It was impossible to comprehend all that she saw, so intense and varied was the activity. Nonetheless, its elements were clear. The dragon was wound on itself. Coil upon coil, edged back into the formless darkness. It lay still, except along one of its sides there opened and closed a vent of scales and flesh. From this came light and heat, timed to the cycle of beats of its many hearts. What astounded her was all the activity, oblivious to the danger. Scores of dwarves toiled on and around the worm. They had erected scaffolds, and metal gear wheels, and a massive maul, designed after the engine of a catapult. It pounded the rock with shuddering impact. They were mining at the very foot of the beast, reckless to their peril. The rock they mined was festooned with glistening treasure.
It was not rock such as men knew. The worm had vomited up a foul cement to protect its treasury during its long slumber. Hundreds of dwarves were working the stinking debris with picks and hammers. Jewels and gold, weapons and coins and silver crowns were in piles next to their work.
She thought them as foolish as the prisoners. They would doubtless delve here till they awoke the dragon.
Hafoc fluttered from her arm and sailed in slow wing sweeps into the darkness of the main tunnel ahead. She ran after him, oblivious to peril or time or direction.
A day or days later, Ara emerged from the cave on the south face of Everdivide. She was ravenous. She recovered in a dell of warm sunshine that preserved on the bushes a few berries. Fearful of time, she soon was on a pathway beneath golden-leafed aspens. In those groves the leaves fell lazily, like a gentle, season-changing rain of endless yellow drops. The air was full of flashes of color as the leaves floated like butterflies through the dappled sunlight. The carpeted trail welcomed them. Her feet made a swoosh-swoosh sound to mix with her laughter.
Her thirst grew in this glen, and she came upon a freshet splashing over rocks into a pool. It was smooth and reflected the light and color about her. She bent to drink, watching the water sport bright fans of red and gold.
And she saw in its depths a wonder: a young woman’s face peering back at her in amazement.
“That’s it! That’s me!” Cadence shouted, causing the other passengers to jump up and the bus driver to pump his brakes and regard her sternly in the mirror. Cadence knew that was Ara looking right at her in the pool. Cadence liked Ara, more and more. She felt a courage she could admire. She was confident she could stay to a path and detect a wolf-like presence, man or beast, as well as her halfling counterpart. She felt, finally, that she had embarked on her own journey. It would lead somewhere.
Her stop was coming up.
Chapter 25
OCTOBER 26. 3:44 P.M
The more Barren thought about it, his training days at Riker’s Island had been invaluable. He moved quickly to complete mastery of the guise and mien of residents of this clamorous village. It was all in preparation. He told himself he would, as always, complete his duty without hesitation or mercy.
His base skill set — stealth, lying, assassination — was fully intact. Long practice in the arts of concealment in the service of evil had honed these talents to the acute focus of an exquisitely sharpened blade. And yet, just yesterday, he had stayed his hand. Never before had he done such a thing. He knew that such weakness, once indulged, could infect its host with corrosive sentiment. So while he reprieved Cadence’s life for a few days, it was but a temporary stay.
He stood drab and unnoticed in a knit pullover cap, once again outside the West Forty-Fourth Street entrance to the Algonquin.
Cadence emerged, a plastic shopping bag in hand. Following a mere step behind her, he naturally assessed the quick kill he might execute without a break in his stride. But that was not the instruction for this errand. No.
Cadence, all but oblivious to his presence, rubbed the annoying tingle at the nape of her neck. She walked for another block, finally reaching Fifth Avenue. She bounded up the steps to the New York Public Library.
Barren followed, almost at her side, just another patron impatient to enter. He passed the stone lions, bemused by their inert and ineffectual presence. They were hardly the watchful gateway sentinels of the Valley of Shadows.
As he watched her, she checked at the information desk and then struck out, maneuvering hallways and perusing door numbers.
Cadence scanned the door numbers. There it was. 229. The office of the library’s paleographer. As long as she was subjecting herself to Les Inspecteurs, she was going to get more opinions. She knocked politely, heard a voice invite her in, and turned the door handle.
As she entered, a man in his late twenties, tall, lean, and wearing horn-rimmed reading glasses, got up from a desk and came to shake her hand. “Ms. Grande? Bossier Thornton.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Boe-sher. Cajun grandparents. With that last name you must have some French in your family?”
“I don’t really know. My pedigree is pretty fuzzy. American, I guess.”
“Can’t beat that. So.”
She took in his watch, smart not flashy, his shined shoes and trimmed hair.
“Thank you for seeing me on your day off.”
“That’s OK. I don’t really have any of those.”
“You look more like a detective than a forensic paleographer.”
He looked at her, surprised.
“The museum website. Your bio?”
“Well, you do your homework. Take your pick. Right now, I’m both. I can’t tell which job I’m moonlighting. Neither one pays much.” He smiled. “Sit down, please. Now show me the documents.”
In her bag was a scroll on a wooden spindle, along with some of Osley’s translations. She took the scroll and opened it. There before them, in the middle of an ornate forest of Elvish, lay the great rune that resembled an “A” with eyes and other filigree about it. Ara’s sign. Bossier put on rubber gloves and gingerly unrolled the entire scroll on a large plastic examination table. He weighted its corners and sides with beanbags. He flicked a switch and the table surface illuminated, giving a rich, yellow glow to the parchment. She watched his movements, the careful note-taking, the apparent cross-reference to his computer.
After awhile he looked up at her. “It’s a very old document or a very clever fake. I can give you a pretty clear answer right now, to about seventy per cent certainty.” He uncased a small digital device that looked like a hand-held scanner. “Behold the Mancuso Analytics 43. A test model. Wireless, non-invasive, no sample needed. Laser-enabled. Designed for quick analysis in the field and for national security uses. It’s a chemical and atomic variance reader. Uses Raman patterns. Instant and accurate enough for on-the-ground decisions. The real brains are in the 429-level server slaved to it.”
“Uh-huh.” She sounded dubious. “Sounds like Spock’s tri-corder.”
“Raman — no relation to Romulon and not a noodle dish. He was an Indian scientist. He won the Nobel Prize in 1928. In any case, put simply, it’s a digital bloodhound.” He held it up, his eyebrows lifting in question.
“OK, let’s do it.”
He ran the device over the middle of the document. A touch screen menu gave him access to several national databases. After a few moments he looked up at her.
“Unless someone had eight-hundred year-old ink and vellum, this is legit.”
Cadence blinked at him. “You’re finished? Already? And it’s real …”
Bossier nodded. “Yeah, you can’t fake this.”
She held her breath as she looked at him. “I’d been afraid to ask.”
“That’s just the science, of course. The real truth, the
