“I wonder if the dragon could help,” Laric said.
“It’s probably safe to have the dragon come down here,” Rowan said.
Laric focused, trying to gain a measure of connection to Sashaak. And then, distantly, there was a link. He showed Sashaak, inasmuch as he could, what it was that he was looking at, and tried to call to him. There was a moment of nothing, and then a surge of power.
It didn’t take long before Sashaak came diving toward them. At first the dragon appeared as a black speck, but gradually loomed larger and larger, his shadow spreading across the ground. Rowan sucked in a sharp breath, and even Xavier stiffened. The horses seemed as if they were going to panic, but Xavier did something surprising: He used a spellslip to calm them.
Then Sashaak came to a heavy landing on the ground not far from them. Up close, he was gigantic. He had scaled sides, his eyes blazed with almost an orange light, and his spiked tail swung from side to side, as if readying to attack. His wings tucked in, and he rested on massive, curled forelegs. Everything about Sashaak spoke of power and menace, which was a strange, sharp contrast to what Laric felt from him when he had a mental connection to him.
“Something is here,” Laric said, speaking the words aloud. He knew Sashaak would not, but the others would at least know what Laric was telling Sashaak.
“This was her place,” Sashaak said, his voice a deep rumble in Laric’s mind.
“Can you help me get inside?”
“You must use a key.”
A key. That wasn’t the first time Laric had heard that turn of phrase, and he stepped forward, forming the spellslip of a key—though it might actually be more of a spellcraft form. In doing so, he felt a lingering bit of power sweep out from him. As it did so, Laric recognized that there was an element of energy, and potency, that radiated from Sashaak that almost matched what Laric was doing.
Within it, however, was something else. A tremble. He wasn’t exactly sure what it was that he picked up on, just that there was a vibrancy to it.
Then the boulders outside the cave began to tremble as well.
But the cave wasn’t stable.
Laric could feel it, though he wasn’t sure why he could.
Sashaak startled him by sliding up behind him and jabbing his enormous tail forward, using it like a probe and slamming it into the stone. There was a crumpling of rock, and then debris rained down around Sashaak’s tail, creating an opening inside.
“You will go,” Sashaak said.
Laric hesitated, then glanced at Rowan. “We’re supposed to go inside.” He nodded to Xavier. “You can certainly come with us, unless you need to stay out here with the horses.”
Xavier flicked his gaze from Sashaak to the horses, and then over to Laric. “I should probably stay here.”
“Is it safe for you?” Laric asked, speaking through his connection to Sashaak this time. “I trust him, but I also don’t know if you can trust him.”
“He knew Malinar,” Sashaak said.
“And did you trust him?”
“Malinar did.”
That seemed to be significant for Sashaak.
“All right. We won’t be long,” Laric said.
“I will keep here.”
Laric stepped into the cave. Once inside, he found himself using a fire spellslip to illuminate everything around him. The walls had collapsed, so whatever structure the cave once had was long since gone.
Rowan stayed behind him, keeping close.
“You know, if this all crumbles in, we are going to be crushed,” she said.
“That’s a lovely thought. But if it does start to crumble in, we just get underneath the dragon’s tail, and we should be fine.”
“Assuming the dragon will keep his tail in place.”
“Then we follow the tail out. It’s pretty easy, Rowan.”
She laughed. “I love how you view things as easy, even when they are almost certainly not.”
They reached the main part of the cave, which was a chamber about five feet wide and maybe a dozen or so feet long. It was low enough that Laric had to keep his head ducked down, but there was evidence that somebody had been here. There were no glyphs—not as he had expected, or had hoped. If there had been something here, Laric thought that he would’ve been able to find something that would help him know more about what his grandmother had done.
But there was, however, a small trunk along the wall. It was the only item other than the dust and debris.
He hurried over to it, and Rowan crouched down next to him as he flipped it open.
“What is it?”
Inside was…
“It’s another egg,” he said, looking over to her. “Why would she have placed it here?”
This had to be his grandmother again. But why all the way out here?
“Unless the first one was taken? What is the purpose behind them, anyway?” Rowan said.
