It was already going wrong. Windrush realized it from the time the dragons crossed over the towering, icy summits of the Borderland Mountains, into the Enemy's territory. The air had been empty of lumenis dust. There was a silence all about the land, a darkness that belied the dawn that was growing behind the dragons. Far off to the right, beyond the end of the Borderland range, the Black Peak flickered—its open wound, where the Enemy's sorcery had once been broken, glaring across the distance with an angry red fire. Everything Windrush saw made him feel that they were about to be met by an Enemy who not only expected them, but had prepared a special sorcery in their honor.
The Nail of Strength did not disappoint him. By the time they had drawn abreast of the Enemy's eastern camps—the one they had attacked before was a dirty smudge to the south, and a smaller one was just out of sight to the north—they had not met a single enemy warrior. But ominous cloud formations were gathering around and behind them, darkly coiling clouds looming over the shadowy landscape; and Windrush knew that once more the Enemy had commandeered the very elements to his side. From the camps of drahls, there was no sign of activity, which Windrush found unsettling. It was not that he wanted drahls to appear; but the absence of opposition was another sign of Tar-skel's treachery lying in wait. It was possible, of course, that the drahls were busy laying waste the territory the dragons had left behind, but Windrush doubted it; more likely, he thought, the Enemy was hoping to gather in all the dragons and destroy them in a single, crushing blow. But what form would the blow take?
Farsight drew in close from the right, murmuring, "I think there are drahls in those clouds, Windrush. They'll be shadowing us until we're hemmed in on all sides. That's my guess. Be prepared for attack all around." SearSky sped in from the left and muttered his opinion. "They're all gathered ahead of us, Windrush. They know our strength, and they're gathered like cowards over the Dark Vale. We can sweep them from the sky. Maybe we'll get that traitor, Stonebinder, while we're at it." He glanced with approval back at the skyful of dragons following them.
Windrush acknowledged both opinions, but made no pronouncement. He suspected that neither guess was altogether correct. The Enemy had gone to much trouble to prepare a welcome, he thought, and he doubted that the drahls were overly fearful of their approach. The towering storm clouds that were chasing and flanking them seemed utterly opaque, and yet now they were beginning to flash with pulses of purple and green lightning. Ahead, a reddish glow that did not seem of the dawn beckoned them onward toward the Dark Vale. He guessed that the Nail was planning something more dramatic than merely engulfing them in swarms of drahls. But as to what that might be, his undersense gave no clue. No ifflings had appeared in midair to mutter enigmatic advice, and no rigger had arrived, flying her silver ship.
Windrush waited until Farsight and SearSky were back at the heads of their flights; then he drew a deep breath of cold dawn air and urged the dragons on with greater speed than ever. They would learn the answers soon.
* * *
The Dark Vale appeared ahead of them in the grey dawn like a vast crater cloaked in shadow. No detail was visible. The red glow that had been beckoning them was now glaring down from clouds high overhead, reflected from some invisible source. Windrush scanned the area. Even as they drew close to the vale, its details remained hidden beneath an eye-twisting interplay of erupting fires and light-snatching shadow, almost as if a blanket of sorcery lay across its top. Around the dragons and behind them, the storm clouds were crowding inward like marching columns of smoke, funneling the dragons into the vale. Windrush thought he glimpsed, and cries from the flank-scouts confirmed, the dark flecks of Stronghold's and Longtouch's flights approaching from south and north. Those flights, too, looked as though they were being driven by the storms.
Enough of being driven!
"Dragons!" Windrush called, with a long breath of flame. "Downward, into the vale of the Enemy! Beware treachery! But strike boldly, for the life of the realm!" And with a final thought that he should somehow have been more stirring in his cry, he banked into a steep dive. "FOR THE REALM!" he screamed into the wind as he sliced downward through the air, followed by two hundred bellowing dragons.
The Dark Vale loomed beneath him, light and shadow flickering. Suddenly the curtain of sorcery parted, revealing the land below. But what he saw lit by the overhead fire was not a valley swarming with enemy warriors, but instead a great, dark abyss. There was no land at all, but only dense, grey cloud, parting to form the vast shaft of a chasm. The dragons above him rumbled in confusion and dismay, but there was nothing to be done; they were already diving into the gaping emptiness where they had expected to find the Enemy's fortress. "Stay behind me!" he shouted to those who began to surge ahead, and though his words seemed swallowed up by the cottony greyness all around, the other dragons slowed, as though instinctively understanding the need to stay together.
What was this treachery? A camouflage surrounding Tar-skel's fortress? Or a fantastic maw in the land itself, about to swallow the entire dragon armada in a single gulp? Was this the path to the Final Dream Mountain?
"Windrush! Where are we going?" shouted SearSky, from his left.
