Linsha fell silent and studied the entrance. While many of the other doors in the palace were lightweight barriers of red-colored woods carved with geometric patterns, this door was massive, dark, stained with age, and decorated only with two iron straps added to the door for strength. Two of the emperor’s guards stood on either side of the door like ponderous statues and looked neither left nor right.
She glanced at Lanther through her one good eye, hut he held his finger to his lips and shook his head. She became aware then that they were not alone with the guards. Other Tarmak warriors were coming silently down the hall carrying torches. They formed a line behind the Akkad-Dar and waited patiently, although for what Linsha had no idea. She hoped they were not here for the dragon egg, for that thought made her very uncomfortable. No good could come of Tarmaks and dragon eggs together. But surely Lanther wouldn’t let any harm come to the egg. He had promised them to her. She had fought for them.
A drumbeat, slow and measured, echoed down the corridor, and the warriors moved quickly to either wall. Clasping their hands in front of them, they bowed low as a procession moved majestically along the hallway toward the gathered warriors. Linsha expected to see the Emperor in front, but as the long line of Keena priests, warriors, and attendants came into her view, the first thing she saw was the casket from the ship’s hold carried on the shoulders of six burly warriors. Beside her, Lanther bowed low.
Linsha’s battered face darkened into a frown of anger. She knew who was in that coffin-Urudwek, the Akkad-Ur, the previous general of the Tarmak armies and the man who had led the invasion of the Missing City, ordered the massacre of the Wadi camp, and murdered her friend, Mariana. The Tarmak should be consigned to the darkest depths of the Abyss, not brought home in honor for some ridiculous burial ceremony.
Lanther grabbed her wrist and pulled her over into a bow. “Do it or they will kill you,” he said in no uncertain terms.
Although her hands clenched into fists and her stomach was tied in knots of anger, Linsha bowed low as the two guards pulled open the massive door and the casket was carried ceremoniously past her into the lighted passage beyond. The priests and attendants followed, and behind them walked the Emperor and his guards. The huge Tarmak inclined his head to Lanther. The Akkad-Dar, keeping a tight grip on Linsha’s arm, fell in behind the Emperor and behind him came the remaining warriors.
The procession moved in time to the beat of a drum-slowly, reverently-along the corridor and down a long flight of stairs to a lower level beneath the palace. From there, they continued downward on another flight of steps that spiraled deeper and deeper below the lowest levels of the building into the native stone of the promontory itself.
Linsha tried to pay attention to where they were going. She was a trained spy and a Solamnic Knight of the highest order who should have been making mental notes and absorbing everything she could see of this new experience. But she was feeling lucky just to stay on her feet as she trudged down the never-ending stairs after Lanther. Her body ached from an unbroken chain of knocks, scrapes, cuts, bruises, and sore muscles from head to foot. That horrible tonic still rumbled in her stomach and fizzed in her head, and the smell of the blue paint and Malawaitha’s blood on her chest made her nauseous. Worse, the smoke and dancing light from the torches left her dizzy and lightheaded. She prayed they would reach the end of the stairs before she fainted or vomited. She wasn’t sure which might happen first.
Thankfully the procession came to the last of the stairs before she lost control of her head or her stomach. They proceeded along a gently sloping course through abroad corridor. The darkness was intense, broken only by the torches carried by the priests and warriors.
Linsha lifted her head and sniffed the air. There was something very reminiscent about this place-a smell, a feeling, a touch of cold, dank air that reminded her of the maze under the Missing City or the caverns under Sanction. She guessed they were in an underground complex in the heart of the promontory. Was this where the Tarmaks buried their honored dead? Were there tombs down here? She groaned and rubbed her throbbing temples.
She plodded onward behind Lanther, concentrating on keeping her feet moving and her body upright. She could hear the Tarmaks talking softly around her, but she paid little heed to what they said. It was too much effort to translate the guttural Tarmakian. They could be talking about the latest crop harvests for all she cared.
“Linsha,” Lanther said quietly. “Look ahead.”
Through her open eye she saw a flickering light curving around a large arched entrance at the end of the passageway. The light was yellowish and danced like firelight. In fact, Linsha realized, there was an odor of smoke on the breeze that wafted up from the archway. Her curiosity stirred. She looked around as the procession walked down the last length of corridor and passed through the archway into the lighted cavern. Linsha’s interest took a sudden leap. They had entered a large, natural cave with a high ceiling and smooth walls. To Linsha, it looked like a sea cave carved out by water, and she wondered how close this place was to the harbor. A stone walkway extended around the walls of the cavern for perhaps twenty feet in either direction before dropping down a long curved ramp to the cavern floor. Torches sat in brackets every few feet along the cave wall, and a row of imperial guards stood stiffly at attention along the gallery wall that overlooked the cavern.
Linsha eyed them curiously and was about to ask Lanther a question about tombs when she caught a familiar sound. Over the sonorous beat of the drum, the shuffling of feet on stone, and the hushed voices of the warriors, she thought she heard the faint sound of something massive breathing. It was an unmistakable sound once she knew what to listen for-the slight brush of scales rubbing together, the bellows-like rush of air through a long neck, the rustle of leathery wings. A dragon! Linsha had spent enough time in the company of Crucible to be able identify his breathing in total darkness. This was not Crucible’s inhalation. Whose was it? She broke away from Lanther, pushed herself between two massive guards and peered over the edge of the wall into the cavern below.
Her breath escaped in an audible gasp. Perhaps fifty feet below lay a dragon curled on abed of sand. It was too dark to see what kind of dragon it was, but enough torchlight reflected off its scales to see it was a metallic. Her fingers tightened on the stone rim of the wall.
“But I didn’t-” she started to say.
A large hand fell heavily on her shoulder. She wheeled, expecting Lanther, and was startled into silence by the stern face of the Emperor looking down at her.
“Drathkin’kela, it is time,” he rumbled in Tarmakian. “Come. There is much to do.”
Feeling stunned, she walked down the ramp to the cavern floor beside the Emperor and came to a halt perhaps twenty feet away from the dragon. In the added light of the new torches, Linsha was able to see the dragon was a brass-a young one from its size. It slept heavily, curled in a tight, protective ball, its head tucked under a wing. She started to walk toward it, but the Emperor took her arm again and called for Lanther. For the sake of self-preservation she did not yank away from the huge Tarmak, but she could not take her eyes off the dragon. A hundred questions swarmed in her mind, and all she could do was stand and look.
The Akkad-Dar came forward proudly to stand beside Linsha. The warriors gathered in a semicircle around them. Priests bustled back and forth, setting up for a ceremony of sorts Linsha didn’t understand. Urudwek’s coffin was laid on a large, flat stone that bore unmistakable scorch marks. In a moment the activity stopped and the gathering fell quiet. The dragon, Linsha noticed, did not stir.