“We’ll see about that,” Kaika said, kneeling now, and pulling a fistful of fuses out of her pack.
“A very distant ancestor of mine is reputed to be a gold dragon,” Dreyak said.
“So just having a gold in the bloodline isn’t enough then,” Rysha said. “Too bad, but I’m not surprised. My translation suggested as much.”
Realizing he hadn’t relayed Jaxi’s most recent update, Trip said, “There’s another airship coming with two more dragons. They seem to be there to join or protect the original Cofah airship.”
“Is either of the new dragons a gold?” Blazer asked.
Yes, Jaxi said.
Trip nodded.
“Shit, maybe that’s why Jylea and that sorceress didn’t fight harder to keep us from leaving the airship,” Blazer said. “Maybe they knew we couldn’t get in.” She pointed at Kaika. “You have my permission to blow that wall open, Captain.”
“You know I wasn’t waiting for that, right?” Kaika whistled and set a bundle at the base of the wall.
Blazer snorted.
Trip worried the explosives might backfire, either bringing down the cave on top of them or doing nothing to the back wall. Or both.
“To destroy this cave would be a crime against archaeology,” Rysha said.
“I’m only going to destroy this back part here,” Kaika said.
Rysha turned a bleak expression on Trip. He spread his hands, not aware of anything he could do.
Try touching the wall, Azarwrath suggested.
Me? I’m not a gold dragon.
If your friend’s translation is correct, the offspring of gold dragons may also enter.
Offspring, not descendant. Not someone fifty generations removed from a gold dragon, or whatever I am.
Trip removed his glove, though he knew he would only be scanned, the same as Dreyak.
I don’t know how far removed you are from your dragon progenitor, Azarwrath said, but I am positive it’s not fifty generations. Or even ten.
Trip froze, his fingers in the air inches from the wall. But that’s impossible. Until a few years ago, there weren’t any dragons in the world.
Neither of the soulblades responded.
Right? Trip prompted.
There weren’t any known dragons, Jaxi said. That doesn’t mean that some couldn’t have been around, lying low. Or spending time in a stasis chamber, as was the case with Phelistoth. Sardelle and I suspected as soon as we met you that you had the potential to be very powerful. Three years ago, we encountered—battled—a sorceress who came from another time period, and she claimed to be the great granddaughter of a dragon. Even though you dampen down your aura well, we both thought you had at least as much dragon blood as she.
Trip knew he must look stupid, standing there frozen with his palm in the air, but all he could think about were the soulblades’ words.
Are you saying… Is that the reason I was transferred? He looked down toward his collar, even though the parka hid his uniform and rank tabs. And promoted? And sent on this mission?
Such an intense disappointment filled him that he wanted to cry. He’d assumed—even though nobody had said as much, he’d assumed his knack for killing enemies and his willingness to risk himself in battle had been the reason he’d come to General Zirkander’s attention, the reason he’d been promoted so young and called to join the flier battalion’s star squadron. To be given something because of blood that he had no control over…
Relax, hero, Jaxi said. Your pirate-slaying ways are what got you transferred and invited on the mission. Ridge didn’t know about the rest until that dragon’s defenses mysteriously went down. Sardelle and I didn’t know until we met you. Well, about ten minutes before we met you when we sensed your presence in Ridge’s office as we were walking into the citadel. That alarmed the hells out of us, I’ll have you know. Thus far, all the powerful sorceresses and shamans we’ve encountered have been working for the other side. We assumed some spy had infiltrated Ridge’s troops in the guise of a young pilot.
When did you figure out I wasn’t a spy? Trip asked numbly.
When you fell off the couch.
Shall I thank the gods for the general’s slippery cushions then? Trip imagined what might have happened if they had truly believed him a spy. He could have been dragged off and imprisoned in some iron coffin or whatever was done to enemy sorcerers.
Thus far, we’ve just killed them, Jaxi said brightly. But we realized right away from the fact that you didn’t shield your thoughts and we could read everything in your mind that you were completely untrained.
