Author's Note:

Previously excerpt was Chapter 1 from 1st edition

Excerpt from The Glass Volcano: Wellspring Dragons Book 3, 2nd edition

Available in ebook format at the end of May 2023

Excerpt from The Glass Volcano

Archaic Daione covered the walls of the chamber that served as an intersection of tunnels. Shiobe rubbed the side of her nose, trying to decide exactly how ancient. Not that it mattered, she supposed, as long as she wrote it down correctly in her notes and gleaned the valuable information she needed from it.

Ceten traced a few of the words with his finger. “This is the language on the maps, huh?”

“Yes. Archaic Daione. It makes sense. Most religions write their texts in Daione because of the language’s association with the lightarts, and the dragonpriests used it extensively.”

“What does it say?” Sikode asked. He stood, hands behind his back, studying the small rocks that rested away from the main mass of earth blocking the right-hand tunnels. The look, the feel, of the cave-in bothered Shiobe; it seemed too neat, as if someone placed the dirt and stone there on purpose rather than the tunnels collapsing on their own. The way the fighter scrutinized the mass hinted he, too, thought it strange.

She turned back to the writing. “Most of it is high praise for the Flame Dragon, with a lot of religious flourishes. I don’t think that’s very significant for us. But there are a few phrases that seem odd.” She pointed at the lines in question. “This verse says,

“May flames rise from the western torch and illuminate the golden walls,

Guide the elite to the sacred halls,

Mist and warm the guardians tall,

Into the blackness it purposefully falls.”

“What else?”

“Talent shines brightly between the stranded wings of

Flame and Ice, Earth and Wind,

Though shallow Water hides those who sinned,

As well as calloused hands that pinned

An obsidian of sleekness refined.”

“Cryptic,” Sikode sighed.

“The ancient Condi loved wordplay, and the dragonpriests echoed them,” Shiobe said. “For instance, they capitalized Flame, Ice, Earth, Wind and Water, meaning they are the names of the Five Dragons rather than elements. Shallow refers to a superficial person rather than not-deep water, and calloused hands mean a cruel person, not skin callouses.”

“So there is more to the words than a casual glance might indicate.”

“Yes.” She pointed to the plaques above the tunnels, each word held within a barely discernable flame. “These specify where the tunnels go. The far left says Empleiosin, which refers to a commons eating room used by the dragonpriests to entertain guests. The next one says Escurti, which means study—not a single room, but a collection of workspaces. They’re enormous areas and can fill an entire floor of a building, but they usually only contain bookshelves, desks and chairs. The middle is Ghaowhue, which means Grand Hall. The right two say Ghaomuoh, which means Grand Entry, and Rhaothrioh, Red River. Since we are in a volcano, I’m assuming that refers to a magma flow.”

Sikode grunted. “Do you believe the Grand Entry refers to the Grand Chamber?”

She shook her head. “No. ‘Entry’ and ‘chamber’ are definitely two distinct words. Of course, the entry leads to the Grand Chamber, and since that’s the case, we’re going to have to find another way.” She kicked a stray rock. “The slide wasn’t an accident, was it?”

“No,” Sikode said shortly.

The dragon knew they were in the volcano—and exactly which part they trod. What else might he wield to impede them?

“So which way do we go?” Ceten asked, studying each tunnel as if they provided him more information than Shiobe detected.

“The most likely choice is the Grand Hall,” she said. “In Condi palaces, grand halls usually have several smaller hallways intersecting them. We should have more choices in ways to go.”

Sikode nodded, though the glare he deposited on the offensive tumble of rock nearly made her shiver.

After Shiobe quickly jotted down the two phrases, they entered the Grand Hall tunnel. Ceten went first, following the silver light, with Sikode taking the rear. She preferred it that way; he had a better chance of caring for any creature that stalked them. The walls were smooth and shiny, unlike the ones they previously walked. Several sconces hung at intervals of twenty footsteps, each waiting for torches. The glowing rocks did not line the way, so Sikode again used his magick to provide a dim light. The air remained mild, without the abrupt swings in temperature, though she realized the pleasant chill had more to do with preserving the carpet upon which they tread than providing comfort to weary travelers. The swirls of gold, red and copper looked brittle, and they crunched underfoot.

