Slumber

::: subchapter Death was breathing quietly in the dark. The feeling hadn't left Adwyn since that cursed iron gate came close behind him. From everywhere and in everything⁠ ⁠---⁠ sight, sound, smell⁠ ⁠---⁠ there was a certain malignity, and it settled into his scales. He would molt next cycle, he knew; and it wasn't soon enough. Adwyn drew a calming breath and spat out spicy venom. After an inhale the dew came back, and he let it; his soul needed it. The gate had seen him into a wide entry chamber that turned to a ramp which slinked down to something that already felt somber even when half invisible. He lifted the glowing lamp, and when the light brushed the deteriorating walls, he saw script. Without the high guard's eye, there was no telling for true, but he bet it was Pteryxian. The murderer had said this was a mass grave. Were these cenotaphs? Did they spell final praise, or condemnation? Would anyone even return to find out? Above many of the big bold letterforms (names or titles, perhaps) there lingered engraved portraits, dragons with the short, thin snouts of desert-dwellers, who gazed listlessly out from fading visages. These forgotten dragons fading away seemed so close to some ultimate death that one could imagine⁠ ⁠--- Adwyn did not believe in ghosts. Death was a blank, but all dragons were seen eternally in the gaze of Dyfns. These dragons were gone from the world, but they were not gone. A whispering on the edge of thought. Mutely, Adwyn nodded and he tugged his high stand into striding steps toward one wall. Here the weathering of rain or whatever else was near complete, and any cenotaph or portrait was utter dust. A rock from the ground went to his foot and the orange drake began working. In his best, straightest serifs, the pits gained new memory: "Wedd" and "Ysais." Please forgive me. A thought, and he took a finer rock and wrought a portrait. Every Dyfnderi monk knew the science of drawing, and painting. There were no proper pigments, but crushed leaves and mushrooms did their part. The blood of wormrats gave colors of life to their cheeks. And last, dipping a toe into the lamp's glowing, glairy liquid, Adwyn tried to limn some effect like a living soul staring out from those eyes. But it was known impossible. The science of rendering had come as easily to him as all else, and at his painting any critic would be impressed. But Adwyn... He stared at those likenesses, at the sum of his memory of Ysais and Wedd. Wedd, caught laughing with some curious gleam, and Ysais, silently sneering, yet some hope hiding in her brow. Details he'd noticed, and never considered or identified. Subtleties of dragons he'd surely never miss. There were definitions of the yawning chasm of loss, which no lights illume. Adwyn stood there, silent, for a long time. Waiting for something to change, waiting for anything to get better. Nothing did. Nothing ever did. The lamp went out, and now Adwyn was waiting in the dark. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ When he felt himself skip a thought, that was when Adwyn ceased waiting. It had gotten late, hadn't it? The adviser would finish this now, before exhaustion became intolerable. His bones cracked when he moved, he'd been still so long. Adwyn knew personal noises weren't as loud as they felt, but he trusted instinct. And instinct told him that sudden skitter in the shadows was something new. Dragons leapt quick, and body kept pace with thought as the orange drake dodged into a chamber mouth he'd spied on the walls and almost quietly he rushed forth. His wings stretched in front and from this he knew with time to slow when he came to the wall. He snuck along the wall for another mouth and all this happened two more times before tiredness overruled instinct. Panting, fanning his frills and wings, falling onto his haunches, Adwyn hoped it was enough distance and he thought about his next action. The baton made way to his wing, and already the drake was standing up. He'd fought in webs before. He'd fought alone in webs before, when the battle had gone to worsts. And this wasn't a web. He smiled like another would grin. The next steps were slow, as the drake collected detritus. Dead or now dead mushrooms, odd sticks or leaves, bits of sorry cloth or linen time had yet to devour, and equally suitable things that nonethelesss he could not identify in the dark. He put them in the lamp. He had enough now, and picked up two rocks and for a moment clawed for any other survival minutia he could manage remembering. No wind here, no worry about that. It was humid, worse than a web, but nothing could be done. Between that and the poor quality of his fuel, he glimpsed difficulties lighting a fire. What else was there? Ah. He knew dragons had a certain temperment of venom oily enough to help. Was it spicy? Bitter? Tart? He hoped it was of the latter two; the adviser wasn't as good at⁠ ⁠---⁠ inspiring temperments