61. A few clever tricks
61
A FEW CLEVER TRICKS
Anahrod wasn’t a fool: she tried possessing Neveranimas again. It was the very first thing she did after she finished rolling to the side.
It just didn’t work.
The dragon felt the mental intrusion and smiled. [You caught me unaware before. I won’t make that mistake again.]
The dragon circled, steam rising as her cold feet contacted hot stone. Neveranimas gave no sign that the clash of temperatures bothered her.
Of course she isn’t worried, Anahrod thought. She doesn’t think I can do a thing to her.
“Wonderful,” Anahrod said. “You’re so clever. But it doesn’t change the fact that people know what you can do now.”
[People?] Neveranimas’s telepathic voice was mocking. [You mean humans like the Deepers, like the citizens of Crystalspire? Those “people”? It won’t matter what they think. I created the Rampant Stone. I can destroy it and create a new one later on. How hard do you think it will be to convince the dragon elders that this was a plot, a conspiracy, between Crystalspire and the Deep? Best to wipe clean the entire infection, they’ll agree.]
Anahrod shuddered. She could see it all too easily. The peoples of the Deep had always been disposable—trolls, demons, monsters—and if Crystalspire was viewed as less so, Seven Crests had six other cities, did they not? An object lesson or two would go a long way to keep the humans in line.
“You ordered the dragons to attack Viridhaven as a distraction, didn’t you?”
[Is that what that settlement is called? Now that’s just begging for trouble, isn’t it? But yes, I did. Your friends took something with them when they left my vault. Something they’ve kept. One of those keys you used to break into my vault.]
Anahrod cursed. Ris’s sword. Ris had told everyone to brush the debris from the shattered keys down into the magma lake, but someone might have missed a fragment, or a shard landed on a rock outcropping not hot enough to melt it… whatever the mistake, Neveranimas had taken advantage of it.
Which meant that the moment Neveranimas stopped being able to track the Rampant Stone, she turned to tracking Ris instead. The dragonrider had unwittingly led the dragons directly to their hidden city.
[Peralon’s weakness has always been an excessive fondness for you little creatures. I knew he’d try to protect them.]
“I’m impressed,” Anahrod said. “But how did you track the Rampant Stone here? I was told someone had made that impossible.”
Anahrod was trying to buy time. She hoped Neveranimas would be eager to finally talk to someone about her life’s work. What a genius she was. How no one could stop her.
The usual garbage.
All the while Anahrod sorted through her options, which looked increasingly grim short of Eannis herself showing up and saving the day. Which didn’t seem terribly likely.
She was going to be cutting this very close.
[Is that what happened? But no, I wasn’t tracking the Stone. I just knew at least one of your people would come here. I’d hoped it would be you, and I was right.]
Anahrod glanced back at Ivarion. She was too close. Way too close.
Anahrod had one trick up her sleeve, though. It was odd enough and strange enough that she didn’t think Neveranimas would think of defending against it.
Just as Ris hadn’t, when Anahrod had used it against her.
Anahrod rarely mirrored animals. It took so much energy; it stood a high chance of hurting whoever she used as the power source—the animal or herself. But here? With an active volcano and a dragon she wanted to hurt?
Anahrod had all the energy she could ever need.
Anahrod had been quiet for too long. Long enough for Neveranimas to realize that perhaps she shouldn’t just stand there and brag. [Time for you to—]
Anahrod flew at her.
Or rather, a dragon-shaped ball of golden energy flew at Neveranimas, mouth open in a silent scream and claws extended to rake and rend. Anahrod herself was a tiny dot in the middle of all that, almost impossible to see past the glowing web of dragon-shaped magic.
Neveranimas was so surprised that Anahrod landed two good claw wounds and a bite along the dragon’s neck.
Then Neveranimas vanished.
Too late, Anahrod remembered the dragon’s ability to teleport. An ability that she would use to reposition herself in a fight for her best advantage. Fortunately for Anahrod, she had no intention of continuing the fight.
Funny enough, her goal had also been a kind of repositioning for advantage. She dropped the mirroring and fell down behind some boulders big enough to provide at least a little cover.
At the same time, Neveranimas appeared over the lava lake. She opened her mouth to breathe in Anahrod’s general direction.
Anahrod closed her eyes. For a second, she felt nothing.
Then she opened Ivarion’s eyes…
… and Ivarion opened hers.