Dragon Rule - E. E. Knight [77]
The party began to see pieces of crystal running through the stones. Cavern increasingly gave way to crystal.
“We’re on Anklemere’s old road,” Rayg said. “After he was killed, dragons took out his stairs to make room for us to pass.”
They came to sort of an overlook. The Copper thought the cavern looked like an unusually angry sea, the whitecaps frozen forever into blue-white still life.
Lights like tiny drifting jellyfish ran inside the crystal caps. The lights waxed, sparked, waned, and flickered out like fireflies dying in the time it took to draw a long breath.
“What is this?” the Copper asked.
“It looks like fairy fire,” DharSii said. “But brighter. We get it in the sky in the far north.”
“It reminds me of stars,” Wistala said. “What is it?”
“Not even the Ankelenes know,” Rayg said. “Some believe that this is where the heat from the Lavadome is channeled and dispersed, the way wet drips off a mammal’s fur.
“I can tell you one more thing. These lights—they’ve become more active. They start and burn out faster, and there are more of them. According to the Ankelenes, the only variation before was when the lava was more active. They would burn brighter, longer.”
“Magic?” the Copper asked.
“Magic is a cheap explanation for the inexplicable,” Rayg said. “A dragon’s fire may seem magical to many humans, but it’s just an oil fire with a little sulfur mixed in. With a few more chemicals it’s difficult to identify, because they react so strongly to air.”
“Rayg’s practical,” the Copper said.
“Let me see him create dragonfire in his workshop,” DharSii said.
Rayg pulled up a chain from his overshirt. The crystal AuRon had worn, an unfortunate “gift” from the Red Queen for his emissary duties to the Lavadome. It glowed behind a metal lattice, like a tiny owl in a miniature cage.
“Why the bars?” DharSii asked.
“If I let it touch my skin, I become—overexcited. I can’t sleep. Or even sit down. For a few minutes it’s exhilarating, especially when I’m working on a problem. An hour is exhausting. A day would drive me mad.”
“What’s the longest you ever had it on?” the Copper asked.
“Three days. I think. It could have been less. One of your bats found me on the floor of my workroom with my nose bleeding. After that, I quit touching the crystal except for a few minutes at a time, by putting a finger or two through these bars.”
“They’re obviously connected,” Rayg said.
“Similar material, similar structure. Similar origins?” Wistala asked.
“I believe you’re right, Wistala,” DharSii said. “You have an Ankelene’s mind in a Skotl body with a Wyrr temperament.”
Wistala’s scale rippled at the praise. The Copper remembered their mother’s scale rising and falling that way when Father spoke to her.
He wondered. DharSii was a well-enough-formed dragon with a good mind, but he struck him as one interested only in his own affairs. He wasn’t likely to make much of a mate, nor would he, the Copper suspected, mate unless it were somehow to his advantage. Perhaps he did wish to return to a position of importance in the Lavadome. If that was all, the Copper couldn’t help but think less of him.
“There are records of the Lavadome dating back to Anklemere. It may be older, we just have no proof. The crystal NooMoahk had in his library that the Red Queen seized goes back to the days of blighter dominance, if not before.”
“I would suggest it’s an engine of some kind, but beyond anything we could possibly comprehend.”
“Ever since the Red Queen sent NiVom, Imfamnia, and myself to retrieve the object the blighters call the ‘sun-shard’ I’ve been curious about what she thought it would do. NooMoahk’s library yielded some pieces of information.
“I believe there are three important pieces to this enigma. One is the Lavadome entirely, the second is the sun-shard. The third is a smaller crystal. They might be compared to your body—the Lavadome is the muscular meat, the sun-shard is the heart, and the third is the mind.