"So do you have anyone you're... interested in?" the vixen asked.
"No," Warrav grumbled. "Must you persist in pestering me?"
"But there is nothing interesting to even look at on this journey," Jadere huffed, "and I need something to take my mind off this blasted sun! How do you stand it, with black feathers like yours? I'm shedding like a hare!"
She was hardly joking. Whenever she reached up to brush her arms, little clouds of white hair wafted away, or else stuck to her sleeveless, copper-colored robe or leather pack. And all there was to see was an endless expanse of sand so bright, it nearly looked like snow.
Black feathers or no, if the raven had a problem with the heat of the desert, he did not show it. His white shirt and tan breaches were stained with dust. The sash around his shoulder and waist was such a gaudy a shade of yellow, it could still put a lemon to shame. It was as though even the sand was deterred by such a hurtful hue to gaze upon. "It was your decision to come to this hemisphere and explore Aldaian ruins. Not my fault your body thinks it's summer."
"Oh, but it's winter in my homeland," the fox exhaled. "Surely there is something you might be interested in discussing? What about Aldaian architecture?"
"I said no." Warrav's wing lowered to his side, his primary feathers slipping past his hip as the scaly fingers just past the wing joint found their way into a pouch at his waist. His beak hovered over the compass he retrieved. He turned about, walking backwards briefly as he checked the direction of their tracks to ensure their course had remained true.
And for just a moment, he met the eyes of the third member of their private expedition.
"And what about your sister?" Jadere questioned. "She's been awfully quiet back there."
The second raven sighed softly, hugging her wings around her bust, not quite able to ignore the fact that in doing so, the feathers only served to make her feel even hotter. Her cream-colored robe seemed so thin as to be immodest, especially given her curves. She saw Jadere was slowing down to fall back with her, so the raven ducked her head and let her hood slip a little further over her face, and a beak that was noticeably stubbier than Warrav's.
"Well, Xavi?" The fox ducked to peek under the hood and meet one of her big, black eyes. "Have you ever had a... significant other?"
Xavi's tongue writhed in her beak. One wing broke away from her chest, splaying open before her while her scaly fingers tracing a sigil in the air. And when her beak opened, it was to cite a curt incantation. Then she folded her arms again.
The raven girl had placed a deafness spell upon herself. Jadere shook her head. She opened her muzzle, a dispelling incantation upon the tip of her tongue. But she thought better of it. Taking the hint and leaving Xavi alone, she tried again to oust some interesting reaction from Warrav.
The raven girl left the spell active; she was sick of listening to her brother and the vixen mage he'd partnered with for this expedition. Xavi had asked to come along for a respite from her studies in magic. But if the whole trip was going to be like this, she was going to regret it dearly.
If she was honest with herself, she had not come to get away from the libraries libraries and studies - she did not mind learning her chosen trade. Her fellow students were another matter entirely. It was no accident she excelled firstly in illusion and soon chose to specialize in it: she gained a great deal of extracurricular practice. Hiding her belongings from those who would extort them after one fashion or another became a regular chore.
At least they would supposedly be arriving at the Aldaian ruin shortly.
Warrav's estimation of "shortly" turned out to be several hours yet. By then, the sun had sunk and a slight breeze had carried off the worst heat of the day. Though, even to Xavi, it was only the difference between miserably hot and just plain too hot.
Her deafness spell having worn off a while back, she was absently listening to her brother and the white vixen debating rather heatedly. The subject was the authenticity of some of some writer or another who had been one of Jadere's sources on Aldaian culture. It seemed the only way the fox could get Warrav to actively participate in conversation was to get him into an argument. They both seemed quite in their element sliding in edgewise implications of rather disgusting insults. Xavi knew Warrav did it habitually, but the fox seemed to be making a game out of it.
Finally, though, there was something on the horizon. A stout-looking, winding cliff of gnarled, reddish rock, maybe twenty feet high and at least a league in length. The party of three encroached at a bit of an angle, and when they were close enough to make out the general shape of the rock formation, Warrav consulted a map and adjusted their angle toward the recession in which the ruins rested.
As the sun hovered over the rock face, Xavi wished they could just hurry at the nearest section of cliff and travel in the shade from there. She was surprised Jadere didn't even suggest it - perhaps she was more desperate to defend the credence of her sources than she let on? Xavi sighed a bit, but went unnoticed.
At last they approached what was left of a city, tucked away between the curves in the natural rock just where Warrav said it would be.
