The second day's travel for Kathy and company proved far less eventful, a fact she and Byron were both quite thankful for. The farther northwest they got, the more arid and inhospitable the land became, until the evening brought them into a dry flatland so barren that Kathy wondered if there were any creatures who could possibly live there.
"It's a stone's throw from being a desert," she commented as she and Byron set up their tent. "All that's missing are scorpions and cacti."
"And snakes, don't forget snakes," he added.
"Actually, I'd like to, thanks. Forget them, I mean." She and Daggeuro took the first watch that night, playing poker by the fire. As she laid out her third winning hand in a row, she passed one hand through her hair and said, "Hope there's running water in the Boneyard. My hair's starting to feel grungy."
"There's plumbing," Daggeuro assured her. "That's not what's actually bothering you." She glowered at him, less than a fan of his heightened perceptions at times. "Talk to me, Kathy."
"All right," she said, shuffling the cards. She dealt out their cards, looked at her hand and said, "I spotted three dragons veer off of our path today. Two blues and a black. That doesn't strike me as normal behavior for them from what I've read. Black dragons aren't afraid of anything, so why avoid us?"
Daggeuro handed over two cards, got his replacements, and read his hand over silently. He pushed them forward, face-down to fold. "I suspect Maefus has a hand in that."
"You know him?"
"From long ago, yes." The kennin shuffled, dealt their hand. "I have had four occasions to converse with him. Maefus is first in line to become Eldest among the reds. That is not to say the oldest, mind you."
"I know. I read that in dragonkind, the title is held by the most accomplished member of the breed."
"Just so. Maefus is a plotter, wily in ways that could spin the heads of any faerie or human politician. Unlike most reds, he seldom relies on brute physical or magical strength to achieve his ends. He struck me always as a logical creature, long of thought. Dead Man's Hand," he said, laying down his cards- a pair of aces, a pair of eights, king high. Kathy flopped down her pair of queens and scooped up the cards, shuffling.
"Have you run into him since, well, you know?"
"The year after the dragon god was said to have been slain," Daggeuro said. "He came upon the wreckage of Celia, confused by the actions of his kin. He had been in a Deeping, a kind of sleep some dragons partake of that is akin to hibernation. He hadn't even been aware of King Ovin's disappearance, you see, so long had he been slumbering. He found me and what remained of the Royal Guard, asked if he could help. My men were about to turn their weapons on him, so I warned him that he had to flee, lest there be more bloodshed."
"Did you fetch a wheelbarrow?"
"Pardon?"
"You know, to cart around those huge balls of yours," Kathy quipped. Daggeuro let out a harsh, abrupt laugh, reining himself in quickly. "There's a sound I haven't heard enough of lately."
"Well deserved too, I might add," he chuckled. "Ah, Kathy, your wit is as it has always been, one of your finer tools." He snickered again, drank from his canteen. "Well, a few more hands, then we'll make a sweep." They did, and finding nothing out of sorts, woke Byron and Selena for their shift. It was a pleasant night to be on watch.
Croag lounged upon the fainting couch, morphed into the form of a bulky elven man with greenish skin. Seated perpendicular to his head was Maefus, once more in his wizened lizardman shape. The dragons as a race seldom met outside of their natural forms, but for these two, secrecy was prized.
"So, what do you think," Maefus asked of his subordinate.
"I think you owe me an apology," Croag replied, biting into an apple, smoothing his brown tunic shirt. "I also think I can safely say something I've long suspected; our god was never really dead. The Destroyer likely trapped him in that pocket realm and sealed him inside."
"Perhaps that's what happened to Ovin Quilleth as well," Maefus postulated. He sipped at a cup of tea, set it on the end table in the abandoned, dusty study. He'd tracked Croag to Craeton's Bay, a ruined township in the far northeast, resting and taking his ease in an old manor house. The green dragon had been annoyed with his arrival at first, but when Maefus offered to speak of his meeting with their supposed god, Croag became much more amenable.
"King Ovin, yes. All of this really started with his disappearance," Croag said. "Possibly he and Gatech were seen as roadblocks to his plans for Ether."
"Why else would this realm's two most powerful creatures suddenly vanish in so short a time," said Maefus. "It makes perfect sense. And without their presence, we and the wee folk would naturally resume our warring with one another." Maefus snorted. "Ingenious. A masterful deception, and we did not even question it."
"How could we dare," Croag asked, sitting up. "He produced Gatech's heads! A ruse, I get that now, but too swiftly we accepted it as truth, and thus trapped ourselves!"
"Make no mistake, though, the Destroyer is too powerful for us," Maefus warned. "A direct confrontation would never work in our favor, especially since so many of our kin are now genuinely loyal to him. We are limited in our options."
