Her smile was ferocious. “And what does he value more in all the world than a chance to gain his revenge against you?”
Ben couldn’t imagine. Strabo had been a victim of the Io Dust as well, and he had left Ben with the promise that one day he would repay him. Ben felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. This was like being pushed from the frying pan into the fire. He tried to keep the witch from seeing what he was feeling and failed.
Nightshade’s smile broadened in satisfaction. “Yes, play-King — I will be most content to leave the means of your destruction to the dragon!”
She brought her hands up in a sharp swirl of motion, mists rising as if bidden, chill wind returning in a rush. “Let us see what fun Strabo will have with you!” she cried, and her voice was a hiss.
The G’home Gnomes whimpered and fastened once again on his pant legs. Ben felt himself floating and watched the hollows begin to disappear…
* * *
The eastern wastelands lay empty and desolate in the fading afternoon light as Questor Thews, Abernathy, and Bunion worked their way steadily ahead through tangled brush and deadwood, over ridgelines and down ravines, across brief stretches of desert, and around swamp and bog. They had walked all day, pushing aside fatigue and uneasiness in equal measure, determined to reach the home of the dragon by nightfall.
It was going to be close.
Nothing lived in the wastelands of Landover — nothing but the dragon. He had adopted the wastelands as his home when driven from the mists of fairy centuries ago. The wastelands suited the dragon fine. He liked it there. His disposition found proper solace in the devastation wrought by nature’s whims, and he kept the whole of the vast expanse his own. Shunned by the other inhabitants of the valley, he was an entirely solitary being. He was the only creature in the valley — with the exception of Ben Holiday — who could cross back and forth between Landover and the mortal worlds. He could even venture a short distance into the fairy mists. He was unique — the last of his kind and quite proud to be so.
He was not particularly fond of company — a fact not lost on Questor, Abernathy, and Bunion as they hurried now to reach the beast before it got any darker.
It was dusk nevertheless by the time they finally arrived at their destination. They climbed to the crest of a ridge-line that was silhouetted against the coming night by a brightness that flickered and danced as if alive and found themselves staring down into the Fire Springs. The Springs were the dragon’s lair. They were settled within a deep, misshapen ravine, a cluster of craters that burned steadily with blue and yellow fire amid tangled thickets and mounds of rock and earth. Fed by a liquid pooled within the craters, their flames filled the air with smoke, ash, and the raw stench of burning fuel. A constant haze hung across the ravine and the hills surrounding, and geysers lifted periodically against the darkness with booming coughs.
They saw the dragon right off. It slouched down within the center of the ravine, head resting on a crater’s edge, long tongue licking placidly at a scattering of flames.
Strabo didn’t move. He lay sprawled across a mound of earth, his monstrous body a mass of scales, spikes, and plates that seemed almost a part of the landscape. When he breathed, small jets of steam exhaled into the night His tail was wrapped around a rock formation that rose behind him, and his wings lay back against his body. His claws and teeth were blackened and bent, grown from leathered skin and gums at odd angles and twists. Dust and grime covered him like a blanket.
One red eye swiveled in its socket. “What do you want?” the dragon asked irritably.
It had always amazed Ben Holiday that a dragon could talk, but Ben was an outlander and didn’t understand the nature of these things. It seemed perfectly normal to Questor and Bunion that the dragon should talk, and even more so to Abernathy, being a soft-coated Wheaten Terrier who himself talked.