The Dragon's Eye Page 6

  The weight on her neck must have been agonizing. Breath hissed between her clenched teeth, but she was going to make it.

  Then Abeke screamed.

  Beside Rollan, Uraza leaped to her feet, her yowl echoing throughout the cave. Abeke winced, glancing down at her shin.

  “The ants!” she shouted.

  They’d climbed the stilts, and the boldest were making their way up her boot. Abeke stomped down hard to try and shake them off. A few fell, but more hung tenaciously on.

  Rollan’s heart leaped as he watched his friends teetering so close, but so far. Too many Greencloaks had died for him already. He couldn’t bear to see Abeke and Conor swallowed by ants for him and Essix. “Abeke, come on!” Rollan hollered, straining his hand out.

  But it was too much to handle. The weakened knots, the weight of Conor, the ants. Abeke missed her next rock and the right stilt pitched hard. Suddenly both she and Conor were tilting. Conor tried to grab a nearby rock, but only brushed his fingers along it.

  A hand shot past Rollan’s face, locking around Abeke’s collar. Rollan saw Meilin straining to hold their friends up as she gripped Uraza by the tail. The cords in Meilin’s neck stood out, and Uraza looked about as unhappy as he’d ever seen her, but it had bought them some time.

  Rollan quickly wrapped his arms around Meilin’s waist and pulled. Together, they put every ounce of will into pulling their fellow Greencloaks out of the sea of ants.

  With a terrified bellow, Conor jumped off Abeke and clawed his way onto the ledge.

  Relieved of his weight, Meilin easily pulled Abeke up, even as the knots on her stilts finally frayed apart.

  “The ants!” she shouted, and the three others quickly swatted them off and tossed them away. Abeke’s calves were bright red and bleeding from the small bites, but she was alive. Miraculously, they all were.

  Conor grinned at her. “Nice job, pony girl.”

  Uraza glared at him, rubbing her face against Abeke’s arm, but the girl merely laughed.

  “Neigh!” she said.

  “WHAT IS THAT NOISE?” ASKED MEILIN. “IT SOUNDS LIKE thunder.”

  Rollan paused to listen. “Underground?”

  Meilin checked on her companions. Abeke was retying the bandage around Conor’s ankle. Rollan looked anxious. How much time had passed? Was it an hour, or did they still have time to get back and save Essix?

  But they couldn’t go back empty-handed. They needed the Dragon’s Eye.

  Then what? Meilin hated the idea of Song having her hands on something so powerful, yet she couldn’t allow Essix to be killed. It was bad choices either way.

  Conor stood up and tested his weight on his injured foot. “That’s not too bad.”

  Abeke agreed. “The swelling’s gone down. And nothing’s broken.”

  Meilin gestured along the tunnel. “Shall we move on?”

  The noise grew louder, from a thunder to a deafening roar. The tunnel itself filled with mist as they moved cautiously along. The walls and ceiling dripped moisture, collecting in puddles.

  Then, foot by foot, the tunnel ended and the source of the cacophony was revealed.

  Rollan gasped. “Wow.”

  A waterfall roared just before them. Meilin and the others stood in a side exit, winding out from behind the fall. The tumbling wall of water cascaded down, creating the earsplitting din.

  Meilin peered up, trying to find the source of all this power. “There must be a crack in the roof of this cavern. There are plenty of rivers draining out into the sea; this one’s just underground.”

  Abeke balanced on the lip of the tunnel opening, looking over. “There’s a pool down below.”

  That made sense. Meilin nodded. “It collects there, running off through other cracks into the sea.”

  Conor hobbled up beside her. “The last challenge?”

  “Let’s hope so.”

  There was something else down there. Through the ever-changing sheet of water, Meilin could see there was some sort of platform far below, too neat and angular to be natural. And what was on it? A mosaic? But of what? She could just about make out two figures, both with some sort of scaled skin. One was a creature, the other a man. A scaled man?

  No, it wasn’t skin but armor, the scale mail worn by Zhongese warriors from centuries past. And the creature was a water dragon—just like the one she’d seen out on the beach—but this creature was immense.

