Chapter 26

Iber woke suddenly when something slammed near his head. A man with a pot and a metal spoon stood near the fire in the center of the room. He laughed as Iber shot straight up in bed then held out his pot for Malek to dish something into.
“You cooked them breakfast?”
“You should have seen what they were about to serve us,” Malek said as he placed a portion on a plate and handed it to Iber. “Eat. Don’t complain.”
Iber stopped complaining as he put the scrambled eggs in his mouth. He couldn’t identify all the ingredients, but Malek was an expert at combining things that made the mouth water.
“He’s made three batches so far,” Lasser said from the corner as the men retreated with the latest results from the pan.
“You’d better be careful or they’ll try to keep you here permanently,” Iber said.
“At least he’s making a good impression on them. It will really be hard for them to kill us if they like us.”
“You really don’t think they’re going to kill us, do you?” Lasser’s silence soured Iber’s appetite. He took a deep breath.
“If we’re going to die, we might as well go out with a bang. Malek, are you ready to open the door?”
“I’m not ready to be stupid.”
“Iber, if we’re going to make a break for it, let’s be sure that we’re supposed to die first, and on top of that, we need to have a layout of where things are so that when we do run, unarmed, I might add, that we can actually get to the top.”
Iber was left little time to express his hurt feelings as suddenly five men came back into the cell, and this time, they didn’t carry a dish.
“We’re taking you to the Great Ones. They’ll know what to do with you.”
Iber scurried to get dressed, each article of his clothing eyed curiously by the men. Obviously fashion was quite unimportant here.
They were led out of the jail cell, one man taking the lead, followed by two in front and two in back of the prisoners. Iber watched his surroundings carefully as they headed through a small tunnel in the opposite direction they had come last night. If they kept going this way, they’d have quite a long trip to the original staircase.
After about a fifteen minute walk through the unadorned tunnel, they came to another village. Here, the men were dressed in the same brown trousers and very little else. Something odd finally occurred to Iber as he watched them completing their daily tasks.
“Where are all the women and children?”
“With the Great Ones, of course,” the man behind with a squashed nose replied with a shrug.
“Don’t they live here with you?”
“Live with us?” He let out a large belly laugh. The other men joined in.
“Why don’t they?” Lasser elbowed Iber. Apparently he didn’t approve of this line of questioning.
“Because we’re only one step away from animals,” all five said in unison, as if they’d been taught to parrot it back. They seemed awfully cheerful about it though.
“And how do you have children?”
There was a silence. The mood shifted. Lasser elbowed him again, harder.
“You’ll have to ask the Great Ones that question. I’m not going to answer it,” Squash Nose said. They continued on in silence through the village to yet another tunnel.
“This journey is going to make a great poem,” Iber said out loud. This time the elbow was from Malek.
“Poem? What’s a poem?”
“Oh, it’s a bunch of words set together with a rhythm and a rhyme. You can make them out of anything really.”
Squash Nose bent down a scooped a loose stone off the ground. “Can you make one out of this?”
“Well, yes, I suppose. What shall we call it? A stone, pebble, rock?”
“Rock.”
“Okay… now what words rhyme with rock.”
“Sock,” called one of the guards from the front.
“Frock.”
“Tock.”
“Lock.”
“Pock.”
“Shock.”
“Good,” Iber said as he cut them off. “Now, we put them together in a rhythm.” Iber thought for a moment, composing in his head. He refused to look at either Malek or Lasser who were probably drilling holes with their eyes.
“There once was a man name Tock, who got himself quite a shock. His front door he went to unlock and someone threw a rock that put a hole in his frock.”
The men exploded into laughter and cheering. Squash Nose pounded him on the back. Iber risked a glance at Malek who had a stone face of his own.
“More!” they cried. And Iber delivered. Two hours later, they were composing their own rhymes and happily marching along. Malek and Iber had yet to say a word, even when the men encouraged them to make up poems of their own.
Iber noticed that tunnels they took all had a slight decline. Wherever they were now, it was deep under the ground. Find a way out was going to be a problem now, but they didn’t seem to have any choice other that to follow the merry group of five who seemed to belie the gravity of the situation. It was difficult to believe the men were capable of killing them after having such a happy and friendly nature.
The lead man suddenly waved the others quiet. They silenced their poems and Iber heard a sigh of relief from Lasser.
