After an hour or more of following Kez back up the gorge and deep into the pitch-black tunnels underneath Mt. Onyx, Fyn’s paws carried him to a stop just as an orange light filtered around Kez’s rear.
The runaway’s body slipped off his back and thudded limp in front of him. Fyn fought to catch his breath, gritting his teeth against the pain in his side — the injury persisted in his drake form. He’d rolled in some mud to stop the bleeding, but it still stung, a deep gasping pain. It would take hours to heal, even lying as close to lava as he could stand.
Vak bumped into Fyn’s rear. “Whatcha waiting for, Fyn? We’re here.”
Ahead, Kez ducked out of the tunnel and turned around, fangs bared in a malicious grin. “Hurry up, weakling. They’re waiting.”
They? It was just supposed to be old Jarken. Who else had watched Fyn fail?
“I’ll take that,” Kez said, swiping the dead woman’s body with a claw, “seeing how I killed her.”
Fyn wanted to turn tail and vanish back into the tunnels, but Vak was blocking the way. Instead, he arced his head high and stepped out into the Hub.
The enormous hollow chamber at the center of Mt. Onyx stretched hundreds of feet across and just as high overhead. Moonlight streamed through a tiny open circle at the tip of the conical ceiling. Broad walkways carved from stone spiraled around the walls, and another hundred feet below Fyn, the enormous pool of lava at the heart of the volcano glowed a brilliant orange. Dozens of drakes appeared and disappeared out of the dozens upon dozens of tunnels that converged here, at the heart of Selach’s power and the seat of his Order.
But it was the sight of only one drake, standing beside the small brown figure of Broodfather Jarken, that made Fyn’s limbs turn to lead. He gaped at the enormous black-scaled drake, his thoughts moving like mud.
What was the Archpriestess’s Knife doing here with Jarken?
Jarken’s tail whipped toward Fyn, slapping him across the eyes and out of his reverie. Too late, Fyn sank to the ground in the appropriate submission posture and averted his gaze, his snout stinging.
It wasn’t enough. Jarken lunged forward and seized Fyn’s snout in his jaws, slamming it to the ground to drive the point home.
“Forgive me, High Priest,” Jarken wheedled after releasing Fyn. “I thought a correction — but of course I should have requested permission—”
“No matter.” High Priest Zhiron’s voice was deep and growly, like a thousand pebbles scraping against each other. “Let them present their prey.”
Fyn stared at the floor doggedly. Jarken’s bites didn’t usually draw blood, but this one had. It ran in a trickle down his nose. He tried not to breathe it in.
Kez was similarly pressed into the floor beside Fyn. He caught Fyn’s eye, pulling his lips back and baring his teeth in a sneer. On the other side of Fyn, Vak was quivering with fear.
“The runaway, sir,” Kez said, prodding the the charred woman’s body forward with his snout. The body stank of burnt flesh.
Jarken bared his fangs. “Well done. It’s always fun when they won’t come quietly, isn’t it? Kez, you were a true leader. You laid the plan and carried it out with force. Vak, I was astonished to find you had the patience to lie hidden for a full minute.”
Vak wriggled in gratitude. Fyn bit back a surge of anger. The idiot couldn’t even tell when he was being mocked. Jarken had been watching them, of course. Had Zhiron seen everything, too?
Jarken’s gaze lingering on Fyn. The silence stretched for a long moment, and then Jarken turned away. “The three of you are dismissed. Vak, dispose of this.” He flicked the body contemptuously with his tail.
Fyn got to his paws, burning with shame. Jarken’s backhanded praise of Vak and utter silence to Fyn was more pointed than if Jarken had shouted or bit him again. Fyn had been a coward in that cave. He wasn’t even fit to be scolded.
Kez smirked at Fyn. “Thought you could talk her down, did you? Afraid of getting blood on your claws?”
“Keep talking and you’ll see just how afraid I am,” Fyn snarled. He crouched low, claws pricking the floor, ready for a fight even though Kez was bigger and stronger and always won. The mote of Selach in his chest flared again at the promise of violence, sending energy surging through his body to egg him on. Kez would be feeling the same urge.
Kez grinned, tail lashing against the floor, and sprang.
It was over in seconds. The force of Kez’s leap bowled Fyn over easily. Fyn caught Kez’s ear with a claw and clamped his jaws down on one of his paws, but then Kez dug a back paw right into Fyn’s injured side. Fyn roared in pain, and Kez took the opportunity to rip his paw free and pin Fyn to the floor.
“Initiate!” The sharp voice startled both of them. as a black shadow loomed over them. It was Zhiron. Had he been there the whole time? Fyn smarted with shame.
“As amusing a display as this has been,” the Knife said, addressing Kez, “I would like to speak with your hatchmate… in private. Get on with you.”
Fyn caught a glimpse of Kez’s astonished expression before his sneer was back. “Yes, sir.”
Fyn’s own heart was pounding. The Knife didn’t come after Initiates who hesitated on their first hunt, did he? He’d already sworn to himself it would never happen again.
Kez stepped off of Fyn, taking care to tread on his injured side. “See you around, weakling — or not.” He whispered it so only Fyn would hear.
Fyn should have rolled over onto his stomach and assumed a submissive posture, but the fight had winded him, and his injury had reopened so blood was trickling down his side again. Instead, he stared up into the upside-down face of Zhiron as Kez’s footsteps faded, assuming those cold eyes would be the last thing he’d ever see.
“Get up and follow me,” the black drake said. “The Archpriestess has sent for you.”
-----
Fyn didn’t dare speak as he followed Zhiron down the long winding spiral that led to the bottom of Mt. Onyx and the banks of the enormous pool of lava that was Selach’s power incarnate. The Knife strode so quickly Fyn had to scurry to keep up. Every drake they passed stopped and bowed to Zhiron, even the other Priests. Soon, they had descended to levels deeper than Fyn had ever been allowed to go.
