Slowly, blearily, my eyes opened to stare up at an all-too familiar whiteness. Damn, this is getting monotonous, I remember thinking to myself as I raised a leaden arm to wipe the sleep from my eyes. I must have made some sound, for it was mere seconds later that both Stefan and Dithra were bending over me.
"How are you feeling, dear one?" Dithra's eyes searched my face anxiously, even as I noted how her own was etched with lines of exhaustion, and I felt a twinge of sympathy as I gazed up at her.
I managed a smile for her, then winced as my latest crop of bumps, scrapes and gashes made themselves known. "Like I've been worked over by the Third Armored Division," I replied wryly. "Where've you been my Lady? You've been missing all the fun."
Dithra blinked, and there was a tiny sound from Stefan's direction, almost as if he'd stifled a snort of laughter. Nah, no way. Finally, Dithra essayed a small, tentative smile. "Your definition of 'fun' is most odd, I must say, dear one." She paused, the smile fading as her head inclined, tilting slightly in an admission of guilt. "I am sorry, Hasai; I had hoped to offer you sanctuary, only to expose you to our adversaries. You were right," she sighed "perhaps it would indeed be wisest to conceal you in the midst of that which would destroy us."
"It'll drastically reduce their options, at the very least," I replied tiredly. "Not that it'll matter for very much longer. . . ." I trailed off at the look on Dithra's face. "You found something." Neither Dithra nor Stefan responded, their faces becoming strangely apprehensive. With more than a little effort I worked myself up into a sitting position, hissing quietly as the bandages across my back pulled at still-tender cuts. "You found something, didn't you?"
"Perhaps," Dithra replied, her face and posture signaling an odd mix of emotions. "There is. . . ." The ancient dragon paused, then sighed and plunged ahead. "Not far from here, we have felt something. Something that has been here for a very long time. It feels like the power of our kind, yet not. It feels of the Lung."
I stared at her for a long moment, then finally I blinked. "Kind of off the beaten path, isn't it? I thought my Ancestors' stomping grounds were on the next continent over."
"The Lung moved freely through all the lands, dear one," Dithra replied, "but they were quite secretive in their ways. Only in the lands that are now called the Orient did they act openly." The ancient dragon paused to rub her eyes. "I attempted to approach that power, in the hopes that perhaps a few of your brethren may yet live, and beg of them your succor, but I could not." She sighed. "There is. . .a protection of sorts around the place, and as I neared, that protection fed on my strength, draining me almost unto the point of death before I finally would admit defeat and turn back."
I looked at her for a moment more, then allowed my gaze to slowly drift downwards. "Well, that's that, then," I sighed at last.
"No, Hasai, you don't understand." Dithra replied, a note of urgency creeping into her voice. "It kept me at bay, that is true, but I believe that one of the Lung, one such as yourself, would be allowed to approach freely."
My eyes snapped back up to hers. "Think it would work? I'm only part-Lung, my Lady." I paused as a feeling of utter loss welled up inside me. At least I was, once, before the part of me that was dragon died. . . .
Dithra gestured negation. "I have little doubt that it would, dear one." Pause. "Besides, I do not think that we have all that much to lose. . . ."
The gorge had existed for a long time, even by a dragon's standards. Cut deep into the face of the earth by the torrential runoffs of the last set of glaciers to go crushing and grinding their way across these lands, over the millennia its innumerable crevices, nooks and shallow caves had served as shelter for wildlife, then local tribesmen, then European settlers. It was a state park now, but in spite of efforts to tame its more hazardous aspects, the gorge was far too dangerous at this time of year to remain open to tourists, which was just fine with us.
I eased myself over an even rockier portion of the faint trail that led steeply downwards into the gorge, taking a moment on the other side to catch my breath and steal a worried glance at Stefan. The further we'd gone, the worse he'd looked. By now, his face had taken on a ghostly pallor and he was puffing like a steam locomotive, his legs visibly trembling as he worked his way over the pile of rocks I'd just traversed. It was like something down below us was sucking the life out of him. I shivered in sympathy, and tightened my grip on the dark weapon tucked through my belt. There was little response, and I gave it an annoyed glance. I fed you. Now feed me. A reluctant surge of cold strength flowed up into me in reply, temporarily banishing the gnawing weakness that was killing me. Enough to get us to the objective? I'd hoped so, but the terrain was getting worse.
The further we descended, the more the coarse, sedimentary rock surrounding us became covered with runnels, then swaths, then sheets of green-white ice. It was runoff, snow melt trickling down from above to freeze again down in the deep shadows of this vast gouge in the earth's face, and the reason the gorge was closed to visitors during this season.
