knelt on the edge, pulled back the covers.

"Clever innkeeper," Gelt said, stabbing Ponn in the heart with his own bone-handled knife.

Gasping, clutching at his chest, Ponn awoke, not in the village but on the island, under the volcano, shivering with a chill.  He had rolled out of the niche where he had been sleeping, perhaps while thrashing in the grip of his nightmare, and now lay beneath the cloudy sky.

Horrid, horrid dream, suggesting that Gelt had returned to the village and further harmed his family.  It could not be true.  Gelt was done with him; he had taken what he wanted.  He had no reason to visit any more malice upon Plenn and the other children.  None but his own malicious amusement, anyway.

Suddenly, Ponn heard something from the slope above him, faint scraping noises, like something large and hard moving over the rocks.  A landslide?  He scrambled back toward the shelter of the overhang, only to be blocked by a thick, scaly tail that descended in front of him like a giant snake.  He cried out as a massive claw closed over him, knocking him down.  Long, knobby fingers curled around his body, sword-like talons digging into the stone, sealing him in a warm, living cage.  His greatest fear had been realized; a dragon had discovered him.

A sibilant voice said:  "
Do not struggle, or I will crush you.  Do you understand?
"

"Yes."

"
Then understand as well that if you fail to answer to my satisfaction, I will crush you
," the dragon said.  "
Did you arrive here on the boat that was in the lagoon?
"

"Yes."

"
You did not come alone?
"

"No."

"
Where are all the others?
"

"They left," he said.  "They went into the mountain, and when they came out, they flew away."

The enormous fingers tightened around him.  "
You lie.  Men cannot fly.
"

"They rode giant eagles as if they were horses!  I swear it!"

For what seemed a very long time, the dragon said nothing.  Ponn closed closed his eyes, waiting to be crushed as a scoundrel and a prevaricator, because men did not ride upon the backs of birds.  But the claw did not come down on him, the fingers did not squeeze him to jelly; and finally the beast said:  "
So that is the answer.  They
ride
the birds.  But tell me, man:  Why did they bring a boat, if they flew away in the sky?
"

"I don't know," Ponn said.  "I think the birds couldn't land on the lava, or it was too far for them to come and go back again carrying whatever it is they took."

"
And why did your companions leave you behind?
"

"They weren't my companions!  They only wanted my ship, and once I got them here, I was no longer of any use and they abandoned me."

The dragon made a snorting sound.  "
Consider yourself fortunate, then.  When I found it, everyone aboard this ship of yours had been killed.
"

Oh, no.  "Everyone?"

"
I found none alive.
"

"Tell me—was there a boy on board?  A young boy.  He would have resembled me, but—"

"
I did not look that closely
," the dragon said.  "
They were dead men, of no interest to me.
"  The huge claw suddenly pulled away, but it was replaced a moment later by the dragon's face, huge and terrible.  Its interlocking scales glimmered in the moonlight like a series of small, black mirrors; its eyes, deep and smoky, glowed like glass orbs full of molten stone.  Its snout was blunt and broad, not unlike that of the water lizards that frequented the coastal waters near Ponn's village, though on the dragon it looked capable of swallowing a man whole.  A scarlet beard of fleshy tentacles surrounded the jaws, whiskery, faintly luminous, each as thick as his finger.  They wriggled and shook when the creature spoke.  "
So tell me, man, before you die:  What reward did these men offer to persuade you to bring them to our islands?
"

"Reward?"  Despite his predicament, he had to give a bitter laugh.  "They offered no reward, for they knew I would not bring them here for any price.  Instead, they took my daughter, and told me they would kill her if I failed to help them.  I did as they said, and instead of returning my little girl, they left me here to die."

The dragon said nothing; it just looked at him.  Ponn waited to be eaten or incinerated or disemboweled, but instead of killing him, the creature pulled back, its reptilian visage unreadable.  Then it scuttled up the side of the volcano, vanishing into the darkness above.

Where was it going?  Had it decided to spare him?  Ponn moved away from the slope, peering at the sky, looking for some sign of the dragon.  Nothing.

Now that his immediate peril was over, Ponn had a moment to consider what the beast had told him about the sailors.  All murdered?  That went some way toward explaining why Gelt had sailed with a skeleton crew; he had surely been planning from the start to slaughter them, and would not have wanted to risk their overpowering his henchmen.  He crept to the edge of the cliff, staring in the direction of the lagoon, though of course he could see nothing; the gathering clouds had blotted out the moon and stars like a blanket drawn over the islands.

