Page 119 of Red Dragon
“You’ll want to see this, Syla.” Vorik held out a hand in invitation as he looked not toward the dragons but into the box canyon.
Spectacles back on, Syla joined him. Instead of the small trapdoor she’d expected, the path now led a few dozen yards through more cactus and to an entire laboratory that stretched from wall to wall of the canyon and hundreds of feet to the back. Sunlight beamed upon crystalline formations, strange pipes and vats, and ancient equipment that Syla couldn’t name. At the same time, she seemed to see the cactuses and the dusty desert floor, the same as they had appeared before, but they were faded now, the laboratory more solid and real.
“Since we activated the runes or whatever made this appear,” she said, glancing at the pillar and glowing dragon and quarter moon, “are we invited in?”
“I doubt the storm god ever intended forhumansto enter his laboratory. He spent decades making creatures that like to eat our kind.”
“Yeah. But we have to go in anyway.” Syla gave him a significant look.
Vorik nodded, returning her look, his eyes sad but determined at the same time. Once they found the third component, they would be enemies again.
26
Vorik heldhis sword and resisted clasping Syla’s hand as they walked down the desert path from the pillar to the now-exposed laboratory. They were, he reminded himself for the tenth time, at cross-purposes. Even if they’d just had glorious sex, it had been induced by the magic of those flowers, not something they’d engaged in because it had been a wise and opportune time for it.
All along, he’d been aware that the heady flowers had influenced him—all of them—but that hadn’t made him stop. As usual, when he was with Syla, he hadn’twantedto stop. Even now, so recently sated, he found his gaze wanting to pause whenever she fell into it, to linger to admire the determined set of her jaw, the cuteness of her nose, the curve of her ear—and other lower curves as well.
Danger, he reminded himself, forcing his eyes to point in another direction. The scrolls had spoken of danger. He was surprised it hadn’t arrived, like a stampede of man-eating moragothi, while everyone had been engaged. The dragons werestillengaged. No, wait. When he looked back, he could see the upper part of their scaled bodies, now lying quiet atop the rockformation, red and green tails dangling over the edge, touching. Agrevlari would be delighted. Wreylith… might be less so.
If Teyla was any indication, her clothing disheveled and her cheeks red with embarrassment as she rushed to catch up with Syla and Vorik, not all of these pairings would have occurred if not for the magic. Fel strode behind her, looking more dazed. With his bald head, scars, and age, he probably didn’t attract younger women that often.
A cool breeze swept toward them, seeming to flow over the laboratory and into their faces, wreathing their bodies. In contrast with the intense sun, it stirred goosebumps on Vorik’s skin.
Syla paused. She must have felt it too.
Vorik also stopped. Still in the path, they were about ten feet from where the solid desert floor grew less substantial and turned into what he assumed was an illusion that usually hid the laboratory. Some magic, similar perhaps to the translucent shields that protected the islands, allowed sunlight into that space while keeping out dust and wind and animals. Many centuries had passed since the storm god had been driven away, all the gods disappearing soon after, but the laboratory appeared pristine and undisturbed, like he might have been working there earlier that morning.
Syla looked down at her hand. Her moon-mark was glowing silver.
Vorik’s dragon tattoo didn’t do that, but his goosebumps warned him of a threat.
“I don’t see anything that looks like an orb growing in there,” Syla said. “I hope, after all this, the scroll wasn’t mistaken.”
“There could be an orb in the back somewhere. It’s hard to see through all the crystal… shapes. What would you call those?” Vorik waved to the blue, orange, yellow, and pink formations growing up from the dark marble floor of the laboratory, manywaist-high, like tables, and others rising above his head. Aisles wound through the crystal formations and along walls lined with bookcases and nooks containing racks of flasks and beakers and strange equipment he couldn’t name.
“Workstations?” Syla looked from crystal formation to formation until her gaze landed on a bookcase, numerous tomes inside preserved. Or was she looking at the huge white marble piece of furniture near it?
A rectangular platform framed by columns, it reminded Vorik of some of the lavish four-poster beds that gardeners crafted, complete with a canopy. Made from marble, it was out of place among the jagged crystals, dark floor, and natural red-rock walls of the box canyon. Though white rather than silver, the platform reminded him of the quarter-moon mark on Syla’s hand. It seemed a strange thing to find in the storm god’s laboratory.
“We’ll have to go in and look around.” Vorik stretched his sword outward, expecting to encounter resistance, an invisible barrier of some sort. “Let’s see if we can.”
“Yes.” Syla didn’t look like she wanted to but nodded and walked at his side again.
He was tempted to lift a hand and tell her to wait while he risked himself, but he knew she wanted to find the orb before he did. Even if she hadn’t, she wasn’t the sort to hide while someone else took on the brunt of the danger. He smiled at her.
“Do you know something I don’t know?” she asked, catching his expression.
“Oh, many things.”
“Besides how to juggle?”
“Hm, maybe not.”
They reached a straight edge—the start of the flat black floor visible underneath—no,through—the illusion of the desert. Vorik blinked a few times, as ifthatmight make the imageclearer. Right above that edge, the tip of his sword sparked. The gargoyle bone didn’t act as a conduit, instead absorbing the power so that he didn’t feel it in his grip.
Not until they stepped over the line did electricity—no,magic—buzz over Vorik’s skin. It didn’t hurt, but he braced himself for a greater threat to appear.
An eerie moan came from the depths of the laboratory, and then another cold wind swept toward them, stirring their hair.