It struck Xavi just how much the buildings reminded her of nothing so much as a forest of thick trees and huge mushrooms. Most structures of any notable size, the tops widened into broad roofs which seemed to be flat on top. Many such roofs were too broad to be held by just the building below, and supports rose to hold them aloft. Here a pair of pillars rose to support a single point in a curvaceous 'A', while there another stood alone and branched into a vaulting 'Y'. Sometimes these pillars rose from smaller buildings, and the longer she looked, the harder it became to define any given cluster of buildings from the next, they were so intwined. And high above, the wide roofs were interconnected with myriad bridges flat enough to be roads.
"Aqueducts," Jadere muttered, lifting her eyes. "Their roofs caught rainwater and channeled it into underground reservoirs. I told you Rasliv was right! This is eighth era architecture for sure."
"Rasliv's work was purely speculation," Warrav grunted, "It looks like eighth, but all evidence points to Aldaian interest in the mannathar crystals rising only in the ninth era - and that was the only conceivable reason they would have planted a city here."
"Speaking of mannathar," the vixen cooed, "don't forget, we should we get our hands on some of that..."
"You'll get your cut of any artifacts; quit worrying. We've been over that."
"Just checking."
Xavi rolled her eyes at the two as they passed into the shade of the first structures. The closer she looked, the more impressed she was: there was no single flat surface that didn't seem to have a groove somewhere. Not even the road; to either side of the flagstones, little gutters ran along either side of it, though for what purposes she could hardly begin to guess. She was impressed the flagstones had barely begin to break apart after... How long this city had been abandoned? She didn't feel like asking Warrav.
Behind the forest of arches and mushroom roofs, it seemed more had been built and dug into the rock face itself.
"Let's see if it's any cooler in there," Jadere suggested. "If so, we should set up camp in one of those..."
"Not so fast." Warrav was pointing. In the sand by the side of the road, dozens of sets of tracks in the sand. Someone - or something - had come and gone quite regularly. Something with four claws on its feet.
Jadere examined them sharply. "Reptiles? They're about the right size and shape. Outlaws perhaps? Smuggling Aldaian artifacts?"
"We don't know anything yet. Could be a feral animal." Warrav glanced back at Xavi. "Any ideas?"
Xavi stared. They were asking her? She gathered her thoughts, but shook her head quickly. "I don't..."
The fox's chanting interrupted her. A moment later, with energy shimmering in the air, a translucent, feral hound appeared by Jadere's side. "Here, he can scout for us. Can you make him invisible?" She directed the question at Xavi.
"What?"
"Invisible? If there are brigands about, I'd sooner know before they know about us. You're the illusionist, dear."
Xavi shook her head. "N-No, universal invisibility is really quite complicated. Even more so on a magical construct. Sorry, I... I can't. It could affect your conjuration... adversely..."
"Alright, alright," Jadere huffed. "You only have to say it once." With a quick command, she sent the spectral hound to check the tracks. "Best to be cautious, now."
Warrav scanned the path ahead, his eyes settling on a three-sided obelisk at a crossroads. In addition to a groove through the middle of each weathered facet, vertical rows of broad glyphs were etched into its surface. Warrav sighed, but tore his eyes from it, muttering a curse as he drew a long knife from his belt. Caution came before translation.
Xavi shuffled her wings, not looking forward to participating in her first real fight, if it came to that. She would if she had to, and mentally braced herself for the possibility. Inflicting temporary blindness was debilitating enough, and quite simple at her level.
The wraithlike hound lifted its head from the reptilian tracks and growled at a side-street. Jadere dusted her hands in a businesslike manner and beckoned the others as she followed it.
The conjuration lead the trio through the old city, weaving through pillars here and following roads there, whatever it was following obviously taking the straightest route toward the cliff face. Their destination, as soon became clear, was one of the structures built into the cliffside.
Partly constructed and partly carved into the cliff was a sweeping row of tall, broad facades, each several stories high and much wider still. Xavi thought they bore the kind of grandeur one would seek for a bank, an esteemed guild, or even a high noble's estate. High overhead, wide balconies jutted from some, with decorative arches and engraved pillars sweeping down from them
The doorway the hound led them to was flanked by such pillars. Rather than perfectly rectangular, the yawning entry narrowed noticeably at the top, enhancing the sense of height as the group stepped warily through it. The antechamber beyond was similarly pinched toward the ceiling. Buttresses ribbed the walls down the length of the chamber as it stretched into darkness. Tarnished braziers stood in between each buttress, save where some had been knocked over or gone missing entirely.
Again, Jadere's hound growled, the sound echoing into a monstrous rumble in the enclosed space. Metal clanged, and every eye was drawn to a toppling brazier. From behind it, around the buttress' corner, appeared a form clad in white scales.
It was a four-legged creature with wings: unmistakably a dragon. It froze as its eyes found the threesome staring at it.
Such big eyes, Xavi thought. Like a cat's, except they were the kind of pastel green one would find on the underside of a leaf.
