DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga) (201 page)

Now he had let go of that dream for the foreseeable future. These two events, with the Kaliit and the abbot, had shut the door and locked it. Now Douan was focused on the events at hand.

Perhaps it was time for him to revel in the present glory.

Chapter 22
 

H
E FELT THE SEARING HEAT OF THE LAVA AS HE PLUMMETED
,
AND BELIEVED THAT
he would simply burst into flame, but then he landed in a great dark and wet cave it seemed. It took Belli’mar Juraviel a few breaths to understand that the dragon had caught him in its mouth, had plucked him out of the air only a few feet above the deadly lava.

The dragon winced and growled, nearly opening its mouth, and Juraviel understood that it had likely nipped the lava on its turn upward. Then came the jolts as the dragon landed back on the stone, a few staggering steps.

Spat out of the beast’s mouth, Juraviel hit the ground hard in a bouncing roll.

He came to a sitting position and looked back, then had to look away as Agradeleous began the bone-crunching, flesh-tearing transformation back to a bipedal lizardman form.

The elf glanced down the hallway, thinking that he should use this opportunity to sprint away. To what end, though? He knew that Agradeleous would easily overtake him.

It occurred to him then that he should use this opportunity to attack the dragon, to defeat it, perhaps even to force it back over the ledge into the lava.

Juraviel dismissed that notion with a shrug and a helpless laugh. How might he be able to hurt the great beast, even during this seemingly vulnerable time of transformation? And if he could find a way to win out, if he could find a boulder or something to knock the dragon over the ledge …

Juraviel didn’t want to. He would not strike at Agradeleous; he had no right to strike at this creature that had shown him unexpected mercy.

He sat down on the floor, closed his eyes, and waited for the dragon to complete its transformation.

A powerful hand grasped him by the back of his collar, lifting him with frightening ease and carrying him along. The elf stayed limp and kept his eyes closed, perfectly resigned to his fate, whatever that fate might be.

Agradeleous ran along the corridors at great speed as the minutes became an hour, and then two, and on and on. Tirelessly, the dragon ran, feet thumping heavily, Juraviel bouncing and dragging, but never complaining. The elf could not believe the beast’s stamina, but still, sooner than he imagined possible, Agradeleous stopped and shook him, and when he opened his eyes, he found himself again in the dragon’s treasure lair, overlooking the pit, where Cazzira stared back up at him.

Agradeleous growled and threw him down, and only the elf’s wings, beating furiously, stopped him from smashing to death on the hard stone. Still, he landed hard, falling into a roll, and then a second, and when he came up, he toppled over
backward, too dazed and hurt to hold his footing. Cazzira was there in a moment, cradling his head. “Oh, you fool!” she scolded. “You cannot escape the beast! I should have stopped you from trying.”

Juraviel looked up at her and managed to smile, and to lift his arm up to place his hand on her cradling forearm. “You could not have stopped me. I knew the danger, and knew the futility. But still, I was bound to try.”

He saw a wounded look upon her face before she sighed and looked away, which somewhat surprised him.

With great effort, Juraviel shifted about and came up to his knees beside the sitting Cazzira, cupping her face with one hand and turning her to face him. “This has nothing to do with how I feel about you,” he said.

“It has everything to do with it.” Though he held her face toward his own, the elf still turned her eyes away.

“No,” Juraviel insisted. “I am bound by duty above all, above even love.”

Cazzira looked back at him.

“And I do love you,” Juraviel admitted, to himself and to her. “I do. And that, too, tells me that I must get out of here, I must find a way to get us both out of here.”

His strength left him as he finished, and he slumped a bit, and Cazzira pulled him in close to her.

And both of them sat there, wondering what would come next, wondering what punishment Agradeleous would rain upon Juraviel.