Suddenly, the heel of my left boot skidded wildly on a patch of ice disguised beneath a thin drift of dry soil. I found myself toppling, then sliding towards the edge of our treacherous way, where the dark chasm waited hungrily. I can't fly! Heart in my throat, I flailed for something, anything to arrest that skid into oblivion, my left hand at last latching onto the pitifully thin trunk of a young pine sapling poking its way through the glittering ice and snow. But once again that chill leadenness in my left side betrayed me; my grip swiftly weakened, my fingers began to slowly slide free. . . .
. . . .Abruptly my wrist was seized in what felt like a grip of iron. I swung my head up to see Stefan lying flat on the ice, a leg hooked over an outcropping of rock, outflung hand gripping my arm. For a silent moment I simply stared at him in amazement, then I was rolling over to grab the pine tree with my right hand, using it to begin the slow, painful crawl back to the relative safety of the trail.
A few very long minutes later both Stefan and I were sprawled side-by-side in the dirt trying to get our breath back.
"This sucks," I puffed at last.
Stefan made a sound, again suspiciously like a quiet chuckle. Taking off his backpack, he rummaged about inside to finally come up with ice axes, crampons, and a coil of rope. "I believe that it is time to take this hike a little more seriously, my Lord," he replied at last.
"Yeah," I sighed, then began fumbling with the crampons, working them onto the soles of my hiking boots. I had to let Stefan help me with the left one, but finally I stood, the jagged steel teeth of the crampons biting deep into the soil and ice of the trail while I buckled on the safety harness Stefan handed me next. I snapped a loop of rope into the D-ring. We checked each other's gear, then I gave Stefan a questioning look. He shook his head. "I will belay, my Lord," he replied. "You should lead."
And that's the way we did it; I would slowly feel my way down the path, Stefan, braced with the rope looped through a D-ring secured by a rocky outcropping or other solid object, keeping the line taut. I'd go for a ways down the increasingly lethal trail until I found another good anchor point, then I'd brace myself against it while Stefan lowered himself with the rope, then worked it free from the anchorage above.
We'd covered most of the descent, both of us moving like arthritic old men, when Stefan finally had to stop. "I'm sorry my Lord," he wheezed, "but we're very close." The ex-agent slumped into a sitting position on a slightly-flatter portion of the trail, his head hanging between his knees for a few moments before looking up again. "Any further, and I will be of no help to you." I studied his haggard face for a moment, then nodded wordlessly and sagged down next to him. We allowed ourselves several minutes of precious rest, then Stefan began to secure the rope about the base of a sturdy hemlock whose tentacle-like roots tenaciously gripped the stone and ice about us. "I will lower you the rest of the way."
I nodded. "All right." When he was ready, I began backing my way off the edge of the trail and down the sheer face of the gorge, my crampons biting into the ice, Stefan's lifeline keeping me from falling.
When my face was level with the trail's edge, Stefan paused. I glanced up, to see him looking at me over his shoulder. Our eyes met. "May the Ancestors guide you and watch over you, my Lord," he said at last. I gazed at him for a moment, then silently nodded my understanding. Stefan fed me more rope, and I descended.
The bottom wasn't all that much further, perhaps five minutes worth of descent, but a bulge in the ice and rock quickly cut me off from sight of Stefan. At last my crampons touched the spray-rimed boulders and twisted ice of the stream that lay in the heart of the gorge, and the line went slack.
Up above, outside this place, the land had by this time begun to dream of Spring. Here, though, the iron grip of Winter was still strong, and the ice and deep snow that surrounded me seemed to pounce upon and instantly devour any sound that dared try to disturb its reign. It was in this deathly silence that I gave the rope a few signaling tugs, unbuckled my gear, and looked about myself.
It was like some strange, alien fairyland. All about me eerily beautiful columns of blue-green and blue-white ice towered, glittering, their broad, rippled bases flowing together into vast, multicolored sheets that spread everywhere. Everything else was hidden; stone, stream, vegetation, even the vast rock walls were concealed beneath layer upon layer of sparkling ice. Nowhere was there a living thing to be seen.
I tore my eyes away from the gorgeous, deadly spectacle, and forced myself to study my footing as I began to make my way downstream. It was still quite a ways to my objective, and the going was hard. The rocks of the stream bed were large and slick, and the snow concealed many nasty surprises. I don't know how many times I fell, but it wasn't very long before I was bruised and battered, my clothing soaked by both sweat and melt from the clinging snow, my body shivering as it fought to survive in this bitterly cold place. Twice more I drew on Dithra's dark sword, the result growing smaller each time. The third time yielded nothing at all. I was in trouble if I didn't reach my objective soon. . . .
