16. Epilogue
Astra realizes that her adventure is just beginning...
WRAP UP! This is the final installment for Arc 1 of Dragon’s Grail: Escape from Ice Mountain! Arc 2, The Lost City, starts in 2025…which, eeeeeek, is just a few weeks away?!?!??!?
Escape from Ice Mountain marks the start of an epic fantasy, one where a middle-aged fish-out-of-water librarian (and necromancer!) navigates love, betrayal, and the complexities of power as she struggles to embrace her destiny and uncover the mysteries of her own origins. Yes, there are dragons too! And also magical dogs.
Previously: Astra made a play for their freedom, and it succeeded, but...
They hauled themselves through the older, unused caves that Astra found, Xavai holding Hiloh on his feet and Traz helping Zochur. No one assisted Astra, but she had found time during one of their rests to change into a pair of her brother’s trousers and one of his tunics. The heavy canvas and leather outfit felt odd on her, after wearing dresses since she was five, but it was far less cumbersome. Her cloak, at least, offered her a familiar covering. She wadded up her habit and stuffed it into the pack, thinking that at least the petticoat might be ripped up for bandages at some point, if they needed them, pushing away the thought that they would almost certainly need them.
She settled her red cloak around herself again to ward off the deep mountain chill of the tunnels.
The temple dogs came and went, unaffected by the dark or the difficulty of the descent. Astra was the only one who took any solace in that, she thought. Traz slung a moonstone into a netting bag to light their way a little, but it only went so far to save them from the uneven floors and half-carved steps.
After an endlessly long descent, during which they had all napped once by necessity, they came to a nearly unnoticeable fork. The tunnel that Astra knew led to the blue forests was small, barely enough for one person to walk through at a time. The entrance to it could have easily been overlooked in the dark, since it was so jagged and narrow. What they could see of it was steeply angled down, not quite a drop-off but close enough. Xavai pressed Hiloh against the wall and then peered at the entrance.
“Hiloh will not make it. I would have to carry him.”
Hiloh nodded. “I could follow later, but I need a day of rest, a bowl of bone soup, and earnest prayers to Olah’ah.” He gave Astra a weak smile. He, at least, was still willing to meet her face to face.
“What did he say?” Zochur asked, their eyes narrowing in displeasure.
“He and Xavai do not think he can make it through the tunnel on his own. He needs to recover before following.”
“This tunnel is no place for recovery,” Zochur said, hands on hips.
Astra pointed down the larger tunnel. “I think this might end up near the goat fields outside of the east ward’s wall. If it hasn’t collapsed. Otherwise, you could go back to that broad tunnel, the one with the green paint. It meets up with one of the tunnels that ends at the Cavern of the Sunken Lake. Neither path is short; it doubles your travel time.” Astra set her back against the wall behind and took a deep breath.
“How do you know these tunnels?” Traz asked, frowning.
“The dead ranger. These were his secrets,” Astra said. Zochur cringed, and Astra’s heart broke a little more. She stood up again, despite her sore feet screaming objections. “We cannot leave Hiloh alone. He could fall down and die in here.”
“I will stay with him.” Zochur pulled themselves up to their full height.
“Zee—” Traz started to argue, but Astra cut him off.
“That is a good plan. We need to take the horn far away from here, and neither of you is fit for travel.”
Zochur simply nodded in agreement, but Traz glared at her for a long moment before he agreed.
Astra turned to Xavai. “Zochur will stay with Hiloh, and they will find their own way out. Traz and I are taking the horn–the grail–north, so we must leave through this tunnel.” She pointed at the old, narrow tunnel, which Xavai continued to study with distrust. Astra did not blame him. It was a creepy and dangerous path to take. “You may join us, or stay with Zochur and Hiloh.”
Traz was already handing over the netted moonstone to Zochur along with one of the utility belts, which Astra assumed was kitted out with practical knives and some small vials of medicine. Or so she hoped.
Xavai and Hiloh talked in low tones while Zochur and Traz fussed over supplies, so Astra went and sat down by the smaller tunnel’s entrance, yelping when Ruby stuck her head out from it. Pulling her arms close, she looked at the huge dog as it settled down on its haunches. As much as the temple dogs had scared her for years, they had never done anything to warrant such fear. All they had was a reputation for being soulless and power-hungry. Furthermore, no one knew why they bonded themselves to the superiors of Qordashi, only that they did, and always had. They had no origin story that did not trace back to the legends of the Gods of the Four Winds.
Yet, here were two of them, watching out for her. She wondered if it was related to her being what she was. Were they keeping an eye on her? It was not her fault that she was a crypt-keeper, and it was nothing she ever wanted. People assumed the worst of any kind of necromancer, much as they assumed the worst of temple dogs.
She gently, slowly raised her arm and placed it over Ruby’s shoulders. The same deep, dark calm she had felt before came back to her, this time sparking with energy that, somehow, felt red—warm and crackling like a banked fireplace filled with live coal. Which, she realized