DragonSpell (31 page)

Finally the mountain quit trembling. Kale sat up, starting another tiny landslide as the mound of gravel covering her fell away. The air was full of thick black dust, so she kept the edge of her cape over her nose and mouth. She blinked dirt from her eyes.

The natural light of the magnificent cavern glowed dimly through fine black powder as it settled. The gravel and dust lay over everything, blanketing the former brilliance. Only a half-light showed Kale the small cave surrounding her.

When she stopped coughing against the gritty air, she reached into the cape and pulled out Metta and Gymn, one in each hand. Metta raced to perch on Kale’s shoulder as close to her neck and under her chin as she could get. Gymn lay limply in the palm of her hand. She stroked his backbone and let out a sigh of relief when his tail twitched.

“Fainted again,” she said to Metta. “He’ll be all right.”

Kale said it more to reassure herself. She felt battered. Her arms and legs ached. Gymn would heal her bruises. She examined herself and found only scratches under a black coating of dust.

I’ll be all right. Nothing is broken. I just have to find the others.

I hope no one is hurt.

Looking around, she examined the small, separate cave created by the landslide. The rocks formed a new barrier almost completely surrounding her. She spied a small tunnel yawning open to the rear. Disoriented from her tumble down the slope, she could not think where it might lead.

To the others, I hope.

Kale tucked Gymn away in the cape. She crawled on hands and knees through the opening. Metta hummed an encouraging tune in her ear. Long and straight, the tunnel took them to another, larger cave.

Kale stood and stretched, feeling her aching muscles.

This stone room looked much like the one they had camped in for several days. Great clouds of black dust had blown through the tight tunnel.

Kale took stock of her situation. She had the moonbeam cape and her two dragons. She had food, among other things, tucked in the cape’s hollows. She wasn’t badly hurt, nothing Gymn couldn’t fix.

Not too bad.
She swallowed the lump in her throat.
I wonder where the others are.

         
43
         

T
HE
M
AZE

Leetu?
Kale reached for the emerlindian with her mind.

Gymn peeked out of the cape, then darted to her shoulder to sit next to Metta.

Leetu?

“Are you safe? Metta and Gymn?”

Yes, we’re fine, and you? The others?

“Wizard Fenworth is unconscious. Librettowit has a nasty cut on his forehead. Lee Ark has a broken arm. A boulder hit Brunstetter on the head, and he’s dizzy. Otherwise he’s all right except for cuts and bruises. Shimeran and Seezle are dirty but whole. Dar is too dirty to speak intelligibly. He’s limping around. And he favors one side as if he has some broken ribs. He’s muttering about his soiled clothing, not his injuries.”

Kale almost smiled, imagining the doneel’s disgust at the sooty dust on everything. But she pictured the old wizard, pale and still.
Fenworth?

“Librettowit thinks he tried to stem the landslide, and it was too much for him. I can’t find any broken bones. He seems all right from what I can see. Gymn could tell us more.”

Kale remembered the horror on Fenworth’s face as he looked up at her. She shivered at the memory.

The black barrier had collapsed, and somehow Kale had made it happen. Now her comrades were hurt.

But if Fenworth had not been able to move the mass in three days, how could she have been responsible? She shook aside the unsettling feeling that her thoughts had sent the black rocks and gravel cascading down upon them all.

Where are you?

“Still in The Cavern of Rainbows. But when the black barrier collapsed, the walls shifted. Several tunnels out of here appeared.”

Should I try to come to you?

“Yes, if you can. We need Gymn to help with the injuries.”

Kale knew exactly which direction to go to find the others now. She could feel Leetu’s presence. However, choosing the right tunnel proved difficult. There were so many.

Blue lightrocks studded the walls of some of the tunnels. Other tunnels were pitch black. Some were twice as high as Kale was tall. Some were barely big enough for her to squeeze into. A sickly sweet smell poured out of one. Others stank of damp and decay. Two smelled like cabbage boiling. Kale dreaded going into any of them.

Crawling through yet another tunnel that seemed to lead nowhere, she muttered, “At least you two are with me.” She stroked each of the dragons, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly.

Reaching into one of the cape’s hollows, she pulled out the lightrock and handed it to the little dragons. Then they went through the opening closest to where Kale could feel Leetu’s presence. Metta and Gymn sat on her shoulder, holding the soft glowing lightrock between them.

Sometimes Kale walked.

Sometimes she crawled.

Hours later Kale had discovered how futile was her search. None of the tunnels they explored took them to her injured comrades. Some tunnels veered off in the wrong direction after she had crawled for what seemed miles. Others came to dead ends, and Kale had to inch backward to a spot where another tunnel converged with the one that went noplace.

All of the tunnels were filled with bugs and druddums. The insects crunched under her feet or crawled over her hands. They fell from the ceiling and slipped under the collar of her blouse.

The druddums tore through the stone corridors as if being chased, their normal speed accelerated by a frenzy, probably set off by the landslide. Kale never saw one slow down for anything. They slammed into her at irregular intervals. Sometimes she’d be hit and knocked over, then trodden upon by others following the first.

She grew weary and disheartened and more convinced than ever that all of this was the result of some rash act on her part. “I thought,
Move!
and the barrier fell apart. But it’s ridiculous to think I could cause such devastation. I am just a slave girl.”

Metta and Gymn did not respond to her words.

