Contents

  Title Page

  Dragonlace

  Author Information

  DRAGONLACE

  by Robin Lythgoe

  Copyright 2001 Robin Lythgoe

  Cover art by Boyd Lythgoe and Robin Lythgoe

  All rights reserved. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be reproduced, re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Dragonlace covered the entrance to the cave, creating a fragile, sparkling barrier reminiscent of a spider's web. Keeta crouched beneath the overhang of a moss-covered boulder, pressing her lips together and trying to slow the beating of her racing heart. Faint light from the dawning sun shone through bare twigs and branches, creating a lacy pattern on her pale face and echoing in reverse the web stretching across the mouth of the cave. Seven months she'd searched for this! Disbelieving wonder filled her and she glanced up at the sky in silent gratitude. She could barely control the urge to squeak her joy and excitement.

  Eyes shining brightly, Keeta searched the mountainside right and left, then up to the towering heights, carefully scrutinizing the woods, looking for anything out of place. Here and there autumn clung to its last bright leaves, but the otherwise bare trees and shrubs left little cover for hiding. Not a soul in sight. This was going to be far easier than she'd thought…

  "You seem to have lost your knight, fair maiden."

  The pleasant baritone from behind made Keeta jump and whirl. If her heart had pounded before, its rhythm had been a sleepy cadence in comparison to the sudden gallop it burst into at the vision that met her eyes. A full grown dragon lounged casually in the tiny clearing beneath the leafless, towering oaks. Impossible! She had just passed along the edge, and the only occupant had been herself. "H-how did you—? I thought—" She gulped and clapped her mouth shut. One slender hand rose nervously to finger her equally slender throat, and she recanted her opinion about the simplicity of her task.

  "Easily, and did you?"

  She blinked in confusion.

  The dragon sighed and propped its chin on its… hand. "I snuck up behind you easily," he explained. "Dragons can do that, you know. And you said you thought—Did you?"

  "Oh." Keeta blinked and backed away, right into the boulder. "Y-you can read minds?"

  "You knew that, surely."

  Of course she did. She felt foolish, which wasn't really a good way to go into a meeting with a dragon. She gestured back to the lace-draped entrance to the cave in an attempt to direct its attention elsewhere. "I thought you would be inside."

  The dragon raised one brow, or what passed for a brow on the giant reptile. "Did you? Why is that?"

  Straightening, Keeta drew a breath. One of the first rules of confrontation was never to show your fear. The second was to act like you knew what you were talking about. "Everyone knows that dragonlace is a dragon's first defensive weapon to protect its lair."

  "Do they really? I had no idea. How does it work?"

  "You should know. You are a dragon."

  "Indulge me. Please? I've never heard this notion."

  Such a curious, ingenuous expression did the dragon wear that Keeta almost believed him. She thought it highly improbably that a dragon wouldn't know what dragonlace was about. Still, she yielded to the desires of the big beast. No sense in aggravating him, after all. "It covers the mouth of the cave to protect young or sometimes treasures." She waved her hand in a descriptive arch, accompanying the motion with a little pacing, which served to give her fear-fueled energy an outlet and move her in the general direction of the cave.

  "Ah. Then you find yourself in a perilous predicament."

  "I-I do?"

  The dragon nodded sagely. "What if the cave's inhabitant decides to come out and investigate all this noise we're making?"

  Keeta blanched. She hadn't considered the possibility of another dragon in the vicinity. One seemed more than enough.

  The dragon chuckled. "Your fourth mistake."

  "Fourth?" She faltered, adding the feeling of stupidity to foolishness and being ill-prepared.

  "Your first mistake was in coming into an area inhabited by dragons. Most unwise." He shook his fearsomely elegant head and a look of doubt crossed his features. "Your second one was thinking. It seems something you humans are not cut out for, although one has to admire your continued efforts. The third was in believing that dragonlace… Well." His toothy maw split in a grin. "You obviously know nothing about dragonlace at all. A strange human frailty. You'd think that after all these years someone would have figured out the secret. At any rate, your fourth mistake was in not taking into consideration that dragons might possibly have companions. Or hunting partners. Or dinner dates… Wait, that's wrong." He shook his massive head again. "Excuse me. Breakfast dates. It is entirely the wrong time of day to eat dinner."