  “If the Dragon’s Eye is anywhere, it’ll be here,” she said. “That’s a shrine below. Dedicated to the ancient hero who created the bond token.”

  Conor brightened. “Then let’s climb down and grab it.”

  “Will you mange with that leg?”

  “It’s not like I have any choice, is it?”

  Meilin glanced over the edge. It was a long way down. Water trickled over the rocks, making each one slippery. She worried for Conor. For all of them, really.

  Rollan was already dangling over the ledge, looking for somewhere to plant his feet. “We can’t waste time up here.” Purchase found, he started his descent. Abeke followed and then Conor, winking first. Meilin sighed and took a deep breath.

  Don’t think about the distance, the drop. Take it one inch at a time.

  Water sprayed over her back as she took to the rocks. It ran between her fingers and along her arms until she was soaked through—and she hadn’t even gone ten feet. Meilin didn’t look down to check the others. She needed to concentrate on footholds and handgrips on the route down.

  The noise of the water tumbling past, just a few feet away, vibrated all the way through to her bones.

  Meilin had always been a talented climber. Heights never really bothered her—until their encounter with the Dasat of Nilo. Now unbidden images assailed Meilin, of archers aiming at her from below. She saw rocks tumbling from above.

  And worst of all, she saw herself falling: except this time there was no Heart of the Land to save her.

  Meilin’s fingers ached.

  How much farther?

  “Hey! Meilin! You all right?” shouted Conor.

  “No. Not really,” muttered Meilin, resting her forehead against the cliff face.

  “What?”

  “I’m fine!”

  “It’s not much farther, that’s all.”

  She just wanted it to be over. Meilin glanced down.

  Her head swam. The others were waiting on the platform, waving up at her, but it looked like miles away!

  She felt as if she hadn’t moved at all, imagining the ledge was just a foot above her.

  But it wasn’t. It was just as far above her as the ground was below. She’d frozen in the middle of the climb.

  Take a moment, gather yourself, then continue.

  But Meilin couldn’t force herself to move. Her fingers were numb, both from the effort of gripping and the cold water washing over them. Her soaked-through clothes weighed her down, so each limb moved sluggishly.

  Panic set in. Meilin’s heart raced. She couldn’t still her hands from shaking. It was too far.

  “You can do it, Meilin!” yelled Abeke.

  She wanted to shout back at them to leave her alone!

  Meilin stared at her left hand, forcing it to open. One by one, her fingers unclenched and she moved to a lower hold.

  That’s it. One ledge at a time.

  There were plenty. She stretched out a foot, first balancing on the tips of her toes, then setting down her whole foot.

  There. Now—

  She cried out as her foot fell away underneath her. Her grip went and suddenly Meilin was hanging on by two fingers.

  Abeke screamed.

  Meilin stared at her hand. Water poured over her fingers and down her arm, dripping off her soaking sleeve. She saw the cracks along the wall and wondered why she hadn’t picked a better place to hold on. She gasped as the water pounded against her.

  Then, with awful inevitability, she watched as her fingers slipped from the rock.

  Meilin’s hold fail
ed, and she was struck by the full power of the falling river as she tumbled into the cold, dark water.

  She slammed into the pool hard. The momentum of the water spun her over and over, pushing her down deeper.

  Meilin fought back, but it was no use; the churning waters totally dominated her. She forced her mouth closed, so as not to gulp in a mouthful of water. She needed what little breath she had. Meilin didn’t know which way was up. She couldn’t see anything in the surging mass.

  Then a hand grabbed her. She instinctively latched onto the thick wrist as she was pulled.

  Who was it? Conor?

  But her hair covered her face, and she put all her energy into kicking along.

  Meilin’s lungs burned. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could hold on. What if Conor drowned, too?

  Then she broke the surface and gasped. How sweet the air tasted! It cooled her chest as more hands took hold and pulled her fully out of the water.

  Coughing and gasping, Meilin lay down on the stone. She’d never been more thankful for solid ground!