He tried to remember if he’d been thinking anything embarrassing that day, anything that he would have been chagrined to have shared with others.
No, but I’ve since witnessed your lurid fantasies about Lieutenant Ravenwood.
He flushed, though he didn’t think anything had been particularly lurid. Other than the day she’d worn that revealing pirate costume.
No, your fantasies aren’t nearly as disturbing as those of your friend. He’s speculated more than once about encounters featuring him in the middle of a threesome with Kaika, Blazer, and Ravenwood.
Azarwrath cleared his throat in Trip’s mind—perhaps in Jaxi’s mind too. There are dragons coming. It would not be good to be trapped in here when they arrive. Both of the new arrivals are gold dragons.
Yes, Jaxi said, and I believe I know those dragons too. Yisharnesh and her mate. Our people have battled them before. They were let out of a prison in Iskandia.
As golds, they will be able to open the gate, Azarwrath said.
“I’m ready to blow this wall as soon as our pilot statue is moved.” Kaika rose from her kneeling position and looked at Trip. Three of her bombs rested along the base of the wall, linked by a wire to a detonator with a timer.
“Move it, Trip,” Blazer said, the others having already backed away.
Though he doubted it would do anything, Trip would feel like a coward if he didn’t try, since the only reason he didn’t want to try was because it might work.
He took a deep breath and pressed his bare palm to the wall. A beam of light flared out, identical to the one that had engulfed Dreyak. He felt a surge of relief until Duck spoke.
“Is that because of the soulblades?” Duck asked, looking at Rysha.
She hesitated, then shrugged. Protecting Trip’s secret.
The voice spoke words into their heads. Different words this time? There were only a few of them.
An ominous rumble came from all around them, and Trip backed away from the wall, afraid he’d triggered some trap. Or maybe the dragons were close enough to send some attack ahead.
“You are permitted to pass,” Rysha whispered.
“What?” Blazer looked sharply at her.
“That’s what the words said.”
The wall in front of them disappeared, revealing an icy passage stretching into the depths of the mountain.
13
The translation must have been wrong.
As fascinated as Rysha was by the new passage leading deeper into the mountain, including numerous dragon statues carved into the ice and a soft blue light that emanated from all around them, all she could think about was the translation. She must have gotten some of the words wrong. Specifically, the one for offspring. Should it have been descendant? Because if she’d gotten it right, that implied Trip was not just some descendant of a dragon but the son of a dragon. And that wasn’t possible, not in this era.
At least, everything she’d read suggested it wasn’t. But if there was a dragon alive out there, one who hadn’t left through the portal a thousand years earlier and had simply been lying low all this time…
“What in the hells does that mean?” Leftie asked, pointing at the passage and staring, first at Trip, then at Rysha, then back at Trip. “You’re half dragon?”
If Trip’s shoulders had slumped any further, they would have fallen off. All he could manage was a puzzled spreading of his hands.
/> “I must have translated incorrectly,” Rysha said. “The words must have stated that only the descendant of a gold dragon would be allowed to open the gate.”
“Then it should have worked for me.” Dreyak was frowning at Trip almost as darkly as Leftie was.
Duck merely appeared confused.
Trip’s forehead creased, and he turned his puzzled expression toward Rysha. No, it wasn’t a puzzled expression. It was more of a betrayed one.
She wished she’d kept her mouth shut and not shared the translation, damn it. This hadn’t been her secret to reveal.
“It doesn’t matter now,” Blazer said, pointing at the bombs and nodding to Kaika. “Disarm those, and let’s go. We’ll figure out everything else after we complete our mission.”
Trip winced. Rysha didn’t need telepathic powers to know he didn’t want to be “everything else.” He just wanted to be a pilot.
Kaika repacked her bombs, and she and Blazer led the way down the passage. Trip walked after them, and Rysha hurried to walk at his side. She felt the urge to apologize to him, though she didn’t know what she could say. Sorry I told everyone your dad is a dragon?