The air was stiflingly warm now, heavy with a rich sulfuric scent that left Fyn drowsy, but with a sharpened sense of smell. His mote stirred as it drew closer to Selach’s power.
Fyn didn’t think the Archpriestess would exile him just for messing up his first hunt, but his record wasn’t great. There was that accompanied hunt he’d messed up just a few weeks ago, and the time he had overslept for the monthly Praise meeting and gotten the worst beating of his life. And the time with the human girl, when he was just a hatchling —
But Fyn was past that now. He was the one whose instincts were always wrong, but he’d learned. Selach required strength and purity of his followers.
But what if they’d decided he would never be strong or pure enough?
The thought spiraled in his head just like the path, all the way until the slope leveled out and Fyn found himself, for the first time in his life, at the bottom of Mt. Onyx. The lava’s heat rolled over him, close and clinging, penetrating every muscle in his body. The sting in his side eased as the cut scabbed over.
Zhiron led Fyn down a narrow tunnel that ran beside a slow-flowing lava stream that narrowed and cooled as they went, until only cracks of red shone through the volcanic rock. Here, where the rock curved sharply around a corner and split, Zhiron stopped.
“Go in,” he told Fyn. He was nearly invisible in the low light. “She’s waiting.”
Before he had time to think, Fyn forced himself through the dark cleft in the rock.
He emerged into a cavern large enough for a breeze to brush his snout. The river of half-hardened lava snaked past him, giving off only the faintest glow. So it wasn’t until Fyn heard his talons clicking on the smooth floor that he realized the entire room was formed from dark obsidian, spurs jutting haphazardly from the uneven floor and throwing twisted shadows across the walls.
The Archpriestess Ashwythe lay sprawled atop a midnight throne carved from dolerite. She gleamed a burnished red the color of cooling metal, a color much richer and deeper than Fyn’s. The lava’s light danced over her scales like flames, and on her head a single circlet of gold glinted in the uneven light.
Fyn reflexively pressed his belly to the floor in the deepest submission posture he knew. Should he announce himself? What should he say? “My Exalted Lady, your humble servant, Fyn?” Or “Fyn, at your service, Your Grace?” No, both sounded stupid.
Ashwythe’s low voice interrupted his thoughts. “Step into the light so I can see you.”
Fyn scrambled forward, halting right at the lip of the river of lava.
“Would you do anything for the Order, Initiate?”
“Of course,” Fyn said at once, mortified when his voice came out as a squeak. He’d been trying to make that clear since he was old enough breathe fire.
“Are you progressing well in your training?”
Fyn shifted. “I try, Your Grace.”
“So Zhiron says,” said Ashwythe. Flame flickered in her eyes, reflected from the bubbling lava. “I have a task for you, Initiate.”
Fyn stared. He could not have heard her right. “You’re going to send me on a mission?”
He winced as his voice rose to a squeak again.
Ashwythe drew her lips back into a smile. “I am. It should be a simple task, but discretion is… needed, and so my advisors thought of you.”
Fyn swelled with relief and pride. He had come fearing the worst, certain that they had lost all patience with him and had decided to remove him. Instead, somehow Zhiron not only knew of him, but had recommended him for an important mission! He must have overlooked the disastrous hunt today, or maybe he just knew that Fyn was better at hunting than that.
“What will I be doing?” he asked eagerly.
Ashwythe tapped a claw against the stone. “The Treatise has been stolen,” she said carelessly. “Your job is to get it back.”
Fyn realized his mouth had fallen open, and he shut it quickly. “The Treatise?” he said, incredulous. “Aren’t we supposed to be guarding it this year? With the angels?”
Ashwythe’s eyes flashed dangerously, and Fyn fell silent at once. The Treatise had established peace between the gods when it was created over a hundred years ago. It meant the drakes weren’t allowed to openly raid other Order’s lands, but it had also stopped the thunderbeasts and angels from encroaching on their territory. Fyn had no idea what would happen if everyone knew it was gone.
Ashwythe left her throne and swept up to him, fixing her great yellow eyes on his.
“I will only say this once, so listen carefully. The Treatise was stolen by a powerful mage, but you will get it back for me. You will work with an angel of Mithrinde — the angels will not compromise on this point. The two of you will find where it is hidden. You may have to travel a great many miles. You will do it quickly and quietly, and at no point will anyone in the other gods’ lands know a Disciple of Selach has passed through. Do you understand?”
Fyn did. “It’ll be just like the raids. In and out again. Easy.”
Except he’d never been on a raid. And he hadn’t even been able to handle an ordinary mage.
“Good. I have full confidence in you.” In a flash faster than Fyn’s eye could follow, Ashwythe was back on her throne. She turned a circle and settled down, her great lidded eyes narrowing.
“You are dismissed. Zhiron will take you to Promise, where you will meet the angel and receive more details of your assignment.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” Fyn said, pressing his snout to the ground again and trying to pretend the excitement bubbling in his stomach wasn’t mixed with apprehension. The Treatise was usually guarded constantly by a rotation of godformed – not just drakes and angels, but dryads and thunderbeasts and the other races created by the gods. How powerful was this mage, if he’d been able to steal it right out from under their noses? And had Ashwythe really said Fyn would be working with an angel?
But Fyn knew better than to ask those questions. He turned to go.
“One last thing,”
Fyn looked back at Ashwythe, a dark figure atop the dolerite throne.
“Tell no one else in the Order — or outside of it — of this mission. Ever.”
Fyn nodded. “I won’t let you down, Your Grace. I promise.”
Points: 61
Reviews: 41
Donate