Jadere began to chant.
"No, wait!" Xavi yelped.
The dragon, unfrozen in a blink, scrambled away from the group. The conjured hound leaped after it, baying wildly.
"Wait, it hasn't done anything!" Xavi grasped at Jadere's shoulder. The fox's attention flagged, and she gasped as her spell slipped through her mental fingers. Her hound paused in its tracks, glancing uncertainly back between its master and Xavi.
The white dragon flared out one wing, skidded to a stop, and tore down a side-passage lost in the gloom ahead.
Jadere slapped Xavi's wing away, rounded on the raven girl. "You let it get away!"
"No, she's right," Warrav intoned in his usual grumble, his eyes remaining on the point the dragon's tail had vanished. "That's no brigand, that's a resident. And it doesn't look interested in contesting with us. I'd say the likelihood of it being a threat is low, unless it gets the idea we're hostile and becomes desperate."
Jadere huffed but nodded. "Alright, so I got... caught up in it. The thing's probably too young to be much of a prize, anyway."
"Young?" Xavi echoed questioningly.
"Yes, young," the fox responded evenly. "Did you see how small it was? Adult dragons are supposed to get positively huge! House-sized or more."
Actually, Xavi might have thought it rather intimidating just as big as it was; judging by the height of the braziers, the dragon's shoulders would be level with her own chest. Still, Jadere had a point. "How old... do you think it was, then?"
"Don't know. Never asked a dragon how quick they grew. Never met one, at that. Though, I don't know, maybe there are different breeds, some smaller than others."
"In any case," Warrav interjected, "why don't we have your hound sniff around, and if he doesn't find any other scents, we assume the dragon is the only local. If that be the case, we proceed as planned, because if that thing runs from your hound, it isn't likely to bother us much."
"If that's little more than a hatchling, though," Jadere protested, "its parents could be right around the corner."
"And that is why we are checking for other scents, are we not?"
"Fair enough."
Xavi's gaze wandered from the fallen brazier to the dusky passage down which the dragon had fled. Why? Why had it run?
Warrav came to dig up history. Jadere was interested, too, but she seemed more piqued by Aldaian artifacts. But Xavi? She was just here to get away from the rest of her life for a brief while, but now that she was here she really couldn't offer much to Warrav or Jadere besides her magic. She had no other purpose, and her curiosity swelled to fill the gap. Perhaps she could...
"Xavi? Xavi!" Jadere repeated, finally returning the raven's attention to the present. "We're going." The fox gestured with a paw toward Warrav and the hound, already just outside the building's entryway.
With a sigh, Xavi nodded; best to stay together until they determined whether that dragon really was the only threat.
"Xavi?"
"What?" She snapped at the fox.
Jadere's eyes softened. "You were right. I just reacted, but you were right. Thank you for stopping me."
"Oh." The hard edge left Xavi's tone. "You're... welcome."
With a smirk, Jadere brushed Xavi's wing as she passed, then jogged after Warrav.
"Ugh!" The vixen exclaimed the moment she stepped back into direct sunlight. "Alright, sooner we check out the place, the sooner we can get back indoors! You almost don't notice coming in, but when you come out..."
"Let's find a well," Warrav suggested. "Anything living around here would have to have water. Let's check the central plaza."
"It's eighth era construction! They'd have several smaller plazas, but none significantly larger than-"
"Oh really? What do you call that?"
"Well, I'll be."
Xavi chuckled at the bickering pair. Her steps followed after them, but her thoughts were far away.
* * * * *
The only other scents Jadere's hound picked up were small animals - rats and snakes, mostly. As it turned out, there were wells in most plazas, and as they checked each one, Warrav and Jadere arguing whether the largest plaza could properly be considered "central" in the same sense as those of ninth era Aldaian ruins.
Or something like that. Xavi wasn't listening too intently.
They were, however, able to agree the dragon seemed the only potential danger. So long as they left it alone, they expected the dragon to ignore them in turn. As such, they were free to explore, but for the most part they all stayed within shouting distance. At Jadere's suggestion, they began indoors, and chose the largest structure built into the cliff face to begin their respective hunts. Warrav and Jadere quickly decided it was likely the seat of government.
No sooner had Warrav begun to translate some promising-looking tablets that might provide a clue toward the history of the ruin, Jadere grabbed him and dragged him to a broad door that was "clearly an eighth era puzzle vault," and "worth translating the lock puzzles immediately."
Xavi wanted to find the dragon, but she was not so foolish as to do so unprepared. While the others worked, she sat on the floor nearby and came up with a plan. Once it was set in her mind, she leant over, mouthing words of magic and tracing sigils around her feet.