“I
was
a slave girl. Now I’m a servant of Paladin. That doesn’t make any difference. I’m still an ignorant o’rant girl.”

She backed into the most central cave she’d found and sat down in despair.

“Don’t give up!”
Leetu Bends’ voice admonished her.

We’ve explored every tunnel going out of this cave. I’m so confused I don’t remember which branches of which tunnels we’ve already been through.
Kale knew her frustration rang in her words even though they were not spoken. She struggled to control her emotions. The last thing she wanted was to give the emerlindian another chance to say
“immature”
in a disdainful tone.

“Then mark them.”

You mean start over? Go back through all the territory we’ve already explored?

“Sometimes you have to.”

Leetu’s patient tone irritated Kale. The o’rant girl spoke to her companion dragons instead of the emerlindian.

“How are we going to mark the tunnels as we go through them?”

Gymn jumped off her shoulder and glided to the entrance of the tunnel they had just left. He put his front foot in front of his face and spat. A fine green spray coated his paw. He stamped that foot on the wall. Metta leapt in the air, did a somersault, and let out a gleeful squeal. She zipped over to Gymn and proceeded to imitate him. She left a tiny purple paw print beside the green.

The system worked, but still it required hours of walking and crawling. Each time they rested for a few minutes, Gymn healed Kale’s new hurts. Under the influence of his healing, she could have forgotten to eat. But Metta liked mealtime and snacktime and naptime. She sang mealtime tunes every so often. The words would flit through Kale’s consciousness and remind her to eat.

Kale watched Metta catching bugs, sometimes bringing extra ones to Gymn, who sat on his friend’s lap and thrummed. The healing vibrations did much to ease Kale’s discomfort physically, but her nagging thoughts remained hurtful.

“I don’t understand why you think stopping to eat is better than eating bugs along the way,” Kale snapped at the purple dragon.

Metta dropped on her haunches and stared at Kale.

Kale looked away from the dragon’s sad eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Metta flew across to land on her favorite spot, tucking herself under Kale’s chin. She began to sing.

Kale chuckled and stroked the purple scales on the dragon’s side with one finger. “Do you know a tune for every occasion?”

After a rest, Kale again began her hunt through the maze of tunnels.

“We are so close this time.” She sat beside another dead end.

Leetu?

“I know. You can’t be more then a few feet away. Let me ask Brunstetter if he can move these boulders from this side. Perhaps we can break through.”

In a few moments, Kale heard stone scraping against stone. The wall of rocks making up the blockage trembled. With a surge of hope, she picked up smaller stones and moved them away. In a matter of minutes a slanted hole appeared, and Kale looked into Brunstetter’s smiling eyes.

“Welcome back, little stray,” he said and winked. Kale laughed.

The urohm’s huge face disappeared, and Leetu’s popped into view. She, too, smiled and laughed. “Haven’t you had a minute to wash your face, o’rant girl? You look like a thousand-year-old emerlindian.”

Librettowit showed his face next, and when Kale saw the bloody bandage on his head, she gasped.

“Here, take Gymn. He can start the healing while we make the hole bigger for me to get through.”

The librarian shook his head gingerly. “No, Kale, his power only works with you nearby, best if you can actually make the circle of healing by touching.”

“Move aside, tumanhofer.” Brunstetter ordered good-naturedly, his deep voice rumbling in a way that comforted Kale’s raw emotions.

She leaned toward the opening to see if she could spot Fenworth, Dar, and the kimens. Dar and the kimens sat around Fenworth’s still form. As Kale watched, their heads snapped up, their attention riveted by something out of Kale’s line of vision.

Dar jumped up and pulled his sword from its scabbard. Kale heard the battle cry of a bisonbeck. Brunstetter dropped the rock in his hands and ran toward the camp. Leetu raced after him.

A swarm of soldiers descended on her friends before they had a chance to defend themselves. Shimeran and Seezle jumped in the air, but a net shot over them and captured the kimens as it fell. Dar didn’t have a chance to duck into his shell. He moved slowly, and Kale knew Leetu was right, his injuries must be worse than just bruises.

What can I do? An explosion of light? Move mounds of dirt?…I don’t know how!

She watched in helpless horror as Lee Ark and Brunstetter fell under the assault of dozens of bisonbeck warriors. When the fighting stopped, each of her comrades had been captured. Chains bound Leetu, Lee Ark, Brunstetter, Dar, and Librettowit to each other at the ankle and around the neck. A net entangled the kimens so tightly that they lay in a huddled heap. Four guards stood around Wizard Fenworth as if the old man would arise and smite them all. Kale cringed at the pointed spears inches away from the ancient and vulnerable wizard.

Not one of her comrades glanced toward the small opening where Kale’s eyes peered through, watching as the bisonbecks destroyed the tents and scattered their belongings.

Leetu, what should I do?

“Stay out of sight.”

Yes, but I can do something, can’t I? To help you get free?

“Find the meech egg, o’rant girl. And get out of this mountain.”

But—

“Follow orders, Kale. And don’t play with your talents. Treat them with respect, or more disaster will fall upon your head.”

The bisonbeck commander roared. His troops fell into military formation. A soldier roughly lifted the old wizard and slung him over his shoulder. Her friends began the march out of The Cavern of Rainbows.

Kale ground her teeth. “My talents. I don’t help anyone with my talents. I cause disaster. Why? Why give a stupid o’rant slave talents?”