Chapter 26
Vorik held his sword and resisted clasping Syla’s hand as they walked down the desert path from the pillar to the now-exposed laboratory.
They were, he reminded himself for the tenth time, at cross-purposes.
Even if they’d just had glorious sex, it had been induced by the magic of those flowers, not something they’d engaged in because it had been a wise and opportune time for it.
All along, he’d been aware that the heady flowers had influenced him—all of them—but that hadn’t made him stop.
As usual, when he was with Syla, he hadn’t wanted to stop.
Even now, so recently sated, he found his gaze wanting to pause whenever she fell into it, to linger to admire the determined set of her jaw, the cuteness of her nose, the curve of her ear—and other lower curves as well.
Danger, he reminded himself, forcing his eyes to point in another direction.
The scrolls had spoken of danger. He was surprised it hadn’t arrived, like a stampede of man-eating moragothi, while everyone had been engaged.
The dragons were still engaged. No, wait.
When he looked back, he could see the upper part of their scaled bodies, now lying quiet atop the rock formation, red and green tails dangling over the edge, touching.
Agrevlari would be delighted. Wreylith… might be less so.
If Teyla was any indication, her clothing disheveled and her cheeks red with embarrassment as she rushed to catch up with Syla and Vorik, not all of these pairings would have occurred if not for the magic.
Fel strode behind her, looking more dazed.
With his bald head, scars, and age, he probably didn’t attract younger women that often.
A cool breeze swept toward them, seeming to flow over the laboratory and into their faces, wreathing their bodies. In contrast with the intense sun, it stirred goosebumps on Vorik’s skin.
Syla paused. She must have felt it too.
Vorik also stopped. Still in the path, they were about ten feet from where the solid desert floor grew less substantial and turned into what he assumed was an illusion that usually hid the laboratory.
Some magic, similar perhaps to the translucent shields that protected the islands, allowed sunlight into that space while keeping out dust and wind and animals.
Many centuries had passed since the storm god had been driven away, all the gods disappearing soon after, but the laboratory appeared pristine and undisturbed, like he might have been working there earlier that morning.
Syla looked down at her hand. Her moon-mark was glowing silver.
Vorik’s dragon tattoo didn’t do that, but his goosebumps warned him of a threat.
“I don’t see anything that looks like an orb growing in there,” Syla said. “I hope, after all this, the scroll wasn’t mistaken.”
“There could be an orb in the back somewhere. It’s hard to see through all the crystal…
shapes. What would you call those?” Vorik waved to the blue, orange, yellow, and pink formations growing up from the dark marble floor of the laboratory, many waist-high, like tables, and others rising above his head.
Aisles wound through the crystal formations and along walls lined with bookcases and nooks containing racks of flasks and beakers and strange equipment he couldn’t name.
“Workstations?” Syla looked from crystal formation to formation until her gaze landed on a bookcase, numerous tomes inside preserved. Or was she looking at the huge white marble piece of furniture near it?
A rectangular platform framed by columns, it reminded Vorik of some of the lavish four-poster beds that gardeners crafted, complete with a canopy.
Made from marble, it was out of place among the jagged crystals, dark floor, and natural red-rock walls of the box canyon.
Though white rather than silver, the platform reminded him of the quarter-moon mark on Syla’s hand.
It seemed a strange thing to find in the storm god’s laboratory.
“We’ll have to go in and look around.” Vorik stretched his sword outward, expecting to encounter resistance, an invisible barrier of some sort. “Let’s see if we can.”
“Yes.” Syla didn’t look like she wanted to but nodded and walked at his side again.
He was tempted to lift a hand and tell her to wait while he risked himself, but he knew she wanted to find the orb before he did. Even if she hadn’t, she wasn’t the sort to hide while someone else took on the brunt of the danger. He smiled at her.
“Do you know something I don’t know?” she asked, catching his expression.
“Oh, many things.”
“Besides how to juggle?”
“Hm, maybe not.”
They reached a straight edge—the start of the flat black floor visible underneath—no, through—the illusion of the desert.
Vorik blinked a few times, as if that might make the image clearer.
Right above that edge, the tip of his sword sparked.
The gargoyle bone didn’t act as a conduit, instead absorbing the power so that he didn’t feel it in his grip.