T
he jolting landing of the heavy beast jarred Juraviel and Cazzira from their slumber the next morning, both elves leaping up to face the wrathful Agradeleous. The dragon stood there, muscles twitching beneath its scaly hide, clawed hands grasping at the air and squeezing tightly, lizard snout curling back as low growls escaped through jagged, pointed teeth. With a sudden burst of rage, as if the anger simply could not be contained within, Agradeleous exploded into motion. He grabbed up a rock that was nearly as big, and many times as heavy, as either of the elves, and hurled it across the pit to smash thunderously against the opposite wall.

Mouth moving as if the dragon wanted to bite the air itself, the beast took a threatening step forward.

Cazzira rushed in front of Juraviel. “If you are to kill him, then know that I am your mortal enemy!”

The dragon stopped. “Kill?” Agradeleous asked. And then he snorted.

Juraviel pushed Cazzira out of the way and stepped past her to face the dragon directly. He stared at Agradeleous for a few moments, trying to size up the dragon’s mood, and he noted a range of emotions, some surprising. Agradeleous was outraged, of course, but there was something behind that anger. It hit Juraviel profoundly then—his action had wounded the dragon, but in the way that a friend might wound another.

“I feed you,” Agradeleous started. “You are warm and with companionship. You
tell me great tales and I tell you their equal. And you betray me!”

“I did not betray you!” Juraviel shouted back, as emphatically as any dragon’s roar. “And it pained me to walk away.”

“You deceived me!” Agradeleous countered. “Step by step, you lured me into your grand play, and that play was no more than a ruse to cover your escape!”

“No!” Juraviel retorted, but he bit the word short, and his visage softened as he stared at the dragon. “Yes,” he admitted. “I deceived you and I deceived Cazzira.”

“Then I should tear your head from your shoulders!” Agradeleous roared, and came forward another threatening step, putting him only one long stride from Juraviel.

The elf only shrugged. “I am helpless to stop you.” He looked up, then, noting that Agradeleous had not continued his advance. The dragon stood there, low growls—of frustration, Juraviel realized—escaping its gnashing maw.

“I should not be surprised by the treachery of a Touel’alfar,” Agradeleous quietly rasped.

Juraviel realized then that he could not allow the dragon to go down this disastrous road, relating this incident to the less-than-stellar relationship between their races—for Cazzira’s sake if not his own. Agradeleous was deeply wounded, and would likely kill him, but if the dragon came to consider Juraviel’s treachery as expected from Touel’alfar, and by extension Doc’alfar, then no doubt Cazzira’s ending would come swiftly.

“You gave me no choice, Agradeleous,” Juraviel remarked.

The dragon’s lamplight eyes stared at him hard, seemed to burn holes into him.

“For months you have kept us here, while my protégé walks her dangerous road alone,” Juraviel explained. “I am bound to her side, and yet, there I cannot be. While you hold me here to tell you stories, another is being written, one whose writing is supposed to be partly the province of Belli’mar Juraviel. I have enjoyed my time here—I would be lying if I said otherwise. And yet, I must go.”

Agradeleous gave a sound that seemed to be a cross somewhere between a mocking laugh and an angry growl.

“How can you claim treachery if you refuse to claim friendship?” Cazzira cut in suddenly.

Juraviel and Agradeleous both snapped their gazes over the Tylwyn Doc. Juraviel’s immediate reaction was to shout out at her to stay out of this, to tell her that it was none of her affair, to protect her from inadvertently entering into the wrath of Agradeleous. But the protests died in his throat as Cazzira calmly, so very calmly, continued.

“If we are prisoners, then you are within your rights to punish Juraviel for his attempt to leave.”

“My rights?” the dragon asked with complete sarcasm, as if the whole notion was absurd. This was Agradeleous’ lair, where Agradeleous was king, after all, and bound by nothing but the dragon’s whims.

“You cannot claim the role of jailor and of friend, Agradeleous,” Cazzira went
on quietly. “At first, you were the former, obviously. But it seems to me that you have abandoned that mantle, of jailor, as we have abandoned the mantle of prisoners.”

