Darrym had gone to report my presence, or to check on Velika, I could feel it to the soles of my feet. I ducked back down under the concealing leaves, and practically slid down the trunk of the tree in my haste. I needed to get to that spot as soon as possible, and it was still a good distance away.
I was fortunate enough to find some berries that I recognized along the way. With greedy delight I ate handfuls of them. Then I picked the rest and put them inside my tunic, using my sash to keep them in place.
Back home the berries would have long since been lost to frost if they hadn’t been harvested, but the seasons were different here, on the other side of the world. During the day it was warm and misty like springtime, something that I felt even more grateful for than I was for the berries. It would be cold at night, but I still didn’t have to worry about freezing to death, or leaving tracks in the snow as I escaped, and the smoke I was searching for would have been lost against a gray sky.
Well after dark, as I was staggering with exhaustion and thinking that I needed to stop soon, I saw the first sign that I was close. A squat stone pillar, carved with strange shapes that were menacingly unclear in the darkness, loomed before me. I shuddered, but kept on walking with renewed strength. There was another pillar, and another. And now there were strange, pinkish-flamed torches on poles, lighting a path through the forest.
I followed them, but not directly. Instead, I lurked in the trees and walked parallel to the path. Other paths met with the torch-lit one, the first of any paths I had seen in the forest. My heart beat as rapidly as it had earlier, when I had been running from Darrym.
My concentration was so completely on trying not to stumble over hidden roots while still keeping alongside the lighted path that I stepped into a clearing without realizing what I had done. The sudden glare of the pink torches combining with the moonlight made me blink stupidly; then I leaped backward into the concealing trees.
Peering out from the underbrush, I saw with relief that there had been no one to witness my sudden arrival and subsequent disappearance. But still I waited in the bushes, letting my eyes adjust to the difference between the darkness around me and the light before me.
What I saw as the clearing came into focus wasn’t anything that I had been expecting. There was no house of wood or stone, no cave, no structure at all. There was a clearing, encircled by the torches with their pinkish gold flames, and in the center was the pillar of smoke, as wide as a large dragon and so straight that it was hard to imagine it wasn’t solid. Dimly, where the smoke met the ground, I could see the ragged edge of a rift. The dragons were flying down into the earth, then. So that was where I would need to go as well. If Velika wasn’t down there, and I strongly believed that she was, then at the least the dragons responsible for her abduction were.
But first I sat in the bushes and ate the rest of the berries I’d found earlier. The berries tasted strange, and I worried for a moment that they really weren’t yellowberries, as I had thought. But then I noticed that the smoke from the torches had a peculiar odor, which was affecting my sense of taste. It wasn’t the smell of dragonfire, or not quite, nor was it the smell of the Boiling Sea, back in Feravel. It was something else, something that smelled like rotting leaves and stone and rust at the same time. I hoped it wasn’t unsafe for a human to breathe. It certainly smelled like it might be.
It seemed as though the dragons were gone for the night, or perhaps they were below, sleeping. I could face that risk, but didn’t want to run into Darrym or any of his cronies as I was climbing down into the rift.
When the berries were gone and my eyelids were starting to droop, I slapped myself, got to my feet, and crossed the clearing. Standing at the edge, I looked down into the
I was fortunate enough to find some berries that I recognized along the way. With greedy delight I ate handfuls of them. Then I picked the rest and put them inside my tunic, using my sash to keep them in place.
Back home the berries would have long since been lost to frost if they hadn’t been harvested, but the seasons were different here, on the other side of the world. During the day it was warm and misty like springtime, something that I felt even more grateful for than I was for the berries. It would be cold at night, but I still didn’t have to worry about freezing to death, or leaving tracks in the snow as I escaped, and the smoke I was searching for would have been lost against a gray sky.
Well after dark, as I was staggering with exhaustion and thinking that I needed to stop soon, I saw the first sign that I was close. A squat stone pillar, carved with strange shapes that were menacingly unclear in the darkness, loomed before me. I shuddered, but kept on walking with renewed strength. There was another pillar, and another. And now there were strange, pinkish-flamed torches on poles, lighting a path through the forest.
I followed them, but not directly. Instead, I lurked in the trees and walked parallel to the path. Other paths met with the torch-lit one, the first of any paths I had seen in the forest. My heart beat as rapidly as it had earlier, when I had been running from Darrym.
My concentration was so completely on trying not to stumble over hidden roots while still keeping alongside the lighted path that I stepped into a clearing without realizing what I had done. The sudden glare of the pink torches combining with the moonlight made me blink stupidly; then I leaped backward into the concealing trees.
Peering out from the underbrush, I saw with relief that there had been no one to witness my sudden arrival and subsequent disappearance. But still I waited in the bushes, letting my eyes adjust to the difference between the darkness around me and the light before me.
What I saw as the clearing came into focus wasn’t anything that I had been expecting. There was no house of wood or stone, no cave, no structure at all. There was a clearing, encircled by the torches with their pinkish gold flames, and in the center was the pillar of smoke, as wide as a large dragon and so straight that it was hard to imagine it wasn’t solid. Dimly, where the smoke met the ground, I could see the ragged edge of a rift. The dragons were flying down into the earth, then. So that was where I would need to go as well. If Velika wasn’t down there, and I strongly believed that she was, then at the least the dragons responsible for her abduction were.
But first I sat in the bushes and ate the rest of the berries I’d found earlier. The berries tasted strange, and I worried for a moment that they really weren’t yellowberries, as I had thought. But then I noticed that the smoke from the torches had a peculiar odor, which was affecting my sense of taste. It wasn’t the smell of dragonfire, or not quite, nor was it the smell of the Boiling Sea, back in Feravel. It was something else, something that smelled like rotting leaves and stone and rust at the same time. I hoped it wasn’t unsafe for a human to breathe. It certainly smelled like it might be.
It seemed as though the dragons were gone for the night, or perhaps they were below, sleeping. I could face that risk, but didn’t want to run into Darrym or any of his cronies as I was climbing down into the rift.
When the berries were gone and my eyelids were starting to droop, I slapped myself, got to my feet, and crossed the clearing. Standing at the edge, I looked down into the
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