  Keeta paled even further. Having one's heart in their throat was a distinctly uncomfortable experience.

  "Surely you don't think I want to eat you?" His long tongue flicked out over his snout, his eyes glimmered with disconcerting eagerness.

  "I imagine you're considering it. Breakfast time and all." She found herself overwhelmed with disappointment. Once she became breakfast, there was no way that she would succeed on her quest, and Master Annilas would be right.

  "Right about what?" The dragon leaned forward, curious.

  "That isn't fair, you know," Keeta frowned and took an involuntary step away from the threat of immediate bodily harm. "You're bigger and meaner and smarter than I. The least you could do is to stay out of my head."

  "Are you suggesting a handicap?"

  "Is this a contest?"

  The dragon snorted and a small bush in front of him ignited. Calmly, he put the flame out with one huge, wickedly taloned forefoot. "I perceive that you find yourself in a life or death situation, while I, fair maiden, have merely happened on a moment's entertainment."

  "I see," she said, at a complete loss and thoroughly unwilling to show it.

  "You are quite transparent, Lady Keeta."

  Keeta blushed, then stomped her foot in vexation. "You did it again!"

  "Beg your pardon." The dragon ducked his head in apology. "I fear it is a habit as well ingrained as the effort of breathing."

  "Well, don't."

  "Breathe?"

  "Read my mind," she glowered.

  He stared at her for a long moment in apparent amusement. "Very well, milady."

  Keeta turned in a circle, casting about for a possible solution to her plight. Even had she been armed with something more than the knife at her waist, she was certainly not strong enough to kill a dragon, nor did she imagine herself fast enough to run away. Somehow, she would have to trick it and still find a way to make off with a strand of the valuable lace. "Sir dragon, you've stolen my name, bold as brass. May I have the pleasure of knowing yours?"

  "I must ask your pardon yet again, it seems. Forgive me, I beg you. Disuse seems to have rusted my manners." He stood and bent his long, graceful neck in a bow. "Nicarelius, at your service."

  "A very handsome name."

  "So I've been told."

  "Have you?" She put on a brave front and stepped forward again, examining him critically from head to toe, moving to one side in order to see better as she did. "By whom?"

  The golden, orb-like eyes followed her movement. "The last fellow who tried to purchase his freedom with flattery."

  So much for that ploy. Propping her hands on her hips, Keeta looked back at the dragonlace. "So is that yours, or what?" she asked. She couldn't very well pretend indifference with a creature that could read her mind, so she asked the obvious question.

  "As a matter of fact, it is." Pride puffed the dragon's chest.

  The glimmer of an idea came to her, but she couldn't dwell on it. Deliberately, she focused her thoughts on one thing and then another, never staying on any of them for longer than a moment. The woods, the leaves, the moss, the sparkle of sunlight on the dragon's scales, the taste of autumn in the air, the stacks of dusty tomes she regularly studied, the sudden craving for a savory meat pie—all of those things and more cartwheeled through her head. Nonchalantly, she removed a pair of gloves from her belt and pulled them on. "You don't say? It doesn't look like much."

  Another snort singed a pile of fallen leaves. "Looks can be deceiving."

  "So I've been told."

  "Have you?" Nicarelius sat, curling his tail around his feet, cat-fashion. "By whom?"

  "Master Annilas. My teacher and mentor." As calmly as she could, she walked toward the cave entrance, stopping before she actually reached it.

  "The one whose opinion concerns you so?"