Feeling terrible about the bits of dust she left behind, she walked on the thin strip of stone between the carpet and the wall. She dinged the edges, but the damage did not equal that of striding down the center. Oddly, both Sikode and Ceten did the same, though she doubted they experienced the same pang of scholarly cringing at the desecration.

Shiobe lost track of time and found herself lulled into a complacent walk from the monotony of the way. She knew better—Ti’torien had not dulled its warning—but she could not quite pull herself from the bored, lethargic gait. She looked at Ceten’s back and realized he fared no better. She glanced around and gasped. Her heart pounded hard into her throat.

No Sikode.

“Sikode!”

No response. The silver light proceeded far ahead of them, with most of the illumination coming from Ti’torien’s glow. Ceten stumbled into the wall, then collapsed. Shiobe scurried to him and shook his shoulder, but his eyes remained closed, and his breathing evened out in sleep. The darkness swirled about them, kept at bay only by Ti’torien’s brightening red glare.

“Sikode!”

Her voice fell, dead. Shiobe barely heard herself. She sucked in a deep breath through clenched teeth, then shook Ceten. “Ceten!” Again, her words disappeared. “Ceten!” she screamed, but the darkness swallowed the sound.

She heard rustling, rasping. She glanced about as her heart beat so hard she could not catch her breath, but saw nothing. Her lethargy disappeared under the sudden burst of adrenaline. She grabbed the sleeping man’s arm and tugged, but he remained oblivious.

She knew she could not leave him there.

She lifted Ceten’s arm just as all light but the flare from Ti’torien’s pommel disappeared. A swirling wind with the bite of a Frozen Air night’s deathly cold slammed into her. She shivered as she heard a scraping sound near her. Her talisman started to glow, but the faint light it produced did not illuminate past her chest. What did that mean? Had the bloodmages found them?

Terrified, she pulled her sword and map case to the sides, hefted Ceten from the floor, and draped him over her pack, holding onto one of his limp arms. He and his bundle weighed far more than she expected, but it did not matter—they needed to flee.

Now.

The spiraling howl pushed her into motion. It sounded similar to those of the doggy creatures she had encountered before, in Iova and Merren. She staggered down the tunnel, hand on the sleek left wall, hoping Ceten’s pack remained on his back and did not fall—she did not think she could go back for it.

She heard labored breathing amidst the growls and managed a shuffling run, terror descending and adrenaline pushing her, hard. Whatever chased her . . .

She tripped over an unseen something that squealed in anger and fell heavily, dropping Ceten. She sobbed as a blast of Frozen Air blew over her, chilling her. She reached out to grab the climber but touched nothing. She searched about—how far had he rolled?—and saw nothing other than the crumbling bits of carpet. The red glow from her pommel intensified as a warning.

No. No. She had to find him. Where had he gone?

Claws raked up her right side; deathly cold collided with her warm skin. Silver flared in response as she screamed.

The pommel of her sword burst into fiery life. Red streaks shot out of it, her talisman’s whirling rainbow of color snaking around them and blasting the darkness away from her.

Ceten laid in a heap ahead of her, something ghostly, misty, wolven, with red eyes and dripping fangs hovering over him, staring at her. She drew the sword and rose, her legs shaking from cold and fear, but charged anyway; it jerked back and shied away before disappearing into the blackness beyond. She clattered down next to him, struggling to keep her numbing fingers wrapped about the sword’s grip. The pommel dimmed, but the talisman still produced enough rainbow-colored light she could see Ceten.

“Ceten!” she whispered. She shook him and he groaned, attempting to cast off her hand.

“Ceten!”

He opened one eye. “What?” He looked at her, completely confused, then glanced about. “Where . . .‍” He trailed off and sat up, one hand rising to rub his temple as he looked about. “The tunnel?”

“Yeah,” Shiobe said, leaning back, aching with cold. Did he not feel it? “The tunnel.”

“Tunnel?” Realization shot through his eyes. “Where’s Lord Sikode?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered. She chafed her upper right arm, which produced none of the heat she sought. Ceten winced and pushed himself against the wall, one hand shielding his eyes from the light while he looked around them. He started violently at the howl that echoed behind them. They searched the darkness for the source—though she suspected the sword and talisman kept whatever hunted them at bay.