What about Pord?  Had he been on the ship?  Had they found him and killed him as well?  He contemplated this, and decided it was unlikely that the boy had stowed away.  From what he had seen back at the cove, Gelt's men had been working on the boat for several days, creating space in the hold for the eagles and whatever else they had brought with them.  They would have caught Pord if he'd tried to sneak onto the ship.

And if they'd caught him?  What then?  Wouldn't Gelt have killed him, disposed of the body, and cheerfully lied about it in response to Ponn's inquiry?

But no.  If they had killed Pord, they would have told him about it before abandoning him here.  It had amused Gelt to leave Ponn alive, stranded on the island, knowing that they still had his daughter; how much more amusing, then, to also leave him with the knowledge that his boy bobbed in the waves or lay on the beach, food for crabs?

Suddenly Ponn felt a hand on his shoulder.  With a surprised yelp, he lost his balance and nearly fell off the cliff; but a powerful grip closed around his wrist and pulled him back from the precipice, spinning him around, putting him face to face with a woman.  She had a mane of hair that looked black in the moonlight, and eyes that seemed to flicker in the darkness.  Her mouth was broad, her chin and lips protruding slightly; he got the impression that if she opened her jaws wide enough, she could bite off his head.  A shimmering garment clung to her body like a tightly fitted layer of iridescent scales, glittering in what feeble moonlight penetrated the clouds.

Was this the dragon?  He had heard that they could assume human form, but had always believed this to be one of many myths about the creatures.  Before he could ask, she said:  "They like to strike against young ones."  Her voice, softly menacing, retained some of the sibilance it had evidenced in her serpentine form.  "They butchered my hatchlings.  Your daughter was probably dead before you even knew she was gone."

He refused to accept it.  "No."

"Believe what you must."  The dragon released her grip; he pulled his hand away, rubbing his wrist.  He would have a bruise.  "So tell me.  Who were they?  How many?  Where did they come from?  Where did they go?"

"There were four in the main group," Ponn said.  "Their leader was a man named Gelt.  I don't know where they came from, they didn't say and they wore no colors that I recognized.  But they flew to the north."

"That means nothing.  If the range of their eagles is as limited as you believe, they would
have
to fly to the north."

"Yes," Ponn said.  "Yes, you're right, of course."

"My name is T'Sian," she said.  "What are you called?"

"Pyodor Ponn."

"Well, Pyodor Ponn, will you remember this Gelt and his men if you see them again?"

He nodded; then, thinking she might not understand the gesture, said, "Yes, I would."

"Would you like to be revenged on him for what he has done to you, to your child?"

"Of course."

"Good."  Her smoldering eyes were bright, her broad mouth smiling; at least, it looked like a smile, but then, so did the jaws of the great reptiles that prowled the tidal salt marshes.  "You will come with me, then."

"Come … with you?"

"Yes."

"But—"

She raised a forefinger, and he remembered that a short while earlier, that one digit had been as thick as his arm.  "No arguments."

"Yes.  I mean no.  No arguments."  Ponn ran a hand through his hair.  "May we stop at my home and tell my family that I am all right?"

The dragon looked at him for a while, and then said:  "No.  Gelt believed you would never get off this island, or he would have killed you.  He thinks you will die here.  I want him to continue to think that."

"I will swear my family to silence.  They will tell no one."

"Gelt may have spies in the area.  You could be seen."

Obviously, further argument was pointless.  "As you wish," Ponn said.  "When will we leave, then?"

"In the morning," she said.  "I have business here, and then I must rest.  I have had a long journey.  You will remain in this spot; do not try to escape."

"Where would I escape to?"

The dragon's mouth broke into a broad and disconcerting grin, unmistakable, this time.  "Nowhere," she said.

Adaran awoke as the first rays of the sun filtered through the pine needles that surrounded him.  He felt grimy and sticky; his muscles ached as a result of his uncomfortable position, wedged into the crook of the bough.  He lifted the blanket and checked the girl.  She was asleep, but stirred and whimpered as the cold air touched her skin.

He slipped his arm through the strap of her prison and climbed out of the tree.  Going down was easier than going up; soon they were back on the ground among the gnarled, shallow roots.  He set the net down gently, then crouched in front of it.  The girl, fully awake now, gave him a baleful look.  "I'm going to cut you free," he told her.  "Don't scream, and don't run off, all right?"

She stared at him, saying nothing, giving him no idea if she understood or not; but he could hardly leave her in there until they found civilization.  He took out a dagger and pantomimed cutting something with it, hoping she realized he didn't mean her; then he started sawing at the fibers of the net.  It proved a good deal tougher than he expected, but he finally sliced through one of them, then another; and then the entire thing unraveled and fell to pieces.