'Amrennathed is a dragon of amethyst, older and stronger than this mountain,' Arlon persisted. 'By all accounts, she came here a great wyrm and rarely left the lair she made for herself.' His voice rose with excitement. 'Don't you see? When you were a boy, she was practically beneath your feet, and you never knew.'
Bahrn was unconvinced. 'What does that have to do with Diadree?'
'Nothing,' Diadree interjected, but the wizard was smiling at her.
Arlon turned, murmured something Bahrn didn't hear, and stepped close to the cliff wall. The grass and dirt shifted, as if a swift, momentary breeze had passed over them, and Arlon lifted his arm into the air. He clutched a dirty scrap of cloth between two fingers.
Diadree made a small, constricted noise of fury in her throat. Bahrn recognized the piece of the old woman's bloodstained skirt. The breeze plucked the fabric out of his grasp and bore it on the air for several seconds before allowing it to float gently to the ground. The rush of air streaked away from the cliff and blew toward the back of Diadree's home, ruffling flowers and bushy plants from her garden in its wake.
'This way,' Arlon said, following the breath of magic.
A rocky outcropping rose up behind the small dwelling. The trail they had been following ended there, cut off by a steep climb up the rocks.
'A blood scent spell,' the wizard explained when Bahrn came up behind him. He pointed to the rock wall.
Puzzled, Bahrn walked farther around the outcropping.
Roots of small trees and brush sticking out from the cliff formed an ascending carpet of rough stepping places and handholds. Halfway up the roots were torn, and there was a dark stain dribbling down the rocks.
'You tried to climb this?' Bahrn asked, turning to Diadree. 'This is where you broke your ankle.'
'She must have been looking for something terribly important,' Arlon remarked. 'I wonder what it could be, Diadree.' His tone was conversational, but his eyes were fixed on the mountain, as if with enough force of will he could draw in and open the rock.
Murmuring under his breath again, he levitated up vertically along the cliff wall, steadying himself against the wind by grasping at outthrust rock.
'Follow him!' Diadree shrieked. She grabbed Bahrn's arm as the wizard disappeared from sight over the outcropping. 'She won't like it if he finds where she slept!'
'Who won't?' Bahrn asked, his patience rapidly thinning. 'Arlon's dragon? She's dead, Diadree, if ever she existed at all. Either way, she's not going to care who visits her grave.'
'He's looking to pick through whatever she might have left behind. That's what they do, don't you see?'
'If that's all he intends, he's welcome to…' He trailed off as Diadree's face went livid.
'Stupid, insolent child,' she spat. 'Why did you come back here-bringing a sniveling, arrogant, cult mage in tow!' She shoved at him. He half-expected her to reach for the nearest broomstick as she had almost two decades before.
Bahrn raised his hands. 'He hired me to bring him-for you. I didn't know what he was. Why does it matter what he takes?'
'Doesn't it matter to you? Of course, seeing your own home picked to bones by the vultures didn't seem to slow you, so why should I be surprised?' Diadree snorted with disgust and swiped at him again.
Deftly, he plucked both her fists out of the air and forced them away from his face. 'A pile of sticks, to my memory. I only came back to see if you were well.'
And if Arlon was a cultist, as Diadree claimed, he'd brought her much more trouble than he could have saved her by staying away.
Diadree's grip slackened, but her eyes remained raw. 'I don't understand you.'
Bahrn sighed and stooped, offering his broad back to the old woman. 'Neither do I, at the close of most days. I'll carry you, but only as far as the roots go up.'
Diadree closed her eyes briefly. 'Thank you.' She wrapped her thin arms around his neck and said, 'I was wrong. The years have changed you a little. You're much less a fool than you used to be, even if you are traveling with the Cult of the Dragon.'
'How do you know he's a cultist?' Bahrn asked as he began to climb. 'He's not mad, not like-' he stopped and clenched his jaw.
'Like me.' Diadree cackled. 'You turn the same open mind toward the world you did as a child, Bahrn. You'll want to be careful of that in the future. You've seen his look. Amrennathed knew ones like him would get around to coming after her eventually. She was prepared, don't you doubt it.'
Bahrn did doubt and refused to ask how an imaginary dragon might have prepared against the fanatical cult or how Diadree would know about it, but he felt compelled to make some argument.
'I am not the same boy you chased with a broomstick, Diadree,' he said.
'That's true. You didn't have this when you were a child.' She thumped his armor beneath her knuckles.
'I didn't have it because I was a child. I left Orunn when I was thirteen.'
The old woman shook her head impatiently. 'I mean your father didn't pass it on to you. Norint was a farmer.'
'Yes. I turned mercenary after he died.'
Bahrn glanced back as he felt her hand rest on his shoulder. Her fingers absently traced two of the spiral designs on his shoulder plate, carved into the metal like a second set of eyes. Inlaid with lapis lazuli, the swirling patterns appeared in mottled blue-white pairs all across his armor, contrasting sharply with his darkly tanned face and black mustache. Frankly, he enjoyed the superstitious notion of having extra eyes to guard him, though the patterns resembled no human or elf orbs he'd ever seen.
Watching Diadree stare into them was uncannily like watching a child gazing at her reflection in a mirror.
'Why did you stay, when everyone else had left the village?' he asked quietly.
She looked up, and smiled. 'Because I'm old. Bratlings and cult mages have driven me mad, and I'm too feeble to move on, no matter how hard the earth shakes my bones.'
'The tremors could have killed you,' Bahrn pointed out.
'Yes, but they were not her fault.' Diadree sighed. 'Be grateful at least one dragon managed to pass out of this world with so little fuss, boy.'
'You believe Amrennathed's death caused the tremors?'
'Why not? The power of a dragon dying-one so old and tightly linked to the earth-is bound to be felt, no matter how gentle she tried to be.'
'You wish to protect her memory.' Bahrn shook his head. 'Yet she destroyed Orunn-not in fact, but as a result of her death.'
'It was her time, and she chose to go as her dignity-greater than an army of greed-driven cultists-demanded. I can only hope to be offered that same grace someday.' Diadree tensed. 'Careful now, the mountain's about to have another fit.'
'What-? ' Bahrn cursed as the rock beneath his fingertips shifted, and began to tremble. Metal armor rattled against stone, jarring both of them, but Diadree seemed at peace with it.
Hooking an arm around the thickest root he could reach, Bahrn pulled the old woman in close until the shaking slowed and finally subsided.
'How did you know?' he asked when the rock was firm beneath them again.
Diadree didn't answer. When he craned his head around to look at her she was gazing back down at her house. From the high vantage, Bahrn saw that a section of the roof had collapsed in on itself.
'Diadree,' he pressed, and she blinked and turned away from the sight.
'Keep climbing,' she said. 'We're almost there.'
Bahrn followed her eyes to a ledge snugged against the cliff several feet above them. At its back hung a tunnel.
Diadree slid off onto the ledge when they reached the top. There was enough room for both of them to stand comfortably outside the tunnel. Squinting into the darkness, Bahrn thought he caught the glimmer of tiny lights.
'Arlon!' he called out, but the lights didn't move. He slipped a torch from the pack on his shoulder and spent a moment lighting it. When he raised the flaming end inside the passage, Diadree was already several steps ahead
