Bones of the Dragon - Margaret Weis [225]
Treia came to stand beside her. “I understand you summoned the dragon.”
Aylaen nodded. She did not take her eyes off Garn. “You were not here. . . .”
Treia’s lips pursed. Her arms were folded across her chest, and her fingers drummed in annoyance.
“I am here now,” she said. “You may return the spiritbone to me.”
Aylaen shook her head. “I don’t have it.”
“Then where is it?” Treia asked, alarmed. “I left it with you! Is it lost? What happened to it?”
“I summoned the Dragon Kahg. He was wounded in the battle and went back to the Realm of Fire. He vanished, and his body collapsed into a pile of sand. I saw the spiritbone. . . .” Aylaen spoke in a dull, uncaring monotone. “I saw it shining white in the mound of sand . . . I went to recover it. . . .”
She fell silent. Her hand stroked Garn’s cheek. He lay on the pyre in quiet repose, his lips curved in that last sad smile.
“Where did the spiritbone fall?” Treia demanded. “Where did you last see it?”
Aylaen made no reply. Treia started to ask Aylaen again, then realizing she would not receive an answer, she shook her head in frustration. Treia ordered those on shore to help her search. The men formed a line and waded out into the water, each man walking arm’s distance from his neighbor. They moved slowly, carefully searching the sandy bottom at their feet.
Treia kilted up her skirts and waded into the water herself, peering and poking and feeling about the sand, cursing her weak eyesight.
“The bone is white,” Treia told the men repeatedly, though they knew well what it looked like. “Aylaen said she could see it from the shore! It should not be difficult to find. Look around the mound of sand.”
But the tide had been steadily rising and the wind increasing, blowing from offshore, stirring up rolling waves. The seawater took immense bites out of the large mound of sand that had been Kahg’s physical form. Sand swirled about the feet of the searchers. Whenever a man reached down to grab something, a wave surged around him, washing away whatever it was he thought he had found.
Eventually Treia waded back to shore and shook Aylaen from her grief. Then she marched her to the water’s edge. “Where did you last see it?”
Aylaen stared into the water and then slowly shook her head. “It is not there.” She shrugged and added bitterly, “Maybe it never was.”
She went back to Garn. She lay down on the pyre, rested her head on his chest, and clasped her arms around him. Her eyes burned. She shed no tears.
The searchers came back in defeat. Shivering in her wet clothes, Treia stared out to sea. Her face was pinched, her mouth compressed. She could feel the men staring at her, and she knew what they were thinking. The dragon and the Bone Priestess who summoned the dragon formed a bond that was not easily broken.
A wounded dragon would often retreat back to his own world in order to heal his injuries in the quiet sanctity of his lair, leaving his spiritbone behind in the care of the Bone Priestess. The Priestess used the spiritbone to judge the extent of the dragon’s injuries and could use her prayers to Vindrash to aid in the dragon’s recovery. Thus a spiritbone that was lost would find a way to return to the Bone Priestess unless . . .
The dragon didn’t want to be found.
Treia had to face the bitter knowledge that the Dragon Kahg had answered the summons of her sister, when so many times the dragon had either ignored or refused to heed Treia. And now the spiritbone was lost and would not be found. The men would blame her.
Treia’s thin lips twitched.
Unless they had someone else to blame. . . .
CHAPTER
15
The Venjekar floated off the sandbar. Skylan and his men sailed the ship to shore, not an easy task, considering they had no rudder. Men ran out to help drag the ship up onto the beach. Lying on the shore on its side, its broken rudder sticking out at an odd angle, the Venjekar was an object of pity, a wounded animal waiting to be