“You speak foolishness! He deceived me that he could escape.”

“I must go,” Juraviel said, and Agradeleous laughed at him.

“He asks you as a friend,” Cazzira added, and that stopped the laughter, and in truth, had all three of them wondering what their relationship truly had become.

A few moments of silence slipped past, with all three gazes darting from one to the other.

“And for that, I owe an apology,” Juraviel admitted, to himself and to the others. “I should have come to trust in our friendship. I should have come to you directly, and honestly, explaining that I had to leave. It is my duty that I go to find Brynn, and I tell you now, honestly, that if you refuse me this, I will try again to get away from here. Not to get away from you,” he added quickly, for it seemed as if the dragon was about to leap atop him, “but to get to her.”

“You do not even know if she is still alive,” Agradeleous replied, and he seemed much calmer then.

“But I must find out the truth of it.”

The dragon pondered the words for a long time, then nodded. “You should have come to me.”

“You would not have let me …” Juraviel paused and looked at Cazzira. “Would not have let us,” he corrected, “go.”

“You have tales I wish to hear,” the dragon explained. “For hundreds of years, I have slept here quietly. I did not ask you to invade my home, and did not kill you, as is my right against thieves.”

“We were not thieves,” Cazzira put in. “Not knowingly, at least.”

“You cannot argue against my generosity in this!” Agradeleous roared, and he stamped his foot, which shook the chamber and lifted both the elves into short bounces.

“You are correct,” Juraviel agreed. “You have been most generous, but that does not change the road I must follow.”

“You should have asked!”

“You would not have let me go!”

“Not alone!”

That startled the elves, and indeed, seemed to startle the dragon, as well!

“You would let Cazzira walk beside me out of here?” Juraviel asked.

“I would walk beside the both of you out of here!” Agradeleous answered, and it was obvious that the dragon had just made that decision on the spot. “Yes,” he said, nodding, and speaking as if to himself. “It has been too long since I have flown through the wide sky, too long since I have walked the realm of the alfar and the lesser races. We will go to find your Brynn if she is living still, and to make a tale of our own if she is not!”

Juraviel found that he could hardly draw breath, and when he glanced over at
Cazzira, he saw that she was equally distressed. What had he just done? What destruction had he just inadvertently unleashed upon the world?

“Yes, it is too long since I have known an adventure, and too many centuries have passed since I have added to my treasures!” Agradeleous declared. “Prepare yourselves. We will leave as soon as you are ready.” With that, the dragon, seeming much more lighthearted, leaped away.

Juraviel continued to look to Cazzira, who half walked, half stumbled beside him. “We cannot,” she whispered, barely finding the breath to speak.

“We cannot stop him,” Juraviel answered. The truth of his own words struck him profoundly, forcing him to bear responsibility for putting this idea into Agradeleous’ head.

“We cannot control him,” Cazzira reminded. “How many will die because of this?”

Juraviel tried to keep the edge out of his voice, though the sarcasm remained obvious. “They are just humans, are they not?” He regretted the words even as they left his mouth, for Cazzira turned up at him, her expression wounded.

“Well then, perhaps I fear that Agradeleous will fly over the mountains to attack Tymwyvenne,” the Doc’alfar answered. “Because of course I could not learn to care for any humans.”

She started to walk away, but Juraviel grabbed her up in his arms and would not let her go, however she thrashed. “I am afraid, Cazzira,” he admitted. “I do not mean to wound you, but I am afraid.”

From up above, they heard a guttural, rumbling sound, and it took them a moment to realize that the dragon was speaking—no, not speaking, but singing!—in his ancient language. Both Juraviel and Cazzira, whose respective languages bore the same heritage as that of the dragon, understood enough of Agradeleous’ song to realize that it was all about pillaging and burning, about the tastiness of man-flesh and the joys of the many artifacts the humans always crafted from glittering stones and metals.