“What is that?” Ceten quivered.

“I don’t know. The howls sound like the doggy creatures I faced in Iova, but there was something else hovering over you. It’s wispy, like a ghost, but I assume it’s some sort of magickal guardian. A sentry.” She tapped her talisman, hoping the Imp magick held. “I think we’re protected for now, but we need to find Sikode.”

Ceten dug into his pack and produced a torch, but the oiled cloth refused to light, no matter how much he cursed at the flint and stone. The spark faded before touching its destination. He glanced at her as the cold burned. She held out her hand, and he grabbed it; his icy fingers did not make her feel better. She forced her body into motion and scurried down the tunnel, the climber keeping pace. Every so often she would glimpse red gleams ahead of them, moving swiftly away and followed by delicate wisps of white fog, a reminder that whatever chased them was not going away.

The tunnel continued without a single difference that Shiobe could detect. Empty sconces, smooth sides, decayed carpet, gleaming eyes—and nothing else. She searched for any sort of magickal symbol or shimmer of color that indicated a wielding, but noticed nothing. No writing on the walls caught her attention. Ceten tugged her hand and nodded down at the floor.

“No one else’s been this way,” he told her. Frowning, she studied the carpet—and realized no other foot had disturbed the old cloth. Sikode had not traveled this way. Where had he gone?

Had that wolfy creature got him?

No. She mentally laughed herself sick at the absurd thought of Sikode meekly falling to a ghostly thing.

“I looked around and Sikode wasn’t with us,” she told him. “You fell down, asleep. I did my best to carry you, but we didn’t make it far before I tripped.”

“He disappeared?”

“Something happened to him. I don’t know what. For a few moments there, I couldn’t hear my voice. If he called to us, we wouldn’t have heard him.”

He gasped and pointed. The tunnel opened into a room; she could not tell how large, for the walls disappeared into the darkness. A door stood opposite them, reflecting goldish rainbows from the talisman’s light. Shiobe glanced at the climber, then licked her lips—did she want to open that door? Did they have a choice? More than one pair of red eyes gleamed behind them.

Was it unlocked? Too bad she did not have that magicked lockpick the Iovan docksman dropped in her room. It would certainly come in handy now. Maybe she needed to ask Sikode about creating something similar for her, considering the adventuresome turn her life had taken.

She desperately wanted to rush through the door, but caution won. She stopped and slowly reached for the vine handle, waiting for something to happen. Ceten hissed at her, but she ignored him as she grasped it and pulled; the wood opened with a great creaking sound.

Wonderful. No hiding their entry from whatever lay beyond.

Gritting her teeth, she peeked around the corner.

“Shiobe, go!”

Ceten’s panicked voice yelled in her ear and he shoved her into the room before slamming the door shut; loud thumps echoed against the gold. She landed on a soft carpet while Ceten leaned against the door, eyes wild, then his mouth dropped open.

She glanced into the room; Sikode stood near a bookshelf, one volume in hand, obviously interrupted. He looked at the door, took one step, and Ceten squawked; Shiobe whirled on her hands and knees and stared at a floor-length tapestry that now hung where the door had stood.

“What’s going on?” Ceten asked. Sikode strode to the tapestry—a fine ancient Condi affair depicting a gleaming white temple city with two dragons, one red, one blue, soaring above it—and tore it away from the wall. No doorway hid behind it.

“Dammit,” Sikode gritted, then the tenseness flowed from his shoulders, and he let the cloth flop onto the floor.

“How did you get here?” Shiobe asked as she slowly rose and dusted at her pants before realizing the carpet from the tunnel still stuck to her fingers. She rubbed them against her thighs, but the fine bits rolled about and made clumps rather than dusting off her skin.

“I was . . . intercepted,” Sikode replied before flumping down in one of the thinly padded chairs. He sighed and ran a hand across his head in frustration. “I asked you a question, and when you did not answer, I looked up and realized neither you nor Ceten walked in front of me. I tried to run ahead, but the tunnel disappeared in a kick-portal and I found myself here, in this room, without an obvious exit.”

