When they reached the doorway to the next chamber, they turned and fled through it. Rounding the altar, they continued on. The air seemed much dustier here than it had been earlier. When they had mounted the stair and were traversing the forward passageway, a crashing sound came to them from outside.
Racing toward the light, they emerged to view a crumpled flier beyond the first column to their left. There were two large craters ahead and to the right. One statue was upset and broken and a column had fallen across the way. Farther along, there were two more wrecked fliers.
Pol heard a sound from overhead and looked upward. There was nothing in view in the sky. Turning, he then saw that two more of the birds were shattered against the side of the pyramid. As he stared, another circled into and out of view above that mountain of stone. Since Moonbird was no longer where he had left him, he was not surprised, moments later, to see his great green and bronze form wheel into view over the top of the monument. Two of the fliers then came into sight, circling, diving at the dragon. As their positions continued to shift, Pol saw that there was a third. He thought, too, that he detected an occasional puff and the echo of a small report from the machines. If they did have guns, they at least did not appear to be rapid-fire automatic weapons. Their main tactic seemed to consist of darting attempts to slash at their larger, slower opponent with their spear-like beaks and the fore-edges of their wings. They were closing with him again even as Pol watched.
Not knowing what he might be able to do at this distance, he sought strands. They seemed to be everywhere, just awaiting the proper act of discernment and manipulation... Indeed! They became visible to him--an orange trail leading upward. He reached for them and they drifted toward him, along with an enormous feeling of separation and the formula for electrical resistance, which he had learned one summer while working for his stepfather. He took this as an indication that he was not going to be able to do much to help Moonbird. Then the rod-segment jerked in his hand and he wondered. He studied it for the first time in full light.
It was of a light, heavily tarnished metal--possibly an alloy of some sort; and if so, far too technologically sophisticated for anything he had seen here, save for Mark's creations--and this seemed old, felt old, as his special sense measured things. It was about eight inches long and opened at one end, presumably to accommodate the succeeding section; its other end was a simple hemisphere, possibly of a different metal. About the shaft itself was chased a pattern of stylized flames within which a rich variety of demons danced and engaged in peculiar acts.
He raised it--it seemed that it might be some sort of magical battery, or transformer--and, with a rapid twisting motion, he twined an orange strand about it. Nora, who had been about to speak, realized from his gesture and his intent expression that he was conjuring and she remained silent, eyes fixed upon the shaft.
Suddenly, the distance seemed telescoped, and he found himself working with the far end of the strand, weaving, looping, turning it into a wide net before a diving flier. To affect something of that mass and velocity, at that distance, he realized that an enormous amount of power would have to flow upward. He felt it go out of him as he willed it, and the rod jerked within his grip.
The flier sped into the trap he had attempted to lay, and it did not seem impeded by it. It rushed on toward Moonbird's flank, as Pol felt weak from willing energy into his snare.
Then, all at once, it veered crazily--one wing held high, the other low. It seemed frozen in that position, spinning ahead, slowing in a dropping, drooping trajectory that bore it beneath the dragon, turning until it was headed downward. It rotated all the way to the ground, where it stopped. Even before it struck, another followed it, blazing, target of Moonbird's fiery regurgitations.
Pol turned his attention to the final flier, which suddenly seemed bent upon a suicide attack on the lazily turning skybeast. He knew that no time remained for the slow knottings of another spell, and he doubted that from this distance he could release an effective blast such as that which had felled the guardian in the pyramid. And even as he raised the rod for the attempt, he saw the small white puff and moments later heard the report.
Moonbird showed no sign of having been hit, however, and as the bird-thing plunged toward him, he moved to meet it, twisting in a serpentine fashion, acquiring more speed than the moment seemed to offer. As they met, he clasped the flier to him and began his descent.
Nora and Pol watched him spiral downward in a leisurely fashion, coming to rest near the rim of a nearby crater, turning so as to land directly atop the captive flier with a series of crunching noises which ceased only when he moved away from the broken device, which a final nudge sent toppling and sliding into the hole.
Well-fought, great one, he said. You were injured... ?
Hardly at all. And dragons heal quickly. You have the thing you sought?
Yes. This is it.
He displayed the piece.
I have seen it before, joined with the others. Gather your things, come mount me and let us be on our way to wherever you would go now.
You should rest after such a struggle.
A dragon rests on the wing. Let us leave this place if we are finished here.
Pol turned to Nora.
"He is able to go on now. How about you?"
"I'd like to get out of here myself."
He looked at her for the first time in a long while. Dishevelled and moist with perspiration, she still clutched the blade in her right hand. But he saw no signs of injury.
Noting his regard, she relaxed her grip on the weapon and sheathed it. She smiled.
"All right?"
"All right. Yourself?"
He nodded.
"Then let's get our stuff together and move on. Have you any idea how he knew we'd be here?"
"No," she said. "You say that the things he does are not really magic--but they do seem that way to me. It's just that he has a different style."
"I hope you like my style better."
"So far," she said.
As Moonbird lifted them above the desert and bent his course northward, the skies were clear and the sun had already begun its western plunge.
Land where you would to forage, Pol told him. Once we hit the northern sea, we'll be island-hopping--and the maps are not all that good on distances.
I have been this way before, Moonbird told him. I will feed in time. Now, will you make some music to warm my cold reptilian heart?
Pol unearthed his guitar, tuned it and struck a chord. The wind whistled accompaniment as the land unrolled like a dry and mottled parchment beneath them.
XVII
That night, as they lay listening to the sound of waves and breathing the smell of the sea on a small island far from the mainland, Moonbird sought sustenance for afield and Nora studied the rod from the pyramid.
"It does have a magical look, a magical feel to it," she said, turning it in the moonlight.
"It is that," Pol replied, stroking her shoulder, "and the other two pieces should do more than just add to its potency. Each should multiply the power of those which precede, several times."
She put it aside and reached out to touch his wrist.
"Your birthmark," she said. "They weren't really wrong--the villagers. You are of that tribe with your feet in hell and your head in heaven."
"No reason to throw rocks," he said. "I wasn't doing anything to them."
"They'd feared your father--once he got involved in blood sacrifices and the treating with unnatural beings who had to be paid in human lives."
Pol shrugged.
"...And they took his life to balance accounts. Also, my mother's. And they wrecked the place. Didn't that pretty much square things?"
"At the time, yes--as I understand it. But you stirred up fears as well as leftover hatred. Supposing you'd come home to avenge their deaths? You did have that in mind, too, didn't you? That's what that Mouseglove person said."