Nearing the edge of a small forest around noon, the travelers had found a patch of wild melons and stayed to indulge in their first good meal in two days. Afterward, sated and drowsy in the heat, they had lingered to enjoy the shade, for ahead of them stretched open sand and black rock that made a man uncomfortable just looking.
But Gathmor was a demanding leader, who insisted on a harsh pace. “Time to go!” he announced, as Rap was starting to nod. “Let’s trade sandals,” Rap suggested, seeking to gain time. “You and me, then. Not him.”
Owning no leather, the fisherfolk made their footwear from slabs of wood and loops of rope. These removed the skin from a man’s toes in about ten minutes and thereafter became very irksome. They were better than being barefoot, but not by much. As every sandal was different, the travelers traded them around to distribute the discomfort evenly. Jalon had stumbled into yet another swamp an hour or so before, and the ropes were even more abrasive when wet.
The exchange extended the rest a few minutes. Then, lounging against a moss—soft trunk and perhaps thinking that it was his turn to find a delay, the minstrel launched into a song about the elven maidens of Ilrane. It began as a pleasant romantic ballad, but swiftly deteriorated into the sort of scabrous bawdiness that amused sailors. Gathmor barked with mirth as the tale unfolded, and even Rap found himself chuckling.
One more day should see the expedition safely out of Dragon Reach, if Nagg’s estimate had been correct. Without Jalon, the other two would have traveled much faster, and he must know that. In his way, he was apologizing to them yet again.
He stopped suddenly, in midverse. The other two looked up.
“That ridge!” he said. “Look at it!”
Beyond the trees lay hot sand, a small desert valley encircled by gentle hills. The hills were wooded, but the forest cut off as sharply as a horse’s mane and the hollow grew little but scabby tufts of thornweed.
A long, rugged buttress of twisted black rock rose like an island in the middle of the clearing, crested by a few trees rooted in cracks. Loose boulders lay scattered around it. Rap studied the scene and glanced inquiringly at Gathmor, who shrugged.
They had seen many similar places. The countryside was rugged, and although they would have preferred to skirt the coast, they had been forced inland to avoid the rocky gorges by which the many streams plunged down to the sea. Everywhere they had noticed traces of old fires, from ancient charred logs half buried in jungle to much more recent evidence: long, grim stretches of bare poles with grass and weeds just becoming established in the mud between them. As obstacles, neither of those was too serious. Much worse were the intermediate stages, where the trunks had become deadfall entangled with secondary scrub of thorns and creepers.
But some of the fiercest blazes had cauterized the soil all the way to bedrock—melting even that in some cases—and left only patches of desert that resisted the forest’s attempts to return. Whole hills seemed to have been favorite targets of dragons throughout the ages, and those had been reduced to battered carcasses, ripped and melted away in streams of glass as the monsters quarried for veins of metal within the rock. The valley ahead seemed to be nothing other than that, a scar that could be thousands of years old, and might remain unchanged until the end of time.
“What am I supposed to see?” Rap asked sleepily.
“A dragon.”
That brought instant alertness, but of course Jalon meant a dead dragon, and in a moment Rap made out what the eye had detected: head, legs . . . The ridge was indeed of a dragon, long since turned to stone and weathered half buried in the sand.
“Gods!” Gathmor said. “It must be older than the Impire. And I never knew the beggar grew that big!”
“A primal male, likely!” Jalon flushed with excitement like a child. “Isn’t it gorgeous?”
“Gruesome,” Rap said. His flesh crawled at the thought of that hill-size monster alive, an indestructible destroyer as big as Inisso’s castle; but that was the life cycle of dragons. They started as wraiths of pure fire, like the flame he had seen burning on Bright Water’s shoulder. They gained substance as they aged, and they ended as gigantic beings of pure mineral. This one had crawled here to die, and in its death agonies it had burned away the forest and the very soil beneath it.
“How old would it have been, do you suppose?” Gathmor asked, rising and stamping a few times to adjust his footwear. “Centuries,” Jalon said. “Come on! Let’s go and have a closer look. Maybe its eyes are still there!”
Dragons’ eyes were supposedly worth a fortune, but they also bore a reputation for bringing bad luck, and Rap certainly did not fancy the idea of rolling one all the way to Puldarn. Jalon would not have thought of that practical matter.
As the others set off toward the great petrified carcass, Rap rose and stretched to ease his aches, then picked up his stonepointed spear. In theory he carried that to defend himself against leopards, but in practice it was useful only as a staff. He tended to agree with Jalon’s theory that the easiest way to escape an attack by leopards was just to die of fright. He trudged off after the others.
As he emerged from the trees, the noon sun struck brutally. He flipped up the loose corner of his robe that served as a hood. A few steps worked the gritty sand up into his sandal ropes and he was soon limping, but so were the others. He caught up with them about halfway to the petrified dragon.
Gold?
“What?”
“What `what’?” Jalon asked, turning a wide gaze of blue innocence on Rap.
“Did you speak?”
Minstrel and sailor both shook their heads. “Funny. I thought . . . Well, never mind.”
The dragon fossil was farther away than Rap had realized, and therefore even bigger. The sand had drifted deep on one side, half burying it. The exposed flank still showed curves of muscle under the patterned hide, but many scales had fallen off and lay littered on the ground at the base of the cliff, as if a legion had thrown down its shields. Great cracks were being opened by tree roots; half the hind leg had collapsed. It all looked older than anything he had ever imagined.
In one searing flash of recognition, the scenery changed in his mind.
Gods deliver us!
This was it! Why had he not realized sooner?
“Those rocks!” Rap cried. “Jalon! Forget the dragon. We’ve seen this place before.”
The minstrel stopped dead. His face was still burned and blistered and peeling, yet now it turned an impossibly pale color. Gathmor was in the lead. He turned and noticed, and his foggray eyes narrowed dangerously. “Seen what?”
Gold?
Again recognition—an alien, metallic, bitter voice in Rap’s mind. Of course! A thrill ran through him, mingled fear and excitement.
He scanned the sky. It was blue, cloudless, and as deep as forever. “There’s a live one around somewhere.” Of course. “How the Evil do you know?”
“I can hear it . . . and Jalon knows. Don’t you?”
The little minstrel was cowering like a terrified child. His teeth chattered as he nodded, and his staring blue eyes held both terror and accusation. ”You knew!” His voice was shrill. “No! Don’t call Darad!”
“Why not? Why shouldn’t I? You trapped us! You knew, and you didn’t say!” Jalon half raised his spear and Gathmor’s chopped down to strike it from his hand. He did not even seem to notice. He pointed an accusing finger at Rap instead. “You knew the vision was being fulfilled!”
Gold?
The call was stronger now, echoing in Rap’s head. Still he could see nothing in the empty blue sky, not even birds. His farsight detected only trees on the ground—hills were opaque to farsight, though. The dragon might be down behind any one of a dozen hillocks, and yet its voice certainly seemed to be coming closer. He did not think he could summon a dragon unless he could see it.
Bright Water’s tiny fire chick had not spoken in words. Jalon was still screaming at him.
“I knew nothing you didn’t!” Rap shouted. “Dragon Reach, and the gowns? You should have seen, too.”
“Fool! Fool! We could have split up! Traveled separately!” Maybe, although Rap suspected that the magic casement’s prophecy had been too inevitable for that. Besides, he’d lied to Gathmor to stop him stealing a canoe. He’d been helping the prophecy along. He felt a little guilty about that, seeing how upset Jalon was.
Before he could answer, though, Gathmor roared. “Will one of you tell me what’s going on?”