Dragons of Spring Dawning by Weis, Margaret

“Bah! You said before it was the rainbow’s gates! You’re right! We’ve found our fortune, as the old story says. If this place was sacred to the gods, they must have abandoned it years ago. Look round, it’s nothing but rubble! If they wanted it, they should have taken care of it. The gods won’t mind if I take a few of these jewels…

“Berem!”

An edge of fear in her voice! She’s really frightened! Foolish girl. She’s beginning to irritate me. The gemstone is almost free. I can wiggle it.

“Look, at it, Jas!” I am shaking with excitement. I can barely talk. “We’ve nothing to live on, now- what with the fire and the hard winter. These jewels will bring money enough in the market at Cargath for us to move away from this wretched place. We’ll go to a city, maybe Palanthas! You know you’ve wanted to see the wonders there…

“No! Berem, I forbid it! You are committing sacrilege!”

Her voice is stern. I have never seen her like this! For a moment I hesitate. I draw back, away from the broken stone column with its rainbow of jewels. I, too, am beginning to feel something frightening and evil about this place. But the jewels are so beautiful! Even as I stare at them, they glitter and sparkle in the sunshine. No god is here. No god cares about them. No god will miss them. Embedded in some old column that is crumbling and broken.

I reach down to pry the jewel out of stone with my knife. It is such a rich green, shining as brilliantly as the spring sun shines through the new leaves of the trees. …

“Berem! Stop!”

Her hand grasps my arm, and her nails dig into my flesh. It hurts… I grow angry and, as sometimes happens when I grow angry, a haze dims my vision and I feel a suffocating swelling inside of me. My head pounds until it seems my eyes must burst from their sockets.

“Leave me be!” I hear a roaring voice-my own!

I shove her…

She falls…

It all happens so slowly. She is falling forever. I didn’t mean to … I want to catch her… But I cannot move.

She falls against the broken column.

Blood… blood…

“Jas!” I whisper, lifting her in my arms.

But she doesn’t answer me. Blood covers the jewels. They don’t sparkle anymore. Just like her eyes. The light is gone….

And then the ground splits apart! Columns rise from the blackened, blasted soil, spiraling into the air! A great darkness comes forth and I feel a horrible, burning pain in my chest….

“Berem!”

Maquesta stood on the foredeck, glaring at her helmsman.

“Berem, I told you. A gale’s brewing. I want the ship battened down. What are you doing? Standing there, staring out to sea. What are you practicing to be-a monument? Get moving, you lubber! I don’t pay good wages to statues!”

Berem started. His face paled and he cringed before Maquesta’s irritation in such a pitiful manner that the captain of the Perechon felt as if she were taking out her anger on a helpless child.

That’s all he is, she reminded herself wearily. Even though he must be fifty or sixty years old, even though he was one of the best helmsmen she had ever sailed with-mentally, he was still a child.

“I’m sorry, Berem,” Maq said, sighing. “I didn’t mean to yell at you. It’s just the storm … it makes me nervous. There, there. Don’t look at me like that. How I wish you could talk! I wish I knew what was going on in that head of yours-if there is anything! Well, never mind. Attend to your duties, then go below. Better get used to lying in your berth for a few days until the gale blows itself out.”

Berem smiled at her-the simple, guileless smile of a child.

Maquesta smiled back, shaking her head. Then she hurried away, her thoughts busy with getting her beloved ship prepared to ride out the gale. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Berem shuffle below, then promptly forgot about him when her first mate came aboard to report that he had found most of the crew and only about one-third of them were so drunk as to be useless . . .