She glimpsed Duck, Dreyak, and Leftie bringing up the rear, Leftie kissing his lucky ball before he fell in behind them. He’d known Trip longer than anyone else here, but he seemed the most rattled by this. Maybe it was because he’d known Trip so long that he was rattled.
The group strode along in silence. Rysha sneaked glances at Trip, but his puzzlement was buried now, replaced by a mask. She couldn’t tell if he was angry, scared, full of dread, or what. Some people would have been perfectly delighted at finding out something like this, but he’d already been shying away from the idea that he had the power to perform magic. This was that to a much higher magnitude.
Seven gods, no wonder the chapaharii blades wanted to kill him.
And what did she want? She didn’t know. Did this change anything? Should it?
No, she decided firmly. Though it was impossible not to think about what kind of power Trip might have the potential to develop, and that old axiom about power corrupting people. But wasn’t there another quotation about wisdom in gifting power to those who least wanted it?
Rysha shook her head. Blazer was right. All of this should wait until after the mission was completed. The dragons would likely sense that the gate had been opened, including the ones reputedly allied with Jylea and her team. Rysha didn’t know why the Cofah, or a band of the Cofah, would want to take the portal—and the dragon problem—to their homeland, but after listening to Trip talking to Dreyak, and Leftie’s words about hooks and ropes in the airship, she believed they did. She’d wondered from the beginning why Dreyak had been at odds with the researchers from the outpost. This could explain it.
The passage opened up ahead, the blue glow shining from the white ice walls growing brighter, giving the place the sense of daylight. The group reached a ledge that overlooked a chasm, the bottom dark except for an orange glow far, far below. The scent of sulphur drifted up on a warm wave of heat.
“That’s lava down there,” Trip said, sounding bemused.
“That’s even more of a geological oddity than the below-sea-level ice canyon,” Rysha said, staring down at it. “I don’t see how it’s possible.”
“This place was built by powerful magic. I think that means anything is possible.” Trip tilted his head. “The portal is that way.”
Trip pointed toward the leftmost of three ice bridges that arced over the chasm, each leading to tunnels on the far side. They all appeared the same, beautiful, artistic, and very fragile, as if they were there for decoration, not to be used. And perhaps that was the case. A dragon would fly across the chasm rather than walk on a bridge.
“The swords telling you that?” Leftie asked. “Or do you just know these things now?”
Rysha winced, wishing again that she had been vaguer with her translation, wishing she hadn’t said anything aloud at all. She could have simply suggested Trip try touching the wall. Not that she could have foreseen that he would have the blood required to open it.
Trip looked sadly at her, and she wondered if he was reading her thoughts. For a dragon, or a half-dragon, that would be simple magic, wouldn’t it? By the gods, if he had that much dragon blood, he ought to be able to shape-shift and control people’s minds and do all other manner of magic that the sorcerers of old had been able to employ. She did her best not to shudder at this new realization, and told herself that he was still the same person, the person who’d made her a gun mount and liked fixing fliers.
“The portal is this way,” Trip said, his only answer to Leftie, and stepped toward the bridge.
But Leftie gripped his arm. “Damn it, Trip, why didn’t you say something before? Did you always know? I’ve known you six years. Have you been lying to me the whole time?”
“I didn’t think anyone would understand,” Trip said quietly.
“So, you did know.”
“Just that my father was probably some shaman from another country.”
“Or a dragon,” Duck whispered. “Isn’t that what Ravenwood meant? Is that even possible?”
“You didn’t think you could tell me?” Leftie demanded. “What, did you read my mind and not like what you saw in there? Didn’t think I was good enough to share your secrets with?”
“I didn’t do that—didn’t know how to do that. But I knew how you felt about magic. I didn’t have to read minds to know—”
“So, you didn’t even give me a chance? You just lied to me? To everyone in the squadron? All the people who thought they knew you? That’s cowardly, Trip.”
