The Dragon of Avalon (21 page)

People make such an unnecessary fuss about dying. It's really just part of life, as the final chapter is just part of a book. Still . . . we can always hope there might be a sequel.

No light.

No escape.

No way to find Merlin.

Those realities now defined the companions' days. And yet, as Basil realized the instant the bone-white jaws of the wind taker closed around them, they were negative realities. No longer was life woven from the threads of all his senses and experiences—and his overwhelming need to warn the wizard. Instead, the fabric of life was now woven from the
absence of
things. The missing threads.

No light. No escape. No Merlin.

The only sounds he heard now, aside from Aylah's sorrowful sighs and the thumping of his own little heart, was the occasional
drip-drip
of slime in the windtaker's belly. His surroundings he knew mainly by their feel: the slippery hard surface of the monster's enormous ribs, and the oozing rivers of slime that flowed between them.

Even his favorite sense—smell—had been squeezed down to nearly nothing. Try as he might, he could find only one scent—one horrible scent and the equally horrible taste that went with it. Slime. For his sole source of food—if you could call it that—was the putrid, decaying slime that dripped from the dank walls around him. So strong was its stench that Aylah's normal scent of cinnamon, and most of the smells that Basil knew how to cast, were completely overwhelmed by the odor of rotting flesh.

To eat the slime—which he did as rarely as possible, only when his hunger pangs swelled to throbbing aches he couldn't ignore any longer—Basil crawled along the monster's ribs until he found someplace moist but not too terribly gooey, since the stickiest slime would lodge in his throat for days. Trying his best to ignore the smell, he would take just enough rotting slime to coat the tip of his tongue. Then came the hardest part: swallowing. The only way he could tolerate it was to emit, just at that moment, a powerfully sweet smell, such as fresh mint or rain-washed raspberries—something strong enough to mask the putridness. For a few seconds, anyway.

Over and over again, in the darkness of their prison, he forced himself to crawl to a river of slime, take some on his tongue, and then swallow. For he needed at least some nourishment to survive. And Basil wanted desperately to survive.

That's what I must do
, he told himself soon after their capture.
Not only for me . . . but for Avalon. Somebody's got to warn Merlin! To tell him about Rhita Gawr.

He ground his teeth angrily. They had been close—so close—to warning the wizard. Then this monster appeared, swallowing them along with their plans.

We must get out. Must!
His eyes smoldered.
I'll find Merlin somehow. And stop Rhita Gawr. Yes—before he can bring his evil into this world.

He winced, hearing himself think. Who was he, really, to take on Rhita Gawr? To come to the aid of Avalon?

Sure, he'd felt surprisingly hopeful after meeting Dagda. Even if it had all been just happenstance, he did somehow manage to help the spirit lord—and earn his gratitude. Although Dagda had told him, quite definitely,
You are not a mere dragon . . .
the god had hinted that Basil might have some sort of special power. Something beyond just making odd little smells now and then. But to be honest, more and more that whole notion sounded unlikely—even outlandish. Especially for a bizarre little half-lizard, half-bat who didn't even know what kind of creature he was.

Yet he couldn't quite let go of the idea, outlandish as it was. He might not be a dragon. But he was
something
. Maybe even something that could help Avalon.

Besides, he had another reason to survive. As difficult as life was for him in this slime-encrusted tomb, it was worse for Aylah. Far worse. For she was a wind sister—and a wind sister needs freedom to move, no less than other creatures need air to breathe.

I must move as freely as the air itself
she had told him the very first time they met.
Never sleeping, never stopping, never staying anyhhhwhere for long. That is a hhhwind sister's hhhway.

Without that freedom, he knew, his friend would surely die. A wind sister who could not move around would wither away, until one day she would simply vanish.

"I am sorry, little hhhwanderer," Aylah whispered, her voice echoing eerily in their slimy cell. "So hhhwoefully sorry."

"We'll get out of here," Basil replied, sounding much more certain than he felt.

"But hohhhw?"

"I don't know, Aylah. Somehow."

The days passed, melting into weeks. And he still hadn't thought of any way to answer her question.

As their confinement continued, time wasn't marked by the normal rhythms of day and night, falling asleep and waking up, chasing or being chased. Now there were no golden flashes at starset, no changing colors on the trees or stones to mark the seasons, no visible evidence of growing older.