"Well, what of the human and his companions," Croag asked. "Have we a means of finding them? You say the Destroyer is already expecting them. We could perhaps hasten that meeting." Maefus finished off his tea and shifted in his seat.
"We do have a way. I employ a shade, Dasren, and had him gather information about the human man for me. He touched the man's spirit, got a sense of him. He can track the aura down again, this I know."
"Where stays this shade?"
"In my lair." Croag got up briskly from the fainting couch and strode towards the window, sliding it open.
"Well, let us went, then, dear Maefus. The Destroyer may think them invulnerable, but you and I know the dangers this world could present far better than he." The green dragon leapt out the window, veering into his true form and taking flight. Maefus followed suit, and together, they winged through the skies.
Kathy felt the Boneyard when they were still a couple of miles from it, a lingering aura of magic and death that hung heavy on her mind, clung to her skin like grease. She mentioned this to Selena, who nodded, readjusting her artificial arm as they walked along.
"The corpses of dragons always retain a fragment of their power from life. Their bones are often used to craft enchanted weapons, armor, jewelry. Your dagger, for instance, was crafted from the spine of a black dragon. Additionally, dragon bones are the preferred building material of dwarves for their ritual halls."
"Wow," said Kathy. "So, are they not fans of dwarves, then?"
"Quite the opposite, actually," Selena said, clicking her arm back into place one final time. "Dwarves are the most respected faerie among dragonkind. The wyrms feel that dwarves most favorably honor them in both life and death, which is true. Some clans of dwarves even worship the same deities dragons do."
"How are they not loyalists, then?"
"Because the dwarves worship what dragons of old used to represent, not the creatures themselves," said Selena. "Dragons symbolized order, justice, and power once upon a time. Until their war with the wee folken, that is." Kathy shivered, now seeing the first great skeletons as they marched along.
"What precipitated that war, Selena? I mean, what's the official story?"
"Ah, that! Well, that's a long story in and of itself, but I shall offer you the abridged version. When faeriekind became numerous and showed signs of advancing beyond simple tribal groupings, the dragons declared them a threat to the order of magic in Ether. The wee folk disagreed, assigning themselves the role of our protectors. The dragon god Gatech declared war on fairies, pixies and sprites, brownies not having existed yet. The rest is a lot of details, but that's the short of it." Kathy tried to focus on the elven woman, on her words, but her senses felt dulled by the steady thrum of power emanating from the scores of bones and rotting dragon corpses they were now only twenty yards away from.
"And now? I mean, before, when I was here the first few times."
"A time of peace, several thousand years long," Selena said. "There are skirmishes now and then, but Gatech and King Ovin, along with Lady Voel, she who is Queen of all pixies, continually broker peace between dragonkind and fae. The wyrms had changed their attitudes toward faeriekind by and large before the Destroyer came. His arrival wiped away thousands of years of mutual understanding."
The company was now in the midst of the enormous bones and corpses, dozens of bodies represented. The stench was foul but bearable, and the sound of the wind blowing over the bones was like a low-pitched wail of sorrow, ceaseless, merciless. This is the sound of magic dying, Kathy thought. If Death speaks, this is his voice.
Daggeuro led the way unerringly to a patch of stony soil, partially covered by fragments of bone broken off and jumbled over top. He cleared these away with a wave of his hand and a guttural word Kathy didn't recognize, revealing the hinges and handle of a wide trapdoor. Selena waved her real hand toward it, and with a creak it opened, revealing a sloping tunnel leading underground.
The children bounded energetically down the ramp, followed by their four adult companions, who all clustered close as the door was shut behind them by more of Selena's magic. Torches flared alight along the walls, letting them see just fine. At the bottom of the ramp stood an open freight shaft and a pedestal with a glowing orange stone set on top. Selena pressed this, and Kathy heard something rising from below.
The platform that arrived was a wide slab of black stone at first glance, but when they stepped aboard, Kathy knelt down and looked closer, running her bare fingertips over the surface. It was carved dragonbone, she realized, the same exact kind as her dagger. She stood up, looked over at Selena, who grinned at her.
"As I said, much magic is made from them," the elven woman commented. Their descent was mild enough, lasting almost two whole minutes before the side of the shaft they'd entered on opened up once more, revealing the true Boneyard in all its glory.
"Holy shit," Byron rasped beside her. What sprawled out ahead of them was a metropolis easily three-quarters the size of Celia, an enormous city by Ether standards, which looked similar to New York City in architectural style and shape. The cavern gave off its own glow, a faintly bluish light, illuminating the subterranean city. Daggeuo stepped off first, turning with his arms spread out like a gameshow barker.
"Welcome, my friends, to the Boneyard."