“Like a ghost…”he murmured.
He turned back to the dragon. Strabo was still studying him. The wicked tongue licked nervously at the misted air.”Very well. Holiday. I give up. What do you want from me?”
Ben smiled. “Why don’t you make yourself comfortable, and I’ll tell you.”
Abaddon
It was nearing dusk when Ben tightened the last of the straps on the makeshift leather riding harness he had fashioned, ordered Strabo to kneel down and climbed aboard. He settled himself carefully in the seat that rested at the juncture of several clusters of bony spikes that ribbed the dragon’s spine, tested the cinch straps for slippage and fitted his boots into the iron stirrups.
At least he had the riding harness. He was lucky to have that. It was an unwieldy apparatus, constructed from traces, straps, buckles, and rings that had belonged to various field animals fallen victim to the dragon and brought to the Fire Springs for leisurely consumption. He had picked it out from among the bones and fastened it all together. It was bound about the dragon’s neck just above and behind the forelegs, the saddle on which he sat settled forward of the haunches. Reins ran to the neckjust behind the crusted head. Ben didn’t think for a moment that he would be able to guide the dragon as he would a horse; the reins were just one more precaution to keep him from falling off.
“If you fall, you’re in trouble, Holiday,” the dragon had warned him earlier.
“Then you’d better make sure that I don’t,” Ben had replied. “You are ordered to make sure that I don’t.”
He wasn’t convinced, however, that Strabo could do that, to Dust or no Io Dust. They were descending into the netherworld of Abaddon, and both lives would be at risk. Strabo would have difficulty keeping them safe under the best of circumstances — and the proposed rescue of his missing friends from the realm of the demons did not promise the best of anything.
He paused momentarily, seated atop the dragon, and gazed out across the wasteland. They had moved to the rim of the Fire Springs, clear of the burning craters and the thick undergrowth. The day was dying into evening; as the sun slipped down behind the distant mountains, mist and gloom settled over the valley. Landover was a murky gathering of shadows and vague shapes. Ben could almost watch the failing of the daylight from one moment to the next. It was as if the valley were disappearing before his eyes. He had the uneasy sensation that it was, the unpleasant feeling that he would never see it again.
He straightened himself in the stirrups, hardening his resolve against such thoughts. He forced a grim smile. Ben Holiday was about to sally forth, a knight atop his steed, off to the rescue. He almost laughed. Don Quixote, off to tilt with windmills — what a picture he could send home again if he had his camera! Damn, but he had never thought — never believed — that he would be doing anything like this with his life! All those years of living behind concrete and steel walls; all those stuffy courtrooms and musty law libraries; all those sterile pleadings and legal briefs; all those lawbooks and statutes and codes — how far removed from that he was now!
And he knew, with a certainty that surprised him, that he could never go back again to any of it.
“What are you doing up there, Holiday — admiring the view?” Strabo’s hiss of displeasure interrupted his thoughts. “Let’s be on our way!”
“All right,” Ben agreed softly. “Take me up.”
The dragon’s wings spread wide, and he lifted from the ground with a lurch. Ben held tightly to the reins and harness straps, watching the land drop away quickly beneath him. He had a momentary glimpse of bramble, thicket, and deadwood forests fading into trailers of mist and dusk’s lengthening shadows, and then there was only gloom. Fillip and Sot were down there somewhere, hidden from view. He had gone back to them long enough to let them know that he was riding Strabo down into Abaddon to rescue the others. He had dispatched them back again to Sterling Silver to await his return. They had been only too quick to go, their horror-stricken faces clearly reflecting their unspoken conviction that they had seen the last of him.