Yet time was clearly passing. Basil knew it from the ceaseless dripping of the slime. Just as he knew it from Aylah's sighs—less frequent now, and growing steadily weaker. He knew it, too, from his own decreasing strength. Even making the smell of mint, once as easy as saying his own name, now felt like pushing a stone up a steep hill.

And still he couldn't answer Aylah's question.

For a little while there, I thought that my life might have some purpose. Some meaning. And that in following that purpose, I could maybe find out who I am.
He growled, making a sound like pebbles scraping against each other.
Is it all going to end in the belly of this beast?

He listened to the relentless dripping of slime. Leaning against the moist wall, he could feel the windtaker's body tilting to one side as it turned in flight.
Is this all my life was meant to be about? Nothing more?

Long stretches passed without either of the companions speaking. What more was there to say? Why make the effort to talk? She was dying; he was barely surviving. Those two simple facts summed up everything.

Yet a day finally came when Basil, to his own surprise, realized he had a question. While seated on a rib, chewing on a particularly rancid glob of slime and trying not to gag, he thought of something that had vaguely puzzled him ever since their capture. The question had never seemed important enough to ask. But now, like a frail stream of water that had long flowed unnoticed beneath a desert, it bubbled at last to the surface.

"Aylah," he said quietly, hesitant to disturb the silence that wrapped around them like a heavy cloak, "I have a—" He paused, forcing himself to swallow the gooey slime. "A question."

The wind sister didn't respond. Whether she was too weak to talk or too despairing to hear, he couldn't guess. But he decided he might as well continue.

"Most living creatures need to eat, right? Maybe not wind sisters, but most everyone else. Including this monster that swallowed us,"

Aylah still didn't speak, though she did release a long, low sigh that sounded more like a moan.

Basil swallowed again, trying to rid his tongue of the wretched taste, then went on. "What I don't understand, though, is
why
this thing wanted to cat you. What value could it get from swallowing the wind? I mean . . . you're not exactly a big hunk of meat or some sort of fruit."

A long moment of quiet ensued, interrupted only by the sound of Basil's feet squelching in the slime as he moved up the rib to a slightly drier spot. At last, Aylah answered him.

"The hhhwindtaker hhhwants me not for meat or fruit, nor anything you hhhwould call food. It hhhwants me . . . for my spirit."

Basil jerked his head upright. "Your what?"

"My spirit, little hhhwanderer. That is hhhwhat it hungers for. The energy of my soul. You see, hhhwhen I grohhhw too hhhweak, I hhhwill no longer be able to hold my spirit hhhwithin myself. So it hhhwaits until I can resist no longer . . . then it hhhwill take my spirit into itself! Only then hhhwill it be satisfied. And only then hhhwill it hunt again, searching for another hhhwind sister."

He cringed. Devouring someone else's spirit! Never, in all his days, had he heard of such a thing. Even when a dactylbird murdered another creature for pleasure, that creature's spirit would at least live on and make the journey to the Otherworld. This horrible notion hung in the air, as if it were a kind of odor, smelling even worse than slime.

Suddenly he had an idea—and with it, the hint of a bizarre, irrational scheme. "Aylah," he asked eagerly, "what happens when the monster takes a wind sister's spirit into itself? Does it merge with the monster's own spirit? Or does it stay whole somehow?"

"Hhhwhat does it matter?"

"Just tell me," he insisted.

"Hhhwhy?"

"Tell me, Aylah!"

There was a long pause before she spoke again. Finally, in a somber whisper, she said, "I really don't knohhhw hhhwhat happens."

In the darkness, Basil's small brow furrowed. "All right . . . but let's just assume the spirit stays intact somehow."

"Hhhwe don't knohhhw that."

"Just assume," he declared. "If that's true, then the spirits of every wind sister this thing has ever eaten, over all the years it's lived, are here inside it somewhere. And maybe . . . they could be reached."

"Speak hhhwith the spirits? Nobody knohhhws hohhhw."

Basil thumped his tiny tail excitedly. The echo swelled, drumming all around them. "But if we could reach them—find them—maybe they could help us."

"No, little hhhwanderer." She whispered so softly he could barely hear. "They could not help us. Nobody can help us."