Finally, I rounded a bend and found what I was looking for. The winding stream described a sharp hook through here, and millennia of rushing water had gouged a series of shallow caves into the sedimentary rock on the outside of the curve. Or, that was what I'd been led to understand. There was no sign of any caves, or anything else for that matter; the entire stretch was buried beneath a vast sheet of ice.
I stared at it. I was too tired to curse, too weary to do much of anything except just stand there and stare, the last of my strength slowly draining out of me. I was a dead man. Perhaps Stefan would be able to claw his way out of this frozen deathtrap, but I had no illusions about myself. Soon my body's violent shivering would fade and still, and not long after that I would lie down in the soft, beautiful snow and drift off into a peaceful sleep.
Not a bad way to go.
No, not at all.
But not today.
Not today.
My legs below the knees felt like wood, but I forced them to move anyway as I worked my way closer to the icewall, my ice axe out, chopping handholds and footholds into the sloping base of the enormous blue-green mass. Soon I could see that the sheet was not seamless, but instead was a series of ice flows that had spread and merged together over time. The result was a face that consisted of rank upon rank of icy columns, most thoroughly melded with their neighbors, a few not.
I found a gap between two such columns that seemed to go a little deeper than the ones I'd checked so far. I worked my way up to it, peered into the narrow opening.
Blackness. I fumbled at my pack with stiff fingers, fished out a flashlight and shone it into the gap, where the darkness promptly swallowed the beam without so much as a glimmer.
All right; if this wasn't it, I didn't know what was. There was no way I'd get through that gap with all my gear, and I wasn't about to risk bringing the proverbial house down on top of me by trying to chop the hole wider, so I stripped most of it off and left it, my pack and the dark sword behind as I wormed my way into the hole, armed only with ice axe and flashlight.
It was a long, slick way down, and several times my axe was the only thing that saved me from a deadly headlong plunge. Finally it opened up enough for me to get turned around and let my crampons bite into the ice for the rest of the descent.
Bottom. The cliff face was undercut, leaving a small gap between the ice flows and the rock itself. I moved along it, ofttimes edging sideways through the darkness as the gap widened and narrowed. Abruptly it grew much wider, and I found myself at the caves.
I heaved a sigh of relief, immediately followed by a cough. The air wasn't too good down here, but at least it was a little warmer. I rested for several minutes, then began my search.
The caves ran along the base of the wall much like pearls on a string. Most were little more than shallow gouges in the stone; I ignored these, concentrating on only the deepest.
I found nothing. I searched again, looking for rockfalls, cave-ins, openings that may have drifted shut with sand or debris, then widened my search to include the smaller, less likely caves, a terrible feeling of dread working its way into my heart.
Nothing.
Eventually I found myself back in the largest of the lot, sitting on a heap of sand, my arms on my knees, my head in my arms, exhaustion clawing at me as I fought to hold back tears of despair. "Stefan, Dithra, I'm sorry, but I can't find anything," I mumbled. "There's nothing here. There's nothing here. . . ."
I sat there for awhile, rocking gently back and forth, staring at the stone and ice that surrounded me, mocking me. Was my flashlight getting dim? Perhaps. Not that it really mattered. The burning in my lungs told me that I was using up the air faster than it was working its way in from outside, and that really didn't matter, either. I was already dead, and because of my failure, God only knew how many, man and dragon, were going to die as well.
Finally I levered myself back to my feet, then slowly trudged back into the opening to search yet again. Four long strides took me to the back wall, where I took my ice axe and began to probe for a crack, a fissure, anything that I might have somehow missed before. It quickly degenerated into wild, flailing blows, the axe head creating showers of sparks as I smashed it again and again against the unyielding stone. At last I flung the axe down and grabbed at the rock with my bare hands, clawing, shoving at it in a gesture of utter futility. Ancestors, please, I beg of you---
Abruptly the utterly solid wall seemed to snap out of existence and I found myself toppling forward, falling into darkness. . . .
Silence. Utter silence, save for the sound of my breathing. I slowly grew aware that I was laying on my back on something soft. Several more long breaths, listening, then I opened my eyes. There was no sign of my flashlight but there was illumination of a sort, a dim, silvery, shadowless glow that seemed to come from the air itself.
Slowly I sat up, finding myself atop a low mound of dry, soft sand. I was at the edge of a cavern of some sort with a high, gently arching ceiling of unnaturally smooth stone, almost domelike in shape. I looked at the wall just behind me, and found seamless rock. I could find no hint of a passageway anywhere, no clue as to how I'd ended up here. It was like some big sealed- up bubble in the rock, yet the air was fresh. How strange.
Slowly I got to my feet and studied my surroundings. The glow seemed stronger toward the center of the cavern, so I cautiously limped across the cavern's sandy floor in that direction.