“We enter the smaller cave of the Great Ones,” Squash Nose whispered. His voice was half reverence, half awe and his eyes stared wide at the cave. Iber stared as well. If this was the small cave, Iber had no clue as to how big the big cave was.
The cavern stretched tall, it’s ceiling in shadow. The walls glowed with a lilac and blue light which reflected in the pools that filled portions of the floor. The water bubbled up from some underground stream and sent rippling light dancing across the walls. The cavern was larger than the great halls of Tamarin and Capital City combined.
Here were the women and children as well. They were all a pale white and thin, dressed in a myriad of silken white and blue veils that created skirts that were indecently short according to Galadinian standards. None of them wore shoes, and their hair hung long and loose. They played amongst the pools and seemed to take no notice of the men in their midst.
The men stopped as if their brains had suddenly been taken from their skulls. They stared in wonderment at the females. Squash Nose almost let go of his spear when one of the women finally took notice of them and approached. She ignored the five and concentrated her attention on the three strangers.
The woman wasn’t particularly attractive. Her limbs were straight, but brittle looking, and her long blonde hair was slightly frizzy and uneven. Iber guessed she was about twenty five years of age. She ran her fingers over Iber’s clothing and motioned him to turn around. There was no fear in her green eyes, simply a curiosity that she tried to cover with a bored sigh.
“They killed a sky dragon,” the head man finally managed to say. The girl’s casual glance turned to a scathing appraisal. She turned quickly, her hair flinging about and hitting Iber in the face. She picked her way through the stone path and towards a doorway on the far side of the cavern. She turned when they didn’t follow.
“Well, come one, then.”
The men followed after her obediently. For someone unfamiliar, the stepping stones were a bit harder to manage. One of the guards slipped and ended up in the knee deep water which caused a wave of giggles from the women. Iber concentrated on his feet as they navigating the path so when they reached the doorway, he was once again astounded by the new view.
While the previous room had been pastel, this was reds of every hue. And warm. It was very warm. He could feel the heat seeping into his feet from the rock floor. It didn’t take very long to spot the source. On the other side of the cavern, surrounded by women, lay a gigantic black dragon.
“I think we’re in trouble,” Iber said.
“Thank you for stating the obvious,” Malek replied.
“Dragon killers?” The dragon’s voice boomed through the cave, sending only the men flinching back. Their merry guard fled back into the smaller cavern leaving the three standing their ground.
“They tried to kill us first,” Iber shouted.
“Approach!” She called, her tail flicking her displeasure.
Iber walked forward and the two followed behind them. Great Dragons were not usually prone to eating humans, as much as Snult loved to threaten them. But, come to think of it, the only great dragon they had ever known was Snult. Maybe it was just him who didn’t like humans. But if that were true, the women would be afraid of her as well. Instead, they stood close and without fear of being a snack.
“Good afternoon,” he started as he got close enough not to yell. “My name is Iber and we are travelers from Galadin. We’re looking for.”
“I don’t care who you are, man. I don’t care where you’re from. You’ve broken my laws, and therefore have forfeited any right to speak on equal terms.”
“We didn’t know about the law, Your… Eminence. Had we known, we would have respected it.”
“Diplomacy with a man is quite beneath me. They tell me you can cook.”
“My friend Malek is quite handy with a meal,” Iber said.
“And you are the one with the poems?” Iber shook his head yes.
“What does the other one do?”
Iber looked at Lasser who shrugged.
“It matters not, we’ll find something. From now on, you’ll work in my household as slaves as punishment for breaking the rules.”
“I object,” Lasser said.
“Silly men don’t have the right to object. Only their women. So if a woman claims you as her own, then she may object.”
“I already have a woman,” Malek said.
“You mean a woman already has you. Where is she?”
“She’s at home… in Galadin.”
“Then she shall have to come and claim you.”
“But she doesn’t know where I am.”
“Then she should keep better track of you. Until she comes, you and your friends will work for me. Take that one to the cooking cavern. Yes, and that one can stay here.” The dragon pointed to Iber. “The useless one can probably be of use. Let’s see how well he cares after the children.”
Still rather stunned, Malek and Lasser let themselves be led off in the different directions. Before he could object, the dragon turned her attention to Iber.
“Now. Poem. About me.”