It was a common misconception that illusionists could make themselves invisible. In truth, they could not. Illusion magic affected minds. Blotting out a sensory perception was one thing. But altering one - especially sight - was a far more intricate process. Xavi was adept with the basics of 'invisibility' - removing herself from the target's perception, filling the gap with what the target remembers or expects to see in her place.
It was another matter entirely to weave a magical construct to first detect, then effect, any mind about to perceive her. This kind of 'universal' spell was an order of magnitude more complicated than the basic spell. Xavi could make herself 'invisible', but only to an individual she could already target. That meant she had to see the target.
The sense of hearing, however, was far more straightforward by comparison. Therefore, she was weaving a universal construct that would strike from any mind all sound originating within a certain radius of her feet. She could walk, run, or jump as though silent. "Muffling," as it was called in circles of illusionists.
Recalling a rather practical trick she'd seen in a few of her spellbooks, Xavi wove a small piece into its detection phase which would alert her when it reacted to a mind about to perceive her. She would know when the dragon was close enough to hear her.
By the time she completed her spell, Warrav and Jadere had solved the first of seven seals that made up the locking mechanism on the vault. Xavi got to her feet, smiling to herself as her talons clicked on the floor. She got two alerts that her spell had affected: Xavi and Jadere. She herself was unaffected by her spell.
She was a bit startled that she didn't get any more than twenty feet down the hall before she was alerted again - but it was a rat, scurrying into a hole as soon as it noticed her. It hadn't relied on sound; more likely it had seen or smelled her.
Smell! Xavi would have to be sure the dragon didn't pick up her scent, either. This was unfortunate, because Xavi had little doubt the dragon's sense of smell would be superior to a raven's; it was nearly impossible to emulate a depth of perception you couldn't experience yourself.
Her plan wasn't perfect, and she knew it. But she had gotten this far already.
She decided the place to start was the building they'd first seen the dragon. She dared not bring a lantern or anything - that would surely draw the dragon's attention before she worked her invisibility spell on it. Fortunately, there was a faint light at the the far corner of the hall, where it angled toward the front of the building. Perhaps there was a window there.
Xavi had to remind herself she didn't have to sneak down the hall, instead working up a fast walk.
The seemingly mandatory grooves in Aldaian construction ran along the base of each wall, and again where the walls angled into the narrow ceiling. Even more puzzling to her were the alcoves set every ten feet or so along both walls - every one empty. Maybe later she would ask Warrav what these features were for, because as far as Xavi could tell, all these grooves, alcoves, and niches were just collecting dust.
She reached the corner and peered around it, confirming there was indeed a window and no dragon. It was also a dead end, but just next to the window was a stairway landing. Those seemed to be lit from windows too. As they seemed to be the only way to go from there, the dragon must have gone up.
Or down. As she approached, she realized a flight of descending steps ran parallel to those rising. But below was pitch dark. Xavi wouldn't risk stairs without light, so she went up. Her illusion alerted her, and she nearly began her invisibility spell. But it was just an old feral vulture sulking in one of the windows. With its back to her, it never knew she was there.
For every flight she climbed, Xavi came to a landing at which the stairs continued parallel to the previous flight, with an alcove on the opposite wall. Windows were set in the middle of the expansive wall next to each flight headed the direction Xavi had begun her ascent, providing plenty enough light. It was a neat and tidy way to stack stairs, if considerably more boxy than the spiraling tower staircases Xavi herself was used to. As it was, she was constantly peering up to make sure the dragon wasn't about to descend upon her. She came to one door after four flights, but the passage was pitch dark. A floor above that, another black hall. One more floor and the stairway ended, opening into long corridor, one wall set with archways opening to daylight. Beyond, Xavi glimpsed the balcony they'd seen earlier from below.
Not two steps into the passage, she caught a flash of white tail through one of the archways. Her heart raced. She hadn't been alerted; why hadn't her spell effected it?
Of course, the dragon was on the far side of the broad balcony. It might not have heard her. She kicked at the wall with a talon, experimentally. That earned her an alert. Good, her spell was still working at least.
And so she began to chant her invisibility spell under her breath. Any uncertainty was soon overwhelmed with singleminded concentration on her magic. She shut her eyes, visualized the spell components, recited each structure mentally before she whispered them; she had to do it right.
And when she heard the dragon walking, she very nearly lost her place in her mental picture. The slightest hesitation, and she could lose the spell; she continued to intone her magic, but her tone sank, and she was sorely tempted to slur her sharper syllables.
She was almost finished. So close, but the dragon was nearing her. She pressed her back to the corridor wall, crouching so her beak was hopefully within the muffling radius, hoping she wouldn't be seen before it was too late.