"I don't believe that!" His squeaky voice deepened with urgency. "Please, Aylah. Try with me. Just try,"

She released a dismal sigh. "All right. But don't expect your idea to hhhwork."

"I don't," he replied, still thumping his tail against the rib. Abruptly, he stopped, waiting until the echoes faded away before speaking again.

"And yet," he said into the silence, "there's something I can't forget. Something important."

Aylah said nothing. So quiet was the windtaker's belly that Basil might have been completely alone, But he continued talking.

"You know how even the tiniest little breeze, so small it barely exists, still has a force of its own?" Hearing no reply, Basil swallowed, then went on. "And how that little breeze can sometimes blow on a dying ember, all that remains of a fire that's burned down to nothing?"

Silence.

"Well . . . sometimes, Aylah, that tiny little breeze is strong enough to coax that ember to get hotter and hotter—until, finally, it just might burst into flame."

He raised his head, though it seemed heavier than ever. "Aylah . . . maybe, just maybe . . .
we can be that breeze
."

Only silence met his words. Basil waited, hoping to hear some sort of reply. But Aylah didn't answer.

Slowly, he lowered his head. Just then, from somewhere near his face, came a whisper.

"Hhhwhat do you hhhwant me to do?"

"Just this. Send your thoughts out to your sisters! To any of their spirits that still survive in this miserable beast. Tell them we need their help—need them to be more than just spirits. They must fill themselves with air, and . . ."

He stopped, unsure what else to say.

"And do," finished Aylah, "hhhwhatever the hhhwind hhh would do."

Basil nodded gratefully. "Whatever the wind would do,"

He drew a breath, trying to clear his mind of everything else—the sticky ooze beneath his feet, the ghastly stench, the despair that hovered just beyond the edge of his thoughts. Slowly, all those grim realities faded—not a lot, but enough for him to think about something new.

Wind sisters, hear me! Wherever you are inside this beast. Awaken and remember who you were, long ago. Help your sister Aylah and me.

He paused, listening. For what, he didn't really know. But he heard nothing new, felt no change at all.

Wind sisters, please. Remember your lost lives. Your lost freedom. Come back, if you can!

Still no change.

Basil went deeper in his thoughts. He tried to imagine the life of a wind sister—the feeling of unending flight, unrestricted movement, unlimited shape. He tried to feel a wind sister's thrill of constant movement. Her need, in the depths of her being, to fly, to flow, to move. And her fear of confinement, a condition as different from her life as being is from nothingness.

"Fly again," he spoke into the darkness. "Fly like the wind."

"Yes," repeated Aylah. "Fly again." Her words, like his, echoed around the walls.

Subtly, on the edges of his ears, Basil felt the slightest hint of movement. Was it air?

Probably just Aylah
, he thought.
She's stirring a little. Or maybe it's just the monster moving again. No, wait—

The flow of air grew stronger. He felt the barest brush of wind across his back, the lightest touch upon his snout. One of the scales on his neck, loosened by a fall on the rocks long ago, started to quiver like a leaf in an approaching breeze.

Then, at the remotest edge of hearing, he heard a sound. A whisper of a whisper of a whisper. It didn't seem, somehow, like Aylah. And while it came from somewhere nearby, in the belly of the beast, it also seemed strangely far away—so far away, in fact, it seemed to come from beyond the windtaker, beyond the cloudscape of Airroot, beyond the very borders of the world.

The faint whisper grew, swelling louder. Then came another whispered voice, and another. The number of voices steadily increased, along with their volume. Slowly, a chorus of whispers filled the air—and with it, a movement, a bustling.

A rushing of winds. Many winds, suddenly come to life.

The windstorm gained strength, swelling into a gale. It surged within the beast's belly; in that confined space it blew fiercely in every direction. Globs of slime broke loose, scattering with the forceful gusts, pelting Basil's scales. His tiny nostrils flared, not from his own breath, but from the whirling winds around him.

Soon the whispers grew into wails, and the wails swelled into roars. Basil's whole body lifted off the slimy surface and hurtled through the air, slamming into a rib, only to roll down to a place where the wind picked him up again and tossed him somewhere else. Meanwhile, the gale's intensity continued to grow.