But tonight Vyrathion's arm is around my shoulders, the shelter stands ready behind us, and the fire burns steadily in front of us.For now, that is enough. This is Xren. Everything could end at any moment.
And this hasn’t ended. Not yet.
21
- Morgan-
The next morning there are probably a hundred Plood around us, all staring at Vyrathion.
Except for Clyde, who stares at me.
It just about creeps me out. There’s something so alien about them.
There’s already a pile of tribute on the ground. It’s the usual debris of random junk and typical jungle items, a lot of rocks and other bits and pieces.
“They keep coming,” Vyrathion says, barely glancing at me. “It’s as if they are deliberately avoiding finding the gold.”
This morning there’s no pile of fruits carefully peeled or pitted, so I have to breakfast on a couple of fruits from yesterday. “I think they’re trying,” I say. “It may just be that there is no gold. At least not nearby,” I add to not make him feel hopeless.
“Nobody ever heard of a gold-less planet,” the dragon growls. “There is some here. Praxigor’s form is the proof.”
“Praxigor may not have a great deal of gold,” I say carefully. “He says Astrid is his hoard.”
He laughs without joy. “A clear misdirection. He just doesn’t want anyone to look for it. But it’s understandable that a lesser species would fall for such an obvious ploy.”
“You still want to find his hoard?” I ask carefully as I crack open a nut. “What if he’s guarding it?”
“I assume he can’t guard it all the time,” Vyrathion says. Then he focuses his intense gaze on me. “How long is he gone? How long is he in the village? Is he there every day?”
I sigh. This is the old Vyrathion. And probably this is closer to the real him. “I told you. He’s gone all day, but I think he returns in the evenings to be with Astrid.”
“Plainly he guards his hoard in the daytime, then. It’s no mystery. His hoard is likely easier for others to spot in daylight.”
I start to sift through the tributes. The Plood do sometimes bring useful types of trash, and this pile is much bigger than any before it.
I find some rusty iron items I can’t identify, some nuts that the Plood must have seen me eat, the usual yellow egg shells and insect carapaces, some yellow flowers and probably fifty rocks of various sizes.
“You want to go through those?” I ask. “Maybe there’s gold in them that you can somehow get out.”
He comes over and kicks at the heap. “Worthless trash, all of–” He freezes, then quickly bends down and snatches something off the ground. Bringing it up to his eyes, I can hear a rare intake of breath.
“What is that?” I ask. “A nugget?”
“Gold,” he whispers. “Finally!” He holds a small item up in a thin ray of sunlight, making it shine.
A coldness goes through me. I’ve seen Praxigor Change from human to dragon form, and those two are not the same. The dragon is colder, more dangerous, less predictable, much more chilling. If Vyrathion does that now, then who knows what he will do to me.
I stand up and stare. It looks like a thimble, or a small drinking cup made from iron. The hollow is dark, but the outside does indeed shine with two narrow rings of gold, as some kind of decoration. “Is that enough?”
“You spoke about gold leaf,” Vyrathion says as a smile spreads on his face. “Here it is. Too little to matter, but where there’s even this little, there must be more. Where does this come from?” His voice is like a whiplash.
I squat down. “Clyde, that’s gold. You found it. Well done. Where does it come from? Which direction?”
Clyde doesn’t point, he just shifts his gaze to another Plood standing nearby. That Plood comes forward and points into the jungle with all three fingers. I get the telepathic image of a patch of jungle, the outside of a palisade, the smell of smoke and this thimble-like thing half buried in the compost that is the jungle earth.
“He found it close to a village,” I interpret for Vyrathion. “Probably one of the men lost it-”
“Yes, yes,” Vyrathion says. “I have already interrogated this pitiful Plood about it. Their thoughts are remarkably open. The place is far from here, but hopeful! Perhaps one of these ludicrous tribes has some sense of what’s truly important.”