He spent the time they raced down the tunnel trying to get out of the room? If Sikode could not find an exit . . .

Wait. “But you can kick-portal, too.”

She shuddered at his deadly glower. “Yes, I can,” he snarled. “Unfortunately, every time I attempt it, the kick-portal only leads outside, to the base of the mountain. There is a ramshackle hut with peeling paint on the side that looks like a flame and overgrowth as far as I can see.”

Oh.

“That’s on the far eastern side, at the tip of the landslide,” Ceten said quietly. “It’s to the side of a large, overgrown ancient road that used to be the Flame Trail. It’d take at least a day and a half to get back to the cave from there.”

“If we left, I would employ another kick-portal to reach a place we have already visited, so we would not lose much time,” Sikode informed him.

“Unless the dragon interferes with that one as well,” Shiobe said.

Sikode’s eyes blazed a furious ice.

She looked about, hoping to avoid the fighter’s caustic frustration. The ambient yellow light illuminated twenty neat rows of bookshelves divided down the center by a wide aisle, each stuffed with several volumes. Tapestries of multiple origins hung from the ceiling, hiding the dull blackish-grey wall beneath a wash of extraordinary color. Ten long tables and accompanying chairs filled the space between the first ten rows of shelves and the second set, with benches designed for lounging and sleeping settled against the walls. Water burbled from the far left and she wondered if the room held one of those nice drinking streams.

“Is this the escurti?” Ceten asked as he moved further into the room.

“No.” Shiobe slipped out of her pack, wincing as the straps slid across her shoulders. “This is more like a private research room, rather than a retreat for several scholars—at least the way the ancient Condi saw it. It’s not large enough to be an escurti.”

“I can read none of the scripts I have found in books,” Sikode admitted. “You must look through them, Shiobe. Neither Ceten nor I have the language skills to understand them.”

Shiobe studied the shelves briefly, aware that the fighter’s stony gaze bore into her. Feeling uneasy, she retreated to the source of water and washed her hands of clumpy threads.

As she swished her fingers about, her pommel dimmed to a soft, pale red glow. The talisman’s rainbow colors swirled on the surface, but since she no longer needed light, it had retreated into itself. She touched the object, again wondering about Stchn’s thankfulness and if, in the future, he would retrieve it from her. He said he monitored her danger because he owed her a life debt for saving his brother. How closely did he pay attention?

She rose, shaking her hands dry, and glanced at Sikode, who eyed Ceten suspiciously as the man nervously shifted from foot to foot as he related the tale of their escape down the tunnel. She clenched her teeth. Did he no longer trust them after the separation? Evidently not.

Of course, she had no way of knowing whether the man sitting at the table was Sikode. She had seen the illusions in the manuscripts; the Flame Dragon might use such wieldings in different ways. How to prove his reality? Shiobe pulled at her lower lip, then, on impulse, waltzed to him and poked his arm, hard.

Both men stared at her as if she sprouted a second head.

Wonderful.

“You’re not an illusion,” she told the annoyed fighter. He rubbed at his arm and glared daggers. “I’ll . . . um . . . make myself useful,” she said over-brightly and turned to the bookshelves, stunned by her bravado.

Ceten and Sikode studied the walls behind the tapestries as Shiobe shuffled down the rows of shelves, looking for an answer to their predicament. Several books written in Ciqi met her eye, and she could not help but anticipate her father’s eager lust to read those volumes. Hopefully the answer to breaking out of the room did not rest in one of those. She pulled books written in the languages she knew that might prove useful, marked their place by tipping the book to the left onto its pages, and continued until she formed a small pile—though some of the other topics, like the ancient lore of the Imps, piqued her curiosity and she desperately wished to sit and read them.

She lost herself in the words. She skimmed volume after volume, finding plenty of interest but nothing about the room. She wondered if she should have. Unless the Flame Dragon purposefully left a clue within the pages, random study materials would not contain the answer to their predicament. She knew a doorway existed—she and Ceten had used one, after all. She doubted the dragonpriests behaved so irrationally, as to only exit through a kick-portal leading to the base of the mountain. A dragon, intent on messing with a potential master, however . . .