Not until they stepped over the line did electricity—no, magic—buzz over Vorik’s skin. It didn’t hurt, but he braced himself for a greater threat to appear.
An eerie moan came from the depths of the laboratory, and then another cold wind swept toward them, stirring their hair.
“Like a storm coming in,” he murmured.
“That would be apt. I—”
“Syla?” came Teyla’s concerned call.
Vorik and Syla turned. On the path halfway between the pillar and the laboratory, Teyla and Fel crouched, as if some threat had appeared.
They’d faded, though, almost gone fuzzy to Vorik’s eyes.
The entire cactus-filled valley had faded, including the rock formation, both dragons now sitting up and gazing around.
Can you hear me, Agrevlari? Vorik expected an answer—he could see the dragon, after all. But he didn’t get one.
He took a step back, intending to show them where they’d gone, but he bumped into an invisible wall. The barrier that had allowed them to enter without trouble had turned into something as solid as the rock walls of the canyon.
“Uhm,” Syla said.
Vorik prodded the invisible barrier with his sword. Again, sparks came from the tip, but the invisible wall didn’t give this time. He poked it harder. A great flash of light appeared as an invisible force hurled him backward.
Though startled, he managed to somersault in the air and land on his feet. “It looks like we’re prisoners until we can find another way out.”
“Or a way to turn this shield off.” Syla touched the mark on the back of her hand to the barrier, but nothing happened. At least it didn’t knock her back.
Warier now, Vorik eased back to her side and tried touching his tattoo to the wall. Wouldn’t something with power granted by a dragon be more likely to activate—or deactivate—magical items in this place? After all, their kind had been among the pinnacle of the storm god’s creations.
The barrier didn’t hurl him backward again, but it remained solid.
Vorik looked toward the vertical rock walls, thoughts of climbing out coming to mind.
Though sunlight blazed down upon them, now that they were inside, the rims of the canyon were also fuzzy, and motes in the air arching over the laboratory like a ceiling made him think another barrier blocked escape in that direction.
“Don’t come in!” Syla raised a hand.
Teyla and Fel were heading toward them and gave no indication of hearing her.
“Agrevlari also can’t hear me.” Vorik touched his temple to indicate telepathy.
Syla looked toward Wreylith. “She didn’t respond to me either.”
When they arrived, Syla tried to block Fel and Teyla from entering, but the barrier didn’t remain completely flat. It shifted to keep her hands from reaching them. They stepped fully inside before she was able to touch them.
“Damn it,” Syla said.
“That’s not a very polite greeting.” Teyla only looked at her for a second before gazing all around the laboratory, wonder on her face.
“We’re trapped,” Syla said. “And I’ll wager you are now too.”
Fel reached behind him and encountered the invisible barrier, but he only shrugged. “Bodyguards are supposed to be trapped with their charges, not without.”
“Can the dragons get in?” Teyla wondered.
“Since we can’t communicate with them, we’ll have to see if they get concerned about our absence and try,” Syla said.
“Agrevlari should try,” Vorik said. “Now that he’s… less distracted. And presumably sated.”
An embarrassed or maybe aghast expression crossed Teyla’s face.
“That was so weird,” she whispered, glancing at Fel without looking at his eyes.
Fel reacted with a bleak expression. He’d doubtless been as out-of-control as the rest of them, but it probably disturbed him that the joining wasn’t something Teyla would have chosen of her own volition.
Outside, Wreylith sprang into the air and started flying around the canyon. She soared overhead, her golden-eyed gaze toward the ground, but nothing indicated that she saw them.
“Does she not see the laboratory?” Syla watched the dragon circle the area. “It appeared to us after we pressed our hands to the mark.”
Her explanation was for Teyla and Fel, who probably hadn’t seen what had happened. Even though he’d been at the rock formation and a part of activating the mark, Vorik didn’t know fully himself. Of course, he’d been distracted by other matters at the time.
“Maybe it doesn’t appear to dragons,” Fel said.
“Why would it appear to humans and not dragons though?” Teyla asked. “The storm god didn’t have any fondness for us. Quite the opposite. It was the other gods who looked out for humanity.”
“The moon-mark on that pillar might have been added later,” Syla said. “I had that thought when I looked at it, that the dragon mark and moon-mark might not have been carved into the rock at the same time.”