“It is,” he agreed, his eyes still sad. “But would you have befriended me and stood up for me all those times if you’d known?”
Leftie hesitated, and Rysha suspected he knew the answer was no, but what he said was, “How would I know? You didn’t give me a chance to find out.”
Rysha looked at Blazer, hoping she would remind them there wasn’t time for this, but she and Kaika were pointing at the bridge and conferring quietly. Wondering if it was a trap? The bridges did look fragile.
“Do you need anyone standing up for you?” Duck whispered, sounding more awed than betrayed.
Trip grimaced, not looking like he appreciated that reaction any more than the other.
“Doesn’t this mean you’re like Sardelle?” Duck added.
“There isn’t time to discuss it now,” Trip said, his gaze flicking back the way they had come. “The two gold dragons have driven off the ones that were standing guard from the mountaintop, and they’re escorting the Cofah airships down to land in front of the cave. They’ll come in soon. I don’t believe their mission is to destroy the portal.” Trip looked at Dreyak. “We need to get to it first, to protect Iskandia by destroying it. Before it—and the dragons coming through it—can be put to some other use.”
Not waiting for agreement, Trip strode onto the bridge he had indicated before.
“Ma’am?” Rysha asked, looking toward Blazer and especially Kaika. Trip had the engineering degree, but with Kaika’s demolitions background, she had to have experience assessing structures.
Kaika didn’t look happy, but she didn’t shake her head in the negative.
“We don’t have any better choices,” Blazer said.
“Follow him two at a time,” Kaika said. “Those bridges—are they even bridges, or just decorative arches?—don’t look like they can sustain that much weight.”
“Agreed,” Blazer said. “Look down there. I see some that already broke.”
Rysha hadn’t noticed that before, but she squinted into the gloom and did see places where arches extended a few meters out from the sides of the chasm, then ended abruptly, broken off. Or maybe melted off. In a couple of spots, they lined up with protrusions on the other side, protrusions with which they must have once linked. Perhaps the magma lake rose at times, spitting lava into the air and melting the fragile bridges.
“So long as that doesn’t happen now,” she whispered.
Trip hadn’t waited, merely striding up the icy incline. Rysha followed after him, placing her feet carefully. No more than three feet wide, it was extremely slippery, like ice that had melted and refrozen numerous times.
“Hope he can levitate us again if this breaks,” Duck muttered from behind her.
Leftie muttered something else that Rysha couldn’t make out. Maybe that was for the best.
As she climbed, she did her best not to look over the sides, nor to notice the sulfurous scent, the promise that deadly lava boiled far below.
Trip reached the apex of the arch, where the bridge widened, making a platform about five feet wide. He paused and turned back. Waiting for Rysha? No, he was gazing back into the passage they had all come through.
“Trouble?” Rysha whispered.
“Yes. Keep going.” He raised his voice. “Everyone hurry across. The soulblades will make sure the bridge holds. But there isn’t much time. Those dragons are coming now. They—”
Puny humans, a female voice rang in Rysha’s head. Do you think we will let you destroy that portal? Or a priceless dragon artifact? Do you think you even could?
The voice made the others hustle more than Trip’s urging had. They slipped as they hurried, and Blazer and Duck ended up using their hands as well as their feet, gripping the edges so they wouldn’t fall.
After we destroy you for your impudence, we will raze your tiny country. Those who survive will belong to the empire. And to Yisharnesh. I have not forgotten the scars your kind left on me.
Rysha looked at Dreyak as he reached the platform, but he didn’t appear pleased to hear that the dragon had allegiance to the Cofah.
“Keep going straight. You’ll reach the portal. You can’t miss it.” Trip drew Jaxi from her scabbard. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, he also drew Azarwrath.
The soulblades glowed with power, with readiness.
“What are you doing?” Rysha asked, stopping on the platform as Dreyak, Duck, and Leftie hurried past.
Kaika and Blazer also paused at the apex.