  As she wiped the water from her eyes she glimpsed a large figure sitting beside her.

  “Kofe?” she sputtered. “You’re alive!”

  “Seems so.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “You saved me.”

  “Wasn’t me. Not with this.” He showed her his bandaged leg. Seemed Kofe had also had some trouble on the rocks. “It was him who saved you.”

  Confused, Meilin got to her feet. She was shivering in the chill of the cavern, but she was alive. “Him? Who?”

  “Him.”

  She turned around.

  The figure wore ancient scaled armor, the metal shimmering brilliant green and gold. He carried a curved sword with a jade handle in an ornate sheath made of black serpent skin. His long, dripping black hair hung over half his face, but he smiled at her.

  Enjoy your swim, young lady? The man spoke Zhongese, but in a dialect she didn’t recognize.

  “Who are you?” Meilin hacked. She was still coughing up water.

  I should ask who you are, disturbing my rest.

  “Rest?” Meilin asked, dazed. How was there someone living down here? It felt as if her head was full of water. If she tilted sideways, maybe it would all pour out.

  “Uh … Meilin,” Conor interrupted. He and the others were climbing into the cavern from the water, looking about as bedraggled as Meilin felt. “We can’t hear anything that guy is saying. I think he’s probably …”

  Meilin’s mouth fell open as realization dawned.

  The man smiled softly. I am Xin Kao Dai, the guardian.

  “The guardian?” she asked. “Of what?”

  He pulled back his hair, revealing the hidden half of his face. Of this.

  Meilin gasped.

  The man’s left eye was a brilliant emerald.

  They’d found the Dragon’s Eye.

  I called her Dancer Across Moonlit Waves, said the guardian, gesturing to the water dragon image at their feet. Dancer for short.

  Meilin shook her head. “She must have been enormous. I’ve never see a water dragon so large.”

  The guardian merely shrugged. We had many great adventures together. I lost my eye in one of them. Truth be told, I thought my adventuring days were over. But then we discovered the secret of bond tokens. A grateful emperor, I forget his name, had given me this jewel for saving his daughter, whose name I’ve also forgotten. The spirit smiled sheepishly. It seemed a fitting item to become our token. The Dragon’s Eye was rather special. It not only made me more powerful, but Dancer, too.

  Meilin sat cross-legged, captivated. She’d called out Jhi, and the giant panda was now wrapped around her, warming Meilin. All around her, her friends watched the spirit, while Conor helped tend to Kofe’s leg.

  “You said your name is Xin Kao Dai,” Meilin said. “But that’s the name of this city.”

  They named a whole city after me? How embarrassing. The spirit ducked his head humbly, but Meilin still thought he looked a bit pleased with himself.

  “To be honest, your name was lost to time,” Meilin said. “But the legends of you and your spirit animal have lived on. You know how to make bond tokens?”

  Of course. That’s something I haven’t forgotten. I recorded the method, though of course it’s extremely dangerous. The scroll still sits in a jade tube within my chambers.

  Meilin sat up. “Please,” she said, “come with us. Help us defeat Song. The Oathbound have other bond tokens, stolen from our order. We can’t let her have the Eye.”

  My time has gone, Meilin, said the guardian sadly. Dancer swims in a distant sea, far beyond this world. I’ve been waiting to join her. What marvels we’ll see there.

  Meilin heard the longing in his voice. She knew how powerful a spirit animal bond could be—just the feeling of Jhi pressed against her filled her with reassurance. Yet the guardian talked about it with such ache that she felt tears growing. “Why haven’t you joined her?”

  I’ve been waiting. He laughed. For you, apparently. Not quite the heroes I had in mind, but the Great Panda Jhi is with you. I feel entirely happy. You will do well.

  “We can’t take your eye!” exclaimed Meilin. “It’s, well, your eye!”

  Xin Kao Dai sighed. The things I wish to see are beyond mortal sight, young lady. He stood up and faced the waterfall. We must not linger, small warrior. You have places to be, as do I.

  “Yes,” Meilin responded with little enthusiasm. “We’ve still got to get all the way back.”