  Keeta nodded. "The very same." She examined the dragonlace critically. How often during her search had she wondered if Annilas had sent her on a wild goose chase? And yet here it was, right in front of her very eyes. Threads several times thicker than a spider's silk made a curiously symmetrical design. Her master, a wizard of some repute, had set her the task of bringing him a piece of the stuff. One little thread! he'd exclaimed, that is all I need. Do you think you're up to the task, girl? She hated when he called her 'girl,' as if she belonged to some life form lower than the male apprentices; lower even than the dogs that turned the great wheels that ran

his infernal contraptions. With a little bit of dragonlace, she would advance at last to the level of Journeyman Wizard. Annilas refused to believe that she could succeed. She was, after all, a mere woman. Carefully, with her back still to the dragon, she slipped her knife from its sheath and tucked it up her sleeve. "It seems a bit… flimsy."

  "Flimsy???" Nicarelius roared, coming to his feet with a gout of flame.

  It took an effort not to leap right out of her skin. A swallow or two restored her composure somewhat. "Well, it doesn't seem that something so delicate and fragile could be worth much. What's so wonderful about it?"

  The dragon narrowed his eyes at her. "If I told you, then I would have to eat you."

  She shrugged carelessly. "You plan to do that anyway, so what difference does it make?"

  Perplexed, he simply sat and blinked at her. "You have a point. By telling you, I'd be filling a last request, as it were."

  "Exactly. Which would be very high-minded and honorable of you." Linking her hands behind her back, she turned to smile at him brightly. "Do dragons have honor any more?"

  "Do we—Why, of all the—Well, I never…" An insulted snort lit another bit of brush on fire. He slapped the flames out with his tail. "Of course dragons have honor." Back and forth across the clearing he paced, grumbling while Keeta watched with bated breath. Abruptly, he sat down again. His tail coiled over his feet and he eyed her coldly. "Very well. A last request. Dragonlace is, of course, magic. It takes years to acquire the education that goes into the building of it, and longer years still to perfect the talent. Dragonlace is wisdom, strength, and beauty. Each strand is—" he paused to search the heavens for the appropriate word. "Each strand is a thread of knowledge."

  That didn't sound like anything she had been taught. "Then why is it claimed to be a dragon's first defense?"

  Nicarelius licked his chops, though whether the motion was thoughtful or anticipatory, Keeta couldn't tell. "Words, knowledge, learning… More battles are won with these weapons than with swords and bucklers, siege engines, or even fire."

  "So you are saying that to be well-learned is to be well-armed?" As they talked, she inched backwards, until she could reach the gossamer strands.

  "Yes, in a nutshell."

  One little shift put her close enough to grab one of the threads. The entire thing quivered. Nicarelius could not help but see. His eyes widened. "DON'T TOUCH THAT!!!!" he bellowed.

  Too late. The knife sliced through a single strand, snick! snick! She clutched it to her chest and feinted toward the obvious path of escape on the near side of the gaping hole. Dragon fire scorched the shrubbery in front of her, singeing hair and brows and making her eyes hurt. She whirled and dashed the other way, right across the opening. Nicarelius bounded to his feet and took another shot at her. A stream of fire engulfed the dragonlace covering the entrance, turning the delicate strands to shimmering glass. Sudden silence followed.

  Keeta knew opportunity when she saw it. Grabbing it, she ran like the dickens.

  "My lace…!" Nicarelius wailed in astonishment. Leathery wings spread helplessly, he stared at the wreck of his pride and joy. In the hush, the burnt web fell in a tinkling shower. "It's ruined!"

  She did not dare look back at him, but scrambled through a pile of boulders and slithered down a rocky ravine. Any minute, the dragon would be after her in a fit of rage. Likely, vengeance would burn the whole mountain. The low, sad moan that reverberated through the air and shook the smaller limbs all around her did not slow her for even a second. Foolish dragon, so careless with his might and his anger! She kept running.

  "It's ruined," the dragon repeated dully. "I can't believe you did that. How did you do that?" His voice raised on the question, another rumbling roar.

  Faintly, Keeta's voice drifted back, laughing: "Arson, Nick, and a bit of bold grace!"

  Connect with Robin online:

  Twitter: http://twitter.com/robinlythgoe

  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000562546329

  Blog: http://robinlythgoe.blogspot.com/

 

 

  Robin Lythgoe, Dragonlace

  Thanks for reading the books on GrayCity.Net