in himself, as some he knew were. He didn't consider it a virtue. At length Adwyn managed a droplet of both. He judged the right flavor bitter by the slimy feel of it. But this little bit wasn't enough. Every dragon was a touch different, with their own little language of scent. Adwyn found that bitter venon came best when he was angry, jealous, stubborn. He thought of what mattered to him, what he really wanted to protect, out here in Mlaen's country. His sister, who refused to ever again speak with him, whom he hadn't seen in gyras? It only made him sad. The people of Dyfns, who needed an effective king, someone like him? He found it vaguely annoying. They were his usual answers, and truly they did nothing for him. What about the handsome high guard, who'd wet the adviser's fangs more and more the longer he'd lived here? ...Secrets hurt, Adwyn had learnt. It⁠ ⁠---⁠ changed things, to know that Rhyfel the younger was Rhyfel the elder, that Gwymr/Frina's beacon of justice and comaraderie was the murderous, thieving bandit who'd roamed the cliffs, who'd stolen the Berwem outpost from the Dyfnderi protectorate, who'd conspired to dethrone Dwylla. Adwyn would have listened to his reasons⁠ ⁠---⁠ but if the scarlet drake did not even find him worth telling? This was something angry, but not the right kind of anger. What about the frustrating bluescaled exile? The wiver who could do things, important things⁠ ⁠---⁠ if she cared to. No, in the depths he didn't care for her. Adwyn sighed. Really, it was a farce that he'd had to think this hard. The answer was the very first thing he thought of. The insomniac red wiver, who no doubt still sat awake on that dillerskin rest, still from time to time worrying about Adwyn in that scheming way of hers. It would be a very sad thing, if Adwyn were lost forever down in the pits, and never again knew a morning with Mlaen and a chat over coffee; him having just woken up, and her having not. Cynfe too, the cryptic halfbreed. She took after the faer like a daughter. The bundle of net came out his bags. Perhaps her gift would prove useful again. He dropped it into the lamp. For morning coffee with Mlaen, for her wouldbe painter of an adoption, and maybe for Gwymr/Frina itself, Adwyn supposed he could go forth. The bitter venom was a trickle now, and the drake spat into the murderer's lamp. The rocks grinded against one another and sparked and sparked. Nothing. Nothing. A little ember which didn't catch. Nothing. Another ember, a lucky one. Adwyn had light. The pits were very dark, but Adwyn had light. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The pits were unlike a web. One could have a flame here, yes. The air wasn't chittering and humming with secret conspiracy, yes. And yes, there were no strings of unsightly strength slowing every step. Really, the pits were unlike every no drake's place in which Adwyn ever had to operate a mission. In a number of ways, but the one that shone out was here his efficiency⁠ ⁠---⁠ even his survival⁠ ⁠---⁠ depend on his care for other dragons, rather than his lack; the lamp's new flame was fueled as much by his bitter venom as it was by what poor flammable bits he could find. The magical net had done something⁠ ⁠---⁠ given the flames some electric nature that left it crackling and smelling of ozone and sending little shocking fingers dashing out on the cursed iron of the lamp. These bolts were very bright, so Adwyn added more torn bits of net every so often. More often, he had to think of Mlaen and what he would fight for. Enough to dew bitter, and spit that into the flames. He would need water soon, he knew; his canteen was dimming fast. He prayed the pits had a pool or stream, or that he would find the rumored door very soon. There came a rumbling, and the drake added food to that prayer. He could cook it now. But hope for that was scarce. He watched the bugs and fungi grow thinner deeper in the pits, and really, what could live this deep underground? Would he want to eat it? All that said the rooms if anything grew thicker⁠ ⁠---⁠ or at least more numerous. Many more cenotaphs rotted away in their fashion. Some had fallen apart so that skeletons could be seen, and a thing had gnawed at the bones. All the while the walls still felt the engaved letters of that unsure script. Till suddenly even that changed, from possibly Pteryxian, to antiquated y Draig: Who taketh to the highest skies, or In memoriam, or Walk fain in the gaze of Dyfns. The numbers he found were as early as gyra 547, and as late as 651. Were the old outpost workers buried here? Before or after the fanciful legends of terror had limned its reputation? It was an inappropriate thing for such a grave site, but Adwyn felt relief. Both for the change of epoch which surely foretold the end of all this scenery of death (and perhaps, that persistent feeling of dread quickening like breath), and because it in total meant him clos