Blood of the Fold

The domed shield below quaked, glowing as its vibrations intensified. Sparkling cracks appeared and raced along its surface. With a deafening knell, the shield shattered; pieces of it, like glowing glass, rained down toward the pool, sparking out as they fell.

The yabree went silent, and the night was once again still.

A bulk below stirred, shaking itself free of the strands of weed and muck. Wings spread, testing their strength, and then, with frenetic strokes, the queen lifted into the air. With needful beats of her wings, she lifted to the edge of the dome, her claws snatching and catching at the stone for support. Partially folding her newly tested wings, she began climbing the stone of the tower upon which Richard and Merissa stood. With sure, slow, powerful pulls, she hauled her glistening bulk up the column, her claws finding purchase in the cracks, crags, and crannies in the stone.

At last she stopped, clinging to the pillar beside Richard like a clawed salamander clinging to a slimy log. In the bright light of the moon, Richard could see that she was as red as Merissa's dress. At first Richard thought he was seeing a red dragon, but upon closer scrutiny he could see the differences.

Her legs and arms were more heavily muscled than a dragon's, and covered over with smaller scales more like the mriswith's. A raised row of interlocking plates ran the length of her spine from the end of her tail to a nest of spikes at the back of her head. Atop the head, at the base of several long, supple spines, was a raised protrusion crowned with rows of scaleless flesh that occasionally fluttered as she exhaled.

The queen's head snaked about, looking, searching. Her wings unfurled, slowly sweeping the night air. She wanted something.

"What do you seek?" Richard asked.

Twisting her head down toward him, she huffed a breath that engulfed him with an odd aroma. It somehow made him feel her need more acutely; the aroma had meaning he could understand, saying, "/ wish to go to this place."

She then turned her head out to the night beyond the pillars. She blew out, emitting a long, low, vibrating rumble that seemed to shudder through the air. Richard could see her expelling air through the fleshy ribbons atop her head. They fluttered as she trumpeted, creating the sound. With the heady aroma still filling his nostrils, he looked to the sweep of night before the tower.

The air shimmered, brightening as an image began to emerge before him. The queen trumpeted again, and the image brightened further. It was a scene Richard recognized — it was Aydindril, as if he were seeing it through an eerie, ocher fog. Richard could see the buildings of the city, the Confessors' Palace, and, as she trumpeted again, brightening the image floating before him in the nigh sky, the Wizard's Keep towering above on the mountainside.

Her head swung around to him, again huffing an aroma, but it was different from the first. It carried a different meaning: "How do I get to this place?"

Richard grinned with the wonder of being able to understand her meaning through an aroma. He grinned, too, with the knowledge that he could help her.

He extended his arm, and a glow shot out from it, illuminating the sliph. “There. She will take you."

The queen flapped her wings as she sprang from the column and once clear of the stone spread them wide to glide down to the sliph. The queen couldn't fly very well, Richard understood; she could use her wings to aid her somewhat but she couldn't fly to Aydindril. She needed help to get there. Already, the sliph was embracing the queen as she folded her wings. The quicksilver took her in, and the red queen was gone.

Richard stood smiling with the pleasure of the yabree singing in his hand, humming through his bones.

"I'll meet you at the bottom, Richard," Merissa said. He felt her suddenly seize him by the shirt at the back of his neck, and with the power of her Han, fling him over the side of the tower.

By instinct, Richard reached out, just managing to snatch the lip of the dome's opening as he fell past. He swung by his fingers, his feet dangling over a drop of at least a hundred feet. His yabree clattered as it hit the stone far below. Flushed with rushing panic, he felt as if he were waking in a nightmare.

The song was gone. Without the yabree, his mind suddenly felt startlingly wide awake. He shuddered with terror at realizing the insidious seduction, and what it had been doing to him.

Leaning over to see him hanging there, Merissa threw a bolt of fire down at him. He swung his feet in, and the flames just missed him. She wouldn't make the same mistake twice, he knew.

Richard frantically felt under the rim of the dome for something to grab. His fingers found a fluted support rib. With desperate need to get away from Merissa, he gripped it and swung down under the dome as another bolt of fire shot past to erupt in the murky pool below, throwing strings of scum up into the air.