Her stomach growled, so she dug into her pack for some dried fruit and nibbled while her eyes trailed over the tapestries. She had a nagging feeling they held the answer to their current situation, but she recognized so few of the scenes she felt depressed. How much dragon lore had her father neglected to relate to her? How much did he simply not know? As ageless creatures, dragons appeared in the mythology of all ancient cultures in Seari, and their tales reached far into the past—over sixteen thousand years, in fact. Her knowledge of important historical events dwindled at six-to-seven thousand years ago and became nearly non-existent over eleven.

How much help might she be?

“You found nothing?” Sikode asked in a freezing voice. Shiobe started and looked guiltily at him, then shook her head.

“No,” she admitted. “But . . . I’m uncertain there’s a book in here that will conveniently tell us how to leave.” She licked her lips. “The tapestries might, though.”

“I have looked at the tapestries, Shiobe,” he said, exasperated. “There is no writing, no words. They are only pictures.”

“And the pictures in the manuscripts were pretty impressive, don’t you think?”

He stared at her, then whirled away a few steps before stilling and bowing his head. Shiobe frowned and rose, wondering what words upset him so badly, and hesitated in nearing him. Ceten gave her a worried, suspicious look, and she could practically hear his concern that Sikode was not the same Sikode who had entered the mountain with them.

Her mistrust evaporated as his silvery magick blew through the room and the tapestries absorbed it—unless the dragon could duplicate magick auras, he was Sikode.

“Ceten,” he snapped. The climber jumped into action. The fighter created a light ball and gave it to him, then nodded at the tapestries. “Put that behind the cloth. Shiobe, hold the edges and see if any magick images appear.” Ceten leapt to a tapestry, and Shiobe hesitated slightly before joining him. That was not quite what she meant, but if it worked . . .

Surprisingly, several of the tapestries had secondary images. Shiobe could not tell what many of the blobous colors might be, though she guessed them landscapes. She marked those of interest by placing a book under the trailing ends. Sikode took far longer to trigger whatever needed triggering in the fabric she highlighted, and she wondered if, as in the tunnel, a spell tried to interfere with them. She and Ceten finished their round, then she studied the scenes that Sikode brought to the surface with his wieldings.

No discernable pattern met her eye. The hidden images seemed to have nothing to do with the overt ones, though she realized that, since her knowledge of the actual legends was deficient, she may not realize the connections. She touched one tapestry, felt the tingle of magick, and sighed. How were they going to find the answer they needed?

Sikode smacked his hands on his legs after he revealed the last picture. “There are nearly thirty that contain hidden images,” he said in a weary voice as he set his hands on his hips. “They are difficult to bring to the surface—whoever hid them wished them to stay that way.”

And they would have, if she and Sikode did not possess previous experience with the maps. “I see no explanation with them,” she murmured.

He shook his head. “No,” he agreed. “No words. Do you recognize anything, Shiobe?”

“No,” she reluctantly admitted. “The tapestries with myths I recognize don’t have the magick hidden in them.”

He thrummed his fingers against his hips. “They seem unrelated at best,” he said. “The hidden images bear no relevance to initial pictures, as far as I can tell.”

“I have no idea what cultures created most of these,” Shiobe said. “I don’t recognize most of the styles. There are a few Ga Iniria or Condi ones—none of them have illusions. There are a couple from ancient western lands. The rest . . .”

“So you have no guesses as to what words to say to bring forth anything other than the original magickal images.”

Shiobe took a deep breath, then shook her head. “I don’t even know what language to use.” She shrugged. “But I can try.”

She spoke several words related to the Flame Dragon in the languages she knew, focusing on the ancient forms of Siodame, Daione, and Catak, but none of them seemed to trigger a response. Shiobe felt discouraged—by the look on Sikode’s face, more than disappointment raced through him. She closed her eyes and wondered what to do next, other than continue to toss words at the tapestries and hope one took. She decided to tour the room and study the images one at a time, searching for something that might trigger a memory.

Ceten laid down, looking weary enough to sleep through a cave-in. Sikode followed her lead. He studied the tapestries as she did, but also found nothing. She finally joined him at one particularly brilliant work, where the burnt orange and crimson sunset glowed bright enough to shame the modern sky. In the distance stood the shimmering white walls of a temple city, the pointed central tower jutting into the orange glow. She had studied several of them, including Zere Enec, near Tura—and she felt her skin crawl at the thought of the ancient ruin and the darkness she sensed beneath.