There was a circular depression near the middle, deep enough to conceal what lay within until I was almost on top of it, and there I froze, my eyes growing wide with wonder, and more than a little fear.
It was a sphere, perhaps a meter in diameter. Its glowing pearl-like surface seemed to ripple like slowly-moving water, faint streamers of every color imaginable appearing to drift just beneath its translucent finish as it hung there, perhaps two meters off the cavern floor, with nothing I could see to hold it up. I stared at it, transfixed for long moments by the artifact's unearthly beauty. Then I saw what waited just beyond the sphere, and my heart stopped cold.
An enormous, serpentine body with short, powerful limbs coiled there, its sides sunken inwards by the passage of untold years. The huge metallic scales that covered the creature's length were golden in color, dimmed only slightly by dust and corrosion. Across the massive neck and shoulders lay the remains of what had once been a proud mane, while the skull itself lay comfortably atop folded, five-toed forepaws, the eye-sockets seeming to stare at me expectantly. Waiting.
Lung.
I drew in a shaky breath, then slowly let it out, fighting to get my jangled nerves under some semblance of control. Finally, I worked my way down the soft, gentle slope into the depression and slowly approached the ancient corpse, giving the glowing sphere a wide berth. At last I stood before one of the great eyesockets, staring into the darkness it held, feelings of sadness and a nearly-unbearable loneliness welling up within me.
The Lung are no more. . . .
I lifted my good hand and gently stroked the Ancestor's massive eye-ridge, the mummified hide feeling like carved wood beneath my fingers. "I'm sorry," I whispered to no-one in particular, for no reason in particular, then at last sighed and turned away to inspect that glowing globe.
The artifact was strange, to say the least. It just hovered there, putting out that cold, silvery glow that steadfastly refused to cast any shadows no matter how close or far away I stood from it. I couldn't look at its hypnotically rippling skin for more than a few seconds at a time; the surface would seem to slowly swell in my vision if I did, almost as if I were falling into some vast, luminous hole. At last I screwed up my courage and tried to touch it.
Big mistake. The instant my hand brushed its warm, slick surface, something seemed to grab my hand and slam it against the sphere with impossible force. The sphere flared eye-searingly bright, blinding me while torrents of Power came pouring into me like some deadly electrical current. Everything that was me was caught up in a monstrous grip by that force, pinned, ruthlessly examined by some shadowy, immensely powerful entity.
Who are you?
I would have gasped, perhaps did, but I could get no sense of my body. I was a single spark whirled about within a firestorm as I struggled to reply. I am Hasai. I mean no harm--
The entity swept my remaining words aside like smoke before a tornado. The strength that held me fast intensified dangerously as it asked me again.
Who ARE you?
What did it want? What could I offer it to get it to release me? Desperately, I replied. My Name is Michael--
Again my offering was brushed aside, a dragon's true Name ignored like so much empty noise as the power intensified yet again. I could feel that which was myself begin to fail beneath the onslaught, tattering, fraying into the maelstrom. . . .
WHO ARE YOU???????
There was a reply, then, from deep within the torn part of myself. A whisper only, from something that I had given up for dead, and myself with it.
I am Shen Lung.
For what seemed like several eternities, there was no response. Then slowly, slowly, the power began to ebb, its force calming like a storm that had run its course. Abruptly there was a massive wrench, as if the entire universe had suddenly twisted ninety degrees, and I found myself laying on my side in the cavern's soft sand, still gripping the sphere, panting raggedly as more words formed within my aching head.
At last, at last. . . . . . . .bequeath to thee stewardship of these lands and all that lives upon them. . . . . . . .wish thee wisdom and peace. . . . . . . .at last. . . . . . . .free. . . .
The last was accompanied by an audible sigh. I whipped my head around to find the ancient Lung's remains collapsing upon itself, crumbling, dissolving into a fine gray dust that sifted down into the soil and vanished. In less than a minute there has no trace left of what had lain there for so very long. I stared at the spot for perhaps a minute more, then swallowed hard. "Go in peace, dear Ancestor," I whispered, "Go in peace."
I last I looked away. I closed my eyes and let my head sag back to the sand for a little bit until the throbbing in my skull abated somewhat. Dimly I wondered just what the hell had just happened. Did I do the right thing? Come to think of it, what did I do?
Enough; worry about it later. With a weary grunt I sat back up, the motion accompanied with a familiar jangling noise. What? Something was . . . different. Suspiciously I looked about myself, the hand I had wrapped around that strange sphere tightening. . . .
Wait a minute. Wrapped? I looked down, to find the glowing, swirling sphere nestled in the palm of my right hand. My huge, armored, taloned hand.