The ground grew rockier as the path cut steeply toward the fjall. The children quieted. Many turned back although a few dogged his heels, too curious to stop. No adult followed him this far, although down the path he saw a dozen or more looking up after him. The trees became withered and stunted, and fell away altogether, leaving boulders and skirts of moss and a patchy carpet of lichen. He looked in vain for the youngest of the WiseMothers, climbing this path, but she had gone.
He crossed over the rim and onto the undulating plain that was the fjall. Snow dusted the open reaches, where the wind battered at all things. In the sheltered lee of boulders and along the uneven rise and fall of the earth, old snow had hardened. It was so cold that his footfalls resounded as his weight cut through the remains of last winter’s snowfall.
In the distance, where the land dipped into a hollow, the WiseMothers congregated. One more stood among them: she had reached her destination who was most recently OldMother, the one who spawned him and his brothers. He crossed the plain, slipping once where the snow concealed loose rock debris along a slight incline. The wind’s howl muted to a moan, and as he reached the edge of the circle the wind ceased altogether. The clouds cast a gray pallor over the day. Every object seemed muted and lessened. Even the WiseMothers looked, for an instant, like nothing more than big, unshapely stones fixed in an irregular oval around a sandy basin, whose smooth surface was untouched by snow or stick or even a wrinkled scrap of torn lichen. The hummock that marked the center had altered. Once, its curve had borne a pearlescent gleam. Now it sat with a kind of menace he could not describe. Corruption had infested it, turning it as black as charcoal, as though it had rotted from the inside out.
He shuddered, afraid, but of nothing he could touch or smell or hear or see. It seemed stupid to make his way across the sands in order to stand on a place that looked as likely to hold his weight as the deck of a ship eaten away by fire. The smell of sulfur made his eyes water and his skin itch. The stench actually seemed to ripple off the ground. He began to think he could see the stink rising in waves. That smell made him reel, gulping air and expelling it as quickly as he coughed and gagged and, at last, calmed his breathing.
Of the ice wyrms, he saw no sign, not even a tracery under the glitter of sand.
He stood for a long time, trying to decide what to do, and after a while he heard the whisper of the wind among the stones and after a longer while he realized that the wind remained becalmed and that these were voices tugging at him, faint and far off, receding as a traveler recedes as he sails away from shore.
“Your. Brother. You. Owe. Him. A. Debt. Is. It. Repaid.”
A life for a life. He knew what they spoke of.
“Go. To. Him. Now. Repay. This. Debt. Now.”
Now.
A sound cracked, as explosive as a heated rock splitting asunder. Not meaning to, he ducked. The air had changed, thickened, hardened until he could scarcely draw in breath. Wave upon wave of heated air rippled out of the hollow.
Their voices were as faint as the hiss of a feather falling.
“Our. Task. Is. Ended. You. Are. Now. Alone. Our. Children. Our. Children. Born. Of. Mute. Rock. Human. Flesh. Dragon’s. Blood. You. Must. Make. Your. Own. Way. Without. Us.”
A temblor eased through the earth. Its groan sighed like longing. The surface of the hollow shifted. In branching lines no wider than his claws, the sands poured away as though, underneath, tunnels were caving in. The black hummock snapped fiercely, so loud that the sound echoed off the far mountainsides. He heard it as through a vast chamber, down along a far-reaching path, multiplied over and over as if he heard not one sound but a hundred cracks each one of which sent him plummeting into the ancient past:
Screaming rage and pain, the dragons plunge. Before they reach the shelter of earth their hearts burst from the pressure of the great weaving. Their blood rains down on the humans who shelter against the stones. The hail of scalding blood burns flesh into stone, melding them into one being, born out of humankind, dragon’s blood, and mute stone.
A crack shivered across the surface of the hummock, widened, and without warning the slick black curve shattered into pieces. The hollow sagged and collapsed inward as a dark shape uncoiled out of the spilling sands.
Stronghand scrambled back from the brim, tripped over a rock, and fell to his rump as the hatchling reared up. It raised its golden head on a golden neck and with an effort unfurled moist wings, shaking them in the wind. It was as big as a warhorse, bigger, if more slender and equally graceful. Its eyes were like coals, black and fathomless. It swept its gaze over him without appearing to mark him as anything different than the stone and the sand and the tufts of lichen. It shook its wings, which spanned what was now a sinkhole. Flecks of an acidic spray spattered him, burning him, but he gulped down a cry of pain.