Glowly's Arc

Chapter 15 of 16

Glowly and Nova climbed back to the dry stone above the flooded shaft. The wolf pup pressed against Glowly's leg, still shaky from its near drowning. The small blue dragon lifted its head. Glowly knelt and stared at the black water. The relic waited past a doorway too deep for one breath. She needed a second dive with the fire held still at the bottom. But the crocodile had learned the trick. It no longer chased the fireball into the far dark. It circled below, waiting for the light to drop. "Watch," Nova said. She struck her scorched stone and flung a fireball across the shaft. It floated and drifted. The crocodile barely turned. Its long shape stayed near the doorway, guarding the deep. "It knows now. My fire won't pull it off the bottom again." Glowly's hands curled into fists. Every plan she had led back to the same wall. Then a voice spoke from the dark passage behind them. "You keep throwing light at a hunter and wonder why it hunts the light." Glowly spun. A figure stepped into the fire's glow. Red-scaled skin marked his arms and chest. Small wings folded at his back. A tail swept the stone behind him. He was half dragon, half human, and he watched the water like he had studied it for years. This was Taker. Glowly had read of a scaled diver in one failed account, dismissed as a rumor. Now the rumor stood before her. "Who are you?" Glowly said. Her hand found her blade. "Someone who's watched three fools drown in that shaft." Taker crouched at the edge. He dipped one clawed hand into the water without fear. "Your fire is bait. Stop baiting. The creature guards the doorway because it can't leave the deep for long. It breathes water down there, air up here. Split its attention." "With what?" Nova asked. Taker looked at the little dragon, then at the pup. "Heat drives it up. Cold dark holds it down." He nodded at Glowly's blade. "Your runes call it. Good. Light them at the surface and hold them here. The crocodile climbs toward the light it can reach. While it climbs, someone dives past it in the dark." Glowly saw it at once. The old liability became the lure. "It rises to my blade. We drop below it." "I dive," Taker said. "I breathe the water. You couldn't reach the doorway and rise. I can." Glowly gripped her blade. She had spent six years trusting only herself. But she had measured the drop, and no lung of hers could cross it. "Show me the doorway first," she said. "Then we plan the rest." Taker smiled, sharp-toothed. He slid into the black water and vanished without a splash. The crocodile turned toward the ripple. Glowly lit her runes high and steady, and the creature began to climb. The way down was open at last. Now she had a diver who could reach it.