Other thoughts threatened to sway her focus. She'd been foolish. Obviously, if the dragon used the stairs, she shouldn't stay close to them! The dragon had run from the three of them, plus Jadere's conjured hound, but would it run from Xavi alone? Might it think her magic was an attack? Come to think of it, why did the dragon use stairs - couldn't they fly?
The last phrase was slipping silently off Xavi's tongue. Now or never, she told herself. Leaning to peer out onto the balcony, she spotted the dragon and hastily scrawled the necessary sigil in the air, directing the spell as she spoke the very last word.
"Oh, no, no, no..." the dragon laughed.
Xavi froze. Had it heard her? Seen her? Smelled her? It wasn't looking in her direction, though. It was... pacing in circles?
"No, that one attacked me!" The dragon carried on, "They wouldn't... No."
Xavi cocked her head. From the voice, the dragon seemed to be male, if she was to guess. But who was the dragon talking to? It wasn't her. As far as she could tell. Slowly, she rose from her place and stood in the archway, in plain view as the dragon circled. His eyes slipped right past her without reaction. The spell had worked!
Next time, it would be easier, though. She mouthed one last spell, wove one last sigil at the dragon. A pittance of a spell. It was a tag, it's sole purpose to be easily referenced as a target for her future spells. She wouldn't have to worry about complicated constructs - she could set even her invisibility spell before she saw the dragon, referencing the tag instead of needing to direct it at a target.
The dragon abruptly sat and arched his neck back to stare upwards. "What are you doing out here? They're going to see you."
Xavi glanced up, finding only empty sky. He wasn't talking to her, but then... who? Himself? What kind of dragon talked to himself?
Now that he was sitting still, she had a good look at him. He looked sleek, gangly even. His scales seemed thick, heavy, and almost disproportional to his body. Down the front of his lower neck and chest his scales were like broad, horizontal plates. Along his back was a narrower row of overlapping teardrop shaped plates, their tips spreading jaggedly where his spine arched. His paws were armored in heavy scutes, and his claws were like rough ivory. As was the rigid tip of his tail shaped like a narrow spade, and he had a crown of horns sprouting from the crest of his head. They were four in number and seven or eight inches apiece, each with a gentle backswept curve. A row of three pointy nubs on his forehead, and a fourth by his nose, promised he would one day have still more horns. Behind his crest, on either side of his head, frilly fin-like ears stood out. The membranes of his wings and frills were a pale flesh tone; they looked like extremely thin parchment.
The longer Xavi stared at him, the more she suspected very little clung to his frame. The dragon was thinner than even his sleek build afforded - he looked downright malnourished.
"Let it go," the dragon muttered, his frills sinking as though tugged downward. Then he grunted, "They have nothing to do with her. She's never coming back."
His head bowed, wings and shoulders slumping. "I know you're tired, but you have to hunt..." He turned to take a step toward the stairs.
Toward Xavi! Hastily, she muttered a quick incantation before the dragon had a chance to smell her. She couldn't alter his sense of smell without him realizing something was seriously wrong, but she could convince him everything was as he expected it. Trick his mind into believing everything he smelled matched the mental template of "normal given the circumstances" - that knowledge base of experience against which every living thing compares its perceptions to determine whether or not they should be allotted conscious attention. It was a slapdash way to avoid being scented, far from ideal because it often gave the subject a surreal or dreamy feel. Too much normal was abnormal; variation was expected. And it all fell apart when the subject began to doubt their own experience. Still, as long as Xavi didn't do anything else to draw its attention, she thought she'd be fine.
She stepped out of the archway and cleared the path to the stairs for the dragon to pass by.
Sure enough, he angled toward the stairs. His limbs trembled as they supported his rawboned form. As he plodded past, his scales rippling over his frame. Xavi discerned virtually his entire rib cage. She stared after the dragon with her head cocked and beak hung open. Dragons were meant to be proud creatures but he... he was pitiful.
Wait, but if he was going to hunt... What if he was going after Warrav and Jadere? Certainly larger prey than anything the dragon could scrape together out here. Xavi shuddered at the thought, but necessity remained: if that were the case, and the others were in danger, she would have to do something to incapacitate the creature.
But she didn't let herself leap to that conclusion. She followed the dragon to see where he went.
A few flights down, the vulture in the window cawed reproachfully at the dragon's appearance, diving off its perch and out of sight. The dragon gazed after it wishfully, like a child staring through a candy shop window.
What did the dragon even find to eat, out here? "How do you survive?" Xavi didn't catch herself before she'd let slip in the barest whisper.
"You have to hunt," the dragon hissed, but never stopped walking, as though the disembodied voice was entirely ordinary.
