angling toward a large block of stone that rose out of the water and leaned against his foe's rocky perch. The great rep- tile raised its neck, turning its head to track his progress.
As the prince neared his goal, the wyvem lifted its wings as though to take flight, then abruptly let them fall and reluctantly gathered its legs beneath its bulk.
If he turned back now, the wyvern would be too weak to follow him, but Tang had no desire to flee. He wanted to rescue his mother, and to do that he had to slay this beast. He reached the boulder and clambered out of the water, then started up the slippery limestone. The wyvem peered over the top, then turned sideways and whipped its poison-tipped tail toward his chest.
Tang brought his halberd around, slapping the poison- dripping barb aside with the flat of the blade. In the same instant, he continued the motion, circling it over the top of the wyvern's tail and bringing the head up on the inside. Had he been fighting a man with a lance or spear, the maneuver would have sent his foe's weapon flying away. In this case, it twined his polearm into the powerful appendage. The prince clamped the shaft beneath his arms and held on tight.
The reptile pulled its tail back to strike again, jerking Tang up the boulder and swinging him across the stony ledge. He slammed into the cavern wall and nearly blacked out as the breath exploded from his body. The wyvern started to whip its tail back toward the boulder, nearly ripping the halberd from Tang's grasp, then real- ized it was dragging something and stopped. The mis- shapen head swung around and fixed an angry orange eye on the prince, who began to wish he had not been so rash when he had had the chance to flee.
Tang leapt over the tail, thereby freeing his halberd, and brought the blade around in a quick arc. The sharp edge slashed through the scaly tendril and sent the tail's poisonous barb skittering across the stones.
Even had he not felt the wyvem's hot breath washing over his back, Tang would have known what was coming next. He instantly pulled back, pushing the halberd butt into the air behind him, and smoothly switched stances so that he was facing the opposite direction. He found the wyvem's fang-filled jaws descending toward his head. The prince stepped forward to meet the attack, at the same time thrusting the butt of his weapon into the leathery ball lodged in the corner of the reptile's gaping maw.
The poison sack came loose and rolled deep into the wyvem's throat; then the beast's jaws snapped shut and severed the halberd shaft a hairbreadth above the prince's fingers. Tang started to shuffle backward, then saw a flash of motion in the corner of his eye and turned to dive off' the stony bench. The leathery wing caught him squarely in the back, launching him with such force that he sailed across the cavern and slammed into the far wall. His body erupted in pain; then he plunged into the black water.
Tang floated for a long time, too sore to breathe even if he had not been lying facedown in a pool of fetid swamp water. He ached from the tips of his fingers to the ends of his toes, which was probably a good thing, since it meant the wyvern's blow had not broken his back. He tried to take stock of other possible injuries, but everything hurt too much to tell if any particular bone was broken or out of joint. When the need to breathe finally grew suffi- ciently urgent, he tried to roll onto his back and discov- ered the water was only knee-deep. He gathered his legs beneath him and rose out of the water.
At first, Tang did not recognize the strange growling sound he heard and thought perhaps the wyvern was coming after him. Then he recognized it as his own voice, groaning in pain, and realized with a start that the voices of his dead soldiers had fallen silent. In the dim light, he could barely make out the figure of the great reptile across the cavern, lying on the ledge with its barb- less tail and one leathery wing dangling motionless over the side. There was a large black bulge near the top of its scaly neck, and the amorphous mass that had once been its head was so swollen that the flesh had split open.
'Two wyverns!' the prince whispered. 'Perhaps I am fool, but no longer am I coward!'
Even as he spoke them, Tang realized the words were not altogether true. There were many forms of cowardice, some more important than others, and he could not redeem himself through a single act of bravery. He turned toward the entrance of the cavern and bowed in deep respect.
'Listen, Yen-Wang-Yeh, Great Judge and King of Eighteen Hells.' Tang spoke loudly and clearly, so that his ancestors might hear his words as well. 'Listen and hear testimony of foolish Shou prince who squanders lives of General Fui D'hang and many dutiful soldiers…'
In the amber dawn light, even Ruha could see that the cart tracks led up the hill straight to the gloomy ruins of what had once been a many-spired fortress of hanging bartizans and dark hoardings. Tombor had driven through a grimy stream at the edge of the small wood where Vaerana had stopped the column, and the wagon wheels had left a pair of dark lines in the center of the dusty road.
'I should have guessed,' Vaerana growled. 'The Night Castle.'
'The Night Castle?' Ruha asked.
'We've chased cult assassins in there before,' Vaeranp explained. 'Whenever we do, the place fills with darkness. It'll be a hard thing to find Yanseldara's staff in that murk-especially if Cypress is there defending it.'
Ruha glanced toward the eastern horizon, where the shrines of Temple Hill were silhouetted against At'ar's blazing golden orb. 'The sun is rising; in a few minutes, my fire spells will be powerful enough to dispel even the thickest darkness.'
'That won't do us any good, I'm afraid.' Pierstar Hal- lowhand rode up to join Ruha and Vaerana. Behind him followed one of his gray-cloaked trackers and a bedrag- gled, long-bearded man who looked as frightened of his mount as he did the company of Maces gathered on the road. 'If the staff was there, it's gone now.'
'How can you know that?' Vaerana demanded.
'Longnose found a shepherd grazing his herd south of here.' Pierstar motioned his scout to bring the bedrag- gled fellow forward, then nodded to the man. 'Tell the Lady Constable what you saw last night.'
The fellow snatched his grimy cap from his head and began to wring it in his hands, then stared at the ground beneath Vaerana's stirrups. 'It was well past high night, ma'am,' he began. 'I was waked by me dogs howling, and I heard a bell ringing, only it was real deep.'
The man paused, which prompted Vaerana's gaze to snap toward Pierstar. 'I don't see what-'
'Let him finish,' Pierstar said. Then, to the man, he ordered, 'Go on, and be quick about it. Vaerana Hawk- lyn's not known for her patience.'
Looking more frightened than ever, the man blurted,
'It was maybe an hour later. My dogs went mad, an' I looked up and saw a dragon flying over. I thought I'd lost me herd an' me life too, but it just flew by.' He pointed toward the Night Castle. 'It landed in there. I'll tell you, ma'am, I rolled me blanket quick and started the herd for these woods, but the dragon was back in the air before I made a hundred paces-an' he was carryin' something real careful-like in his claws.'
'What?' Vaerana demanded. 'An oak staff with a big topaz pommel?'
It was Ruha who answered. 'No. Cypress would not trust anyone else with that staff. It had to be the ylang blossoms.'
'I don't know about your blossoms or your staff,' said the man. 'All I saw was a real fat cleric holding a big wooden cask, an' he looked about as scared as me.'
'Then we've lost the trail.' Vaerana did not curse or cry out; her shoulders simply slumped forward. 'Even if we knew where the lair was, we can't ride as fast as Cypress can fly.'
'We have lost the trail, but not the battle,' said Ruha.
'Minister Hsieh is pressing the real oil for us at the Gin- ger Palace. Perhaps we should go and retrieve it, when Cypress returns home and discovers that he has been deceived, he will come to us.'
Tang hurled the torch against the gray limestone, then sat upon a fallen stalactite to contemplate the back wall of the cavern. He had explored every nook, cranny and fissure without finding Cypress's lair. Not a single pas- sage large enough for a man, much less a dragon, led deeper into the mountain. The prince had even scaled a giant-high dropblock to peer into the ceiling's shadowy recesses, and he had seen nothing. It was as if Cypress vanished when he entered the cavern.
Given that the dragon was more dead than alive, that seemed entirely possible. Still, Tang had not yet searched one place, perhaps because if he found the passage there, he stood every chance of dying in it.
The prince retrieved his guttering torch and climbed down to the pool. On the far bank, the cavern did not end in a true wall. The ceiling simply angled down and disap- peared into the water, which was so fetid and brown with decay it was impossible to see a hand's span beneath the surface. The passage, if the cavern had one, could only be hidden there.