“Zere Enec.” Nothing happened, but she had not expected it, either. She glanced at Sikode, who regarded her with interest, then named off temple cities. So ancient, so inspired, so powerful as political and moral forces, and not a one survived into modern times.

“Shal Teran.”

The colors blazed to life, blinding her. She covered her eyes and the fighter hissed. A subtle heat drifted from the magick before the light dwindled. She peeked between her fingers; the scene had changed to a precipice view, and she could swear she beheld the real Shal Teran, the wind gently jiggling tree branches and tall grass blades at the edges of the image. The city held deep shadows, but the square, columned temple situated on a higher mound dazzled, the pointed, tiled tops of the four corner towers reflecting the sunset, which blended from orange to cobalt blue. The building itself only rose three stories, though Shiobe knew it had grown through the ages to a humongous 10 story structure, with the two back towers reaching nearly thirty-five.

Her love ran a hand across the cloth, then half-smiled.

“This is amazing,” he whispered. “I would guess we truly stood before it, were we not in this room.”

“Shal Teran was a temple city founded just over seven thousand years ago by a Tera priest named Ghao Prastirin.” The city disappeared, replaced by a majestic white marble statue depicting a man holding his hands skyward in joy. The flow of water at the very bottom meant the statue sat atop a fountain, though no walls or other objects stood behind it, effectively taking it out of a meaningful space and time. Shiobe glanced at Sikode, then cleared her throat. “Modern Shalradioh sits on its foundations.”

“Shiel has shown an interest in Shalradioh, since it is the second-largest city in Oritan, and it seems far riper than Avadiosha for conquest. The merchants who run the White Scale Markets are so corrupt, he feels he can use that to advantage.”

“Shalradioh is a religious hub,” Shiobe reminded him. “You’ll piss off a few countries besides Oritan if you invade.”

Sikode shrugged. “Their religious influence has waned considerably in the last few years, due to the greed of the merchants. Avadiosha has realized this, though their subtle attempts to rein in the merchants are laughable. They must issue a stronger challenge, but King Liofan is not up to it.”

Shiobe nodded as she leaned closer, enchanted by the detail she witnessed. “Do you think you need to be a strong wielder to make one of these images?” Then she smiled. “Shal Teran.” She preferred the sunset to the priestly image.

“I do not know,” he told her quietly. “I have met fantasizers from Rakan to Illena, and Shiel employs his fair share.” He shook his head. “I know of none who can produce such luscious images, and many of them are brimming with magick. The reality displayed in the maps, in these tapestries . . . it is a lost art, I am afraid. Or, perhaps, it is a lightart unfamiliar to those of us who practice the shadowarts. The Condi siojhetioxh are fond of secreting wielding knowledge away from those they consider too crass to practice it.”

Since she had far more knowledge of historical places than Sikode, she tried to puzzle out the cities and landscapes. She guessed the images in two more tapestries before fatigue set in; the royal forest outside the ancient capital city of Dei and Kharmegh, a long-dead religious settlement filled with priests who followed a sylfaone of water and rivers called Meghra. Meghra once had a loyal local following, and a more general, enthusiastic one, but after the Jonna Empire conquered the west, her worship, along with many of the western sylfaodolon, ended.

Several Mackdregh legends claimed the river caravans dried up because the people neglected her, leaving the west poor and helpless against its many foes. Those river caravans winding around the town had convinced her of its identity.

Shiobe stumbled to her pack and barely unfurled her sleep roll before she succumbed to slumber. Surprisingly enough, Sikode joined her. Retrieving those long-hidden spells must have wearied him far more than she assumed.

****

The Glass Volcano: The Wellspring Dragons Book 3, 2nd Edition, will be available May 2023

Dawn of Shiobe: The Wellspring Dragons Book 1 (Chapter 28 of Book 1)

Shadows over Tindrel: The Wellspring Dragons Book 2 (Chapter 20 of Book 2)

The Glass Volcano: The Wellspring Dragons Book 3

Also visit The Wellspring Dragons World