  The guardian smiled. There is a secret route back to the entrance. It would be unfair to force you to go through the trials all over again in reverse.

  “Secret route?” asked Meilin, feeling more relieved than she could have imagined. The climb down had almost done her in, and the prospect of having to climb back up had chilled her through. “Where?”

  The guardian clapped once.

  The sound echoed around the tall underground cavern, multiplying again and again, until it sounded from all directions. It was as if hundreds of hands were clapping, thousands even.

  The water parted. It did not stop, nor lessen in power, but separated into two jets, opening up a gap right into the cliff face.

  And a large doorway. Lights shone from within.

  “You live there?” asked Meilin.

  When there was no reply she looked around.

  The guardian had vanished.

  The others were just as bewildered, but Rollan stepped toward the new opening. “Essix is running out of time.”

  The chamber behind the waterfall was immense. Statues lined either side of the doorway. Meilin and the others entered in solemn silence. There was a single light shining from the darkness of the roof, but Meilin couldn’t work out the light source. It shone steadily upon a throne of pure white jade.

  Supported by Conor and Rollan, Kofe limped behind. He took a deep breath and let out a low whistle. “Will you look at that?”

  Upon the throne sat a dusty skeleton in rusted scale armor. In one hand, the figure held a sword, in the other an ornate scroll tube.

  And within the eye socket of the skull rested a glowing green gem.

  The Dragon’s Eye.

  “WHERE ARE THEY?” DEMANDED SONG. “THEY’RE UP to something. I know they are.”

  She shifted her attention to the hour candle. There wasn’t much of it left.

  Had they failed, too?

  Song spun around at the Oathbound. “You must go in and find me the Dragon’s Eye. Now. That’s an order!”

  Sid shifted awkwardly. He gazed over at Kana.

  “Don’t look at her,” Song snapped. “I am in charge. Do as I say.”

  Kana approached. “Song, there’s still time on the candle. They may still return with the Dragon’s Eye.”

  “They had better,” muttered Song.

  Cordelia leaned against the cavern wall, the Wildcat’s Claw unsheathed. The Heart of the Land hung from Kana’s neck, and Sid wore
the Stormspeaker crown with a look of smug satisfaction.

  Song circled the chamber jealously. This plan had been her idea, and yet she was the one without a bond token. What had the Oathbound done to garner such treasures? Merely followed her orders. They had sacrificed nothing.

  A sharp pain cut her heart as she thought of her father.

  That had been necessary. He was a weak ruler and a merciless father. Zhong would become great again with her on the throne.

  The throne …

  She didn’t dare tell the others, but the nightmares were getting worse. They were coming every night now, getting stronger, more vivid, bloodier.

  He would be sitting there, on the throne, covered in those awful wounds. He would just sit there, looking at her with cold, accusing eyes.

  Song wanted to destroy the throne, to toss it through the window and let it sink to the bottom of the sea. It would be cathartic, but she suspected it wouldn’t stop the dreams. Her father would just appear again, elsewhere. She heard his footsteps in the corridors, glimpsed him from the corner of her eye. She’d see him momentarily walking along the gardens, blood dripping on the flowers.

  He could be here right now.…

  “I did what I had to do, don’t you understand that?” she muttered.

  “Song?” Kana frowned. “Did you say something?”

  “Where are they?” snapped Song.

  The falcon shrieked from her cage.

  “Oh, shut up,” Song said exasperatedly. “You’re even worse than Seaspray!” Kana put her hand on Song’s arm, and she flinched. She cast her gaze over at the candle. “They don’t have long.”

  “Why so impatient? You want the Dragon’s Eye, don’t you?”

  “What sort of question is that?” Song faced Kana. “It’s my destiny to have it. I have a water dragon, just like the ancient hero. I’ve read the old stories of what he did, what the Eye is capable of.” She smiled. “Once I have it, no one will be able to stand against me.”

  Kana frowned. “Don’t you mean us? Remember our deal, Song. We’ve been planning this together. If it wasn’t for the Oathbound, your father would still be emperor.”