Maybe the trick on his sense of smell was getting to him and he thought he was dreaming. In his state, Xavi wouldn't be surprised. Or was this dragon insane? Did he see and hear things that weren't there? Deliberately this time, she whispered, "Why haven't you left?"
"You know why you do it," he breathed. "Just want her to come back..."
He stepped onto the ground level landing. But he turned away from the doorway, continuing down the stairway plunging into darkness.
Xavi wasn't about to follow him down there. She wouldn't be able to see... And if she brought a lantern, that would just make her illusion job far harder, not only having to remove herself from the dragon's perceptions but every ray of light. She hung her head as the while tail slipped around a corner and out of sight.
At least it didn't seem like he was trying to track Xavi, Warrav, or Jadere.
She wasn't expecting the lonely, hollow words echoing up from below, "Just to see Mother again..."
* * * * *
"This number is etched wrong," Jadere mused, "Look! It's identical to the elder script letters 'tar', 'eth', and 'kal'! A reference to the city by the same name, perhaps? The one famed for its twelve towers."
"Don't be inane," Warrav clicked his beak. "The second seal was historical. This is a geometric test. The outer ring, here, bears a series in octal."
"Wasn't the octal system more common in their numerology? If the city's a reference, maybe some of it is in hexadecimal?"
"Mayhap."
Xavi turned into the hall with the puzzle lock door. She'd removed her spells - except her tag on the dragon - and the click-clack of her talons on the corridor floor was audible and plain to all.
"Xavi!" Jadere shot her a curious glance. "Where have you been?"
"Exploring," she responded with a dry shrug.
Warrav never took his eyes off the seal they were attempting to solve. "Yes, well... Explore the likelihood of letting us know the next time you plan on venturing out alone, will you?"
"Right," Xavi sighed, seating herself against a wall. Warrav and Jadere went back to guessing at the wordplay and calculations of the lock, and Xavi let her thoughts wander. They turned, inevitably, to the dragon.
She wished she could spare food for the half-starved creature. She, Warrav, and Jadere had brought as much dried food as they could - but with the necessity of the journey back through the desert, they were left with only a weeks' worth to spare for their stay. The others likely wouldn't like her giving away the little time they had to explore and document the ruins.
And what if she could fill his belly once or twice? What good would that do in the long run? How long had the dragon survived out here so far, and how long would he endure? Xavi was forced to admit how little she knew about him, really.
Well, she knew a couple ways to learn more about him. Either ask him, or watch him unseen. She didn't think she could bring herself to simply approach him openly, though.
"Got it!" Jadere exclaimed, grasping at the seal and rotating its outer ring.
"What are you..." Warrav's voice trailed off as the vixen fussed with the dust-clogged segments of the puzzle lock. Four heavy clunks later, Jadere shoved at the door. The entire slab with the seven seals sank back, dropped into a track-lined gap.
"Told you Tarethkal was part of it," Jadere nodded. "You were right, though; not historical, but theological. Tarethkal was unique in its religion involving a pantheon of four cardinal deities, and their numerological symbols converted from octal to hexadecimal were..."
"Yes, yes," Warrav waved a wing. "Degrees on the circumference of a circle, I caught that. Now, shall we see what you've unearthed?"
"Of course!" Jadere placed her paws on the thick door and, with a grunt, shoved it sideways on its track. Down in the groove sat a series of gears upon which the door was relatively easy to roll. The opening gaped, and a long chamber was revealed, vaguely visible by a dusky blue glow suffusing the area. It seemed to eminate from dozens, if not hundreds, of star-like glitters along the walls.
Jadere snatched up her lantern, lifted it high, and stepped inside. Dust rose from her steps and trickled from the ceiling, casting hazy clouds into the blue glow. Her lantern illuminated arching alcoves along the wall, and the points of light were cerulean crystals embedded in all manner of artifacts. The meager pool of Jadere's lantern revealed a statue with sparkling eyes; a gem-topped scepter; an ornate, curved sword with a crystal pommel; and a bejeweled pendulum.
"Ho! More here than we could bring back or study in one trip. Just look at all those mannathar crystals!" Jadere beamed back at Warrav. "With news of this, we could charter a proper expedition, with the whole university backing us! Oh, I knew I had a good feeling when I read your proposals. I knew this is why I had to travel so far to meet you."
"Indeed," Warrav agreed blandly.
Xavi rose to her feet, beak hung open. "Mannathar? That means... Is all of it... artifice?"
"Every bit," Jader nodded to her. "Have you studied any? Maybe enough to help me identify some of this?"
"N-No, I haven't." Xavi's tongue slipped absently, her eyes still captured by the sheer number of magical items. Even this one room contained more examples than any single university she'd visited.
"Ah well," the fox sighed. "In that case, don't touch anything. Especially if it's broken. Goodness knows what all these did even when they were working properly. We don't know what might prove dangerous."
Xavi acknowledged her with a nod.
"Say, Xavi, would you like to help anyway?" Jadere turned back with a grin. "You might learn a thing or two. Could get a little advance on your studies, if you'd like."
"Actually, I might like that." Her thought flitted to the dragon, but it was probably still hunting in the dark passages. "I think I will, thanks."
"Well," Warrav began, picking up his own lantern. "As I'm the only one present not privy to the arcane arts, I'm going back to translate those tablets I found."
Xavi made a face at him. "Weren't you just worried about me being by myself?"
Warrav shook his head and made his way down the hall. It was Jadere who answered her, "It's alright; I set a simple enchantment around him. I'll know if anything's wrong."
"Really? How does it a work? A fear detector? Did you study illusion too?"
"Nay, girl," Jadere smirked. "Same principles as scrying, actually. It's no single alert; I'll be aware of vaguely what's going on around him until the spell wears off. Translation's pretty dull work, but anything more exciting should catch my attention. Come on, let's look and see if we can't figure out some of these old magics. Surely you've heard the first thing about artifice is the mannathar crystals, don't you dear?"
"They power artifice, right?"
"That's a simple way of putting it, but yes. Point being, if it's missing its crystals, it's safe to pick up. Otherwise, be careful..."
As Xavi followed her down the hall, Jadere cast cursory glances over the items within the pool of her lantern's light, commenting occasionally. "That sword, there? Those are transmutation sigils. Bet you they're strengthening the blade's steel." Of a tiara strung with dozens of carved crystals and metal rings and designed, she noted, "Illusion sigils, aren't they? We'll have a closer look a little later and see if you can't figure it out." Of a gauntlet made of solid gold with crystal fingertips, she cautioned, "with those kind of conjuration spells, whatever that does is bound to be nasty. Wouldn't mess with that if I were you." But there were so many items, Xavi quickly lost track of them all.
"Oh, here's something easy." The fox glanced over a small glass lens bound in a silver band. It looked a little like a monocle or a small magnifying glass, and the crystal upon it was but a tiny bead laid into the side. "Have a look," she offered it to Xavi.
"What does it do?" the raven asked, turning it over in the lantern light. The lens flashed brightly, forcing her to blink. When she turned it aside, sending the beam of light away from her face, she was able to examine the simple sigil woven into the silver band.
"Amplifies any form of energy that passes through it. Including light, you may've noticed, there."
"Really?" Xavi took several steps out of the lantern light and peered through the glass into the gloom; indeed, she could make out everything as plainly as though the room were lit by the midday sun.
A thought struck her. Turning to Jadere and pressing the glass to her eye, she asked, "Can you see any light from it, when I do this?"
"No, why?"
Then she could use it in dark tunnels, and any visual illusions wouldn't have to hide any light a lantern. "Can I borrow it?"
"From the dead?" Jadere grinned. "Take it, if you like. Though, if you want to keep it when we leave, there's a small mountain of paperwork involved. The universities like to know who has what. What did you want it for?"
"My... exploring." Even as she said it, Xavi realized she could use a lantern if she were simply foraging dark passaged.
Jadere's eyes weighed her .
Maybe there wouldn't be any harm in telling Jadere... No, Xavi could think of no real reason not to. "I was... following the dragon."
"Oh?" The fox's grin widened. "Practicing your spellcraft, were you?"
She nodded briefly. "He went hunting in some dark passages, and I couldn't take a light, or it would give me away."
Jadere nodded approvingly. "Clever girl." Sidling up to the raven, she draped an arm across Xavi's shoulders. "Care to share the experience? Surely you learned something interesting."
Xavi ducked her head; being this close to this vixen she barely knew put her on edge, but she tried not to take it personally. "Well, he... I don't know how he lives out here, but he looks half-starved."
"Really? Wonder why he lingers here, then."
"I'm... not sure." Xavi didn't feel right saying what she'd overheard, that he was waiting for someone... his mother. It felt too private.
When her silence carried on, Jadere asked, "Surely there's more?"
"Not really. I hardly saw him before he went hunting down some passage under that building we first saw him in."
"Hunting? What makes you say he was hunting?"
"I didn't; he said it. He was... talking to himself."
Jadere humphed thoughtfully, drumming her paw against Xavi's shoulder.
"Seemed like he was alone, too," Xavi offered. "No other dragons. I think. Hard to say." Who knew if his mother might actually come back.
"If you'd like to go try that out," the fox motioned at the energy-amplifying glass, "I shan't keep you."
"No, no." Xavi shook her head. "I don't want try to find him down there. I could get lost. Why don't we... look at some more of this artifice?"
"Oh, of course."
Xavi found herself enjoying the afternoon. Jadere was much more companionable when she was explaining than when she was prying. The fox broke out parchment, quill, and ink to catalog the finds, and began with simple examples of artifice. She explained the function of sigils worked into each item and described the concepts at work. As she moved on to more complex artifice, she periodically invited Xavi to identify sigils from the simpler artifice they'd been through, and to guess at their function.
Though she was not often able to, putting her limited knowledge into practice immediately soon gave Xavi an understanding she doubted she would have gained from simply studying sigils out of dusty tomes.
Many illusion sigils she recognized immediately, and before the day was out, she was able to discern the workings of a handful of artifacts on her own. The tiara Jadere had noted earlier proved beyond their combined means to decipher, however, and the vixen confessed illusion artifice was not her strong point.
Eventually, they retired from the task and joined Warrav for dinner. As much as they'd recorded, there seemed no end to the items.
"One would think every Aldaian was a natural artificer," Xavi commented between nibbles.
The menu consisted of dried meat warmed over a fire Jadere put together in one of the plazas outside. The sun had vanished behind the cliffs cupping the old city. Though the sky had yet to darken, the evening air was considerably more tolerable than the midday sun.
"There are a lot of artifacts here, yes," Jadere replied, "but it's not as though we don't have our own arts to match in the present day."
"She's right," Warrav interjected. "Mark my words: when today's societies start crumbling as Aldaia's did, artifice and anything else of value will be hoarded just the same, and it'll wind up in caches like these."
"Old magics just seem so much more... powerful. And dangerous." Xavi shrugged. "Did they know more about artifice than we?"
Jadere shook her head, making a negative noise around the strip of meat in her muzzle. She swallowed hurriedly. "That's a common misconception. It's not that they knew more - they just did it differently. Methodologies of artifice vary from culture to culture. Aldaians worked their magic more... recklessly, I suppose you could say. There's less definition in the spells they crafted, more margin for error. We're cautious by comparison. And those aren't the only factors; you're more likely to hear about a powerful, dangerous artifact if it was dug up in an Aldaian city than if it was commissioned from the local university."
Xavi's eyes grew absent. It would be dark soon, and even with the glass artifact, she wasn't sure she wanted to go looking for the dragon so late. She was weary enough from the long, hot day. She didn't much care for the thought of taking the time to weave all her illusions again, only to have them go to waste if she didn't manage to find the dragon before she turned in.
Her gaze shifted to Warrav, staring at the crackling flames with eyes as unfocused as her own. Xavi had told Jadere about the dragon. By all rights, Warrav should have known first. He was her brother. Xavi ought to tell him, she knew.
He wouldn't like it, though.
"I'm calling it a night." Warrav announced, standing.
Maybe she'd tell him later, Xavi thought as his steps receded.
"Well, if there's nothing else..." Jadere started to rise to follow, but Xavi grabbed her wrist. The fox glanced at her, brow rising. "Yes, girl?"
"Do you know anything that might help me..." Xavi glanced to make sure Warrav was out of earshot. "...help me track the dragon?"
Understanding and a faint smirk crept over Jadere as she considered the question. "I think I might. I could place some enchantments in specific places to let me know if he passes through any of them."
"Would they wake you up?"
"Yes. In fact, I'll be using the same to keep an eye on our camp while we sleep. Can't be too careful, eh?" She cocked her head. "I think I know what you're getting at... You want me to wake you if he shows up?"
Xavi nodded. "Please."
"Then show me where you saw him last."
Jadere set two of her enchantments - one in the stairwell where Xavi had last seen him, and another in the entryway of the large hall where they had first seen the dragon. Xavi watched the process with interest; wherever Jadere wove her sigils, a faint shadow appeared. She caught Xavi's curious eye and explained, "The spell absorbs a bit of light and a bit of sound. That's how it lets me sense what's in its vicinity."
"Thank you for this," Xavi told her.
"Only fair, girl. You helped me with the artifice, I can help you with your dragon."
"I wasn't any help; you had to explain everything."
"On the contrary, you were pleasant company. Just glad you weren't casting deafness on yourself," Jadere laughed. "Worst part about this kind of expedition - more often than not, everyone's as stuffy as your brother. I see no reason intelligent people have to be so dull about it. A pox on the scholarly profession, I suppose." She shrugged. "In any case, why don't you follow your brother's example and get some shut-eye? I'll join you two shortly. I think I'll set a few more enchantments around the plaza wells. Even dragons have to drink, right?"
It was a good thought, monitoring the wells. Sleep sounded like a good idea, too. Xavi thanked the vixen once more before she retired. Knowing she would have the opportunity to follow the dragon again soon, she slept soundly.