He didn't answer. Slowing his descent, he began a sweeping turn, looking for anything solid. The others followed, but the formation was now stretching out above him in a ragged spiral shape. It was impossible to maintain tight grouping in the crowded space between the clouds. Battle cries were giving way to rumbles of alarm, and the beating of wings, as fear and uncertainty gripped the dragons.
Windrush glanced around for Farsight and the other leaders. SearSky was veering away from the formation and flying perilously close to the walls of the shaft, blowing long tongues of flame into the cloud. His flames seemed at first to pass through without effect. Then there was a flicker of light coming back—and a high, keening cry.
The sweep of his turn had taken Windrush away from the spot, and he had to crane his neck to look back at what SearSky had discovered. But he needn't have turned. That first piercing cry was echoed—once, a dozen, a hundred times—until the very walls of cloud shrieked inward upon the dragons. Windrush felt a sudden, wrenching change in the air, a shudder of sorcery passing through the sky, and an instant later, it seemed that the whole world had turned into a maze of broken lenses, making it impossible to see clearly.
But above and below and all around, Windrush heard the screams of drahls and enemy dragons closing for battle.
* * *
The iffling felt the presence of the others before it saw them. It had nearly abandoned hope, but had continued streaking on through the silence in desperate determination to find someone who could help. The underrealm here was a great rarefied hollowness of distant mists and light, and strange tricks of perception that made the iffling wonder if it had left the realm of iffling and dragon altogether. Could it even find its way back to Jael now, if it tried? It didn't dare look to see.
And then there came that feeling again across the emptiness, drawing it on with a sudden new hope. There was someone, yes—and now the iffling began to sense a flickering light—no, a series of lights, and beyond the flickers, nearly obscured by mists, the dim glow of a much greater, but distant fire. The iffling sped recklessly, heedlessly, joyfully toward the lights and toward the source of the feeling. What it felt was the unmistakable pull of familiarity, of family. It shouted and pleaded to the emptiness, and it heard faintly the answering cry:
—Our child—
—returned at last!—
—but the need grows!—
—do not stop—
—we long to see you, to speak—
—but do not stop!—
—fly onward—
—to one reaching out from the mountain—
—one reaching toward you—
The iffling was bewildered by the cries, but propelled by their urgency. The voices sounded so tired . . . and yet they were the voices of its own kind, perhaps the very ones who had given it life. As it drew closer to the flames, it perceived that they were weak indeed, like tiny candles flickering in a wind. The iffling called out to them:—I have come home! I need help, and quickly!—
The iffling wanted desperately to fly to them, but a force like a wind seemed to deflect it away, and it heard a single voice commanding:—Fly onward!—
So great was its desire to unite with its parents that instinctively it fought the change in direction; but the memory of Jael, waiting to die, was enough to send it onward in obedience. As it passed the flickering ones, the iffling sensed a great longing carried on the wind; and it realized that those tiny flames were joined to the distant fire ahead, or should have been.
They wanted to be joined to it again. Instead of being able to give their child the help it needed, they were saying to it: Your work is not yet done.
The iffling sped onward.
It seemed to take forever . . . but in time the iffling felt something new reaching out to it, something that was unlike any presence it had ever felt before. And yet, it seemed to resonate within the iffling, as though it were a kind of presence that it had long been prepared to meet. For an instant, it feared: Was it the Enemy?
The presence coiled around the iffling like a tiny whirlwind, and touched the iffling's thoughts with a remarkable gentleness and what seemed fear and astonishment. And the iffling heard a voice in its thoughts that it somehow recognized as dragon.
My name is FullSky, the dragon whispered urgently. Can you help me?
* * *
For the dragon, reaching with dwindling strength toward the region where he hoped Jael might be, the appearance of the iffling-child was a breathtaking surprise. He had felt some force drawing him that way, but it wasn't until he touched the tiny, frightened being that he recognized it for what it was.
The iffling was even more surprised than he was, but the need in its thoughts was so clear that there was no time to lose. FullSky opened his thoughts to it, crying out for news of Jael. The iffling shared its knowledge in a bewildering cascade, and then he knew with terrifying certainty what the task was for which he had been guarding his last strength.
He already felt unutterably weary. His kuutekka was stretched out through the underrealm, from his tortured body to the Dream Mountain, and then out to this strange plane where the iffling-child wandered. It seemed impossible for him to accomplish what had been given to him to do. But he already felt the realm groaning with battle in the Dark Vale, and he heard, as though across a vast sea, the cries of the outnumbered and terrified dragons; and he knew that he had no choice at all.
Help me, draconae, if you have any strength to lend! he cried silently back along the thread, not imagining that anyone might hear. And he cried aloud to the iffling: Take me to her! Show me the way to Jael!