Bones of the Dragon - Margaret Weis [217]
And there were other footprints, different footprints, dry footprints, these made by two sets of boots, one slightly larger than the second, though neither so large as Raegar’s. The two Dry Boots had come in and gone out again. They had not walked around the hall. At one point, Wulfe noticed, Wet Boots had stood facing Dry Boots.
Wulfe had heard Raegar claim to Treia that his coming to the Hall was a miracle. The fact was, he’d walked into the Hall on his own two wet feet. And while he was in the Hall, he’d met two pairs of dry feet. Nothing miraculous about that. So why make up the story? And why let everyone think he’d drowned when he hadn’t? And to whom did the dry feet belong?
Treia and Raegar finally ended their lovemaking, for which Wulfe was grateful. The two began talking and Wulfe pricked his ears, hoping to hear the answers to his questions. But the two were only plotting against Skylan again, which was nothing new.
The two talked, and then they began to rut again. Wulfe rolled his eyes in frustration. He’d known nymphs and satyrs whose appetites were not so voracious. Wulfe yawned and scratched himself. He was thirsty, his belly hurt from being empty, and he wondered what had become of Skylan.
Seeing Treia and Raegar completely occupied with each other, Wulfe left the Hall, going off in search of water first and then to find Skylan to see if he could answer his questions about Raegar.
CHAPTER
12
Aylaen held the spiritbone of the Dragon Kahg in her hands. She kept her gaze fixed on the bone, concentrating on the ritual, visualizing the dragonbone game in her mind and trying to blot out the terror that was thundering through her. She gathered up a handful of sand and let it trickle down over the dragon bone.
In the game, the gods make the first move.
“Vindrash, hear my prayer,” Aylaen said softly.
Mortals make the second move.
“Tell the Dragon Kahg of our desperate need.”
Fate has the third move. Gods and mortals, each bound by their own wyrd, each bound to the other.
Aylaen drew the rune that represented the wyrd in the sand. She remembered the rune because it was on the game piece, a piece important in play, for its movement is random and can disrupt the strategies of both men and gods.
Aylaen laid the dragonbone down on the rune and took up more sand. She let it fall over the bone.
So far, so good. This was all part of the ritual. But what came next? In the game, the pieces moved along winding trails, leading to birth, death, victory, loss, journey, status, marriage, home, children, crossing paths, meeting, parting, meeting again, parting forever.
“The ritual is ever changing,” Alyaen remembered Treia telling her. “The ritual involves my wyrd, the gods’ wryd, the dragon’s wryd, and what we are now, what we were then, where we have been, where we are going.”
There was something about moving and turning the bone, pushing and taking and holding and forcing.
“This part is very complicated,” Treia had said. “It takes years to learn.”
“Vindrash, I don’t have years!” Aylaen cried in despair. “I have only now and the people I love and they are depending on me and I lied to you. I am sorry. Forgive me!”
Aylaen let more sand fall over the spiritbone. “I love Garn, Vindrash, as you love Torval. I seek your blessing, though I do not deserve it. I ask that you send your dragon to fight for us this day!”
Aylaen picked up the spiritbone, and with all her strength and all her might and all her love and desperation and fear, she cast it high into the air. The spiritbone rose, then, twisting and turning, it began to fall. Aylaen’s heart fell with it, for she knew she had failed.
The spiritbone spun round and round, faster and faster, and first it was one bone and then it was twelve bones and then it was a hundred bones bursting from the spiritbone.
As fast as forked lightning, the Dragon Kahg came into being. Formed of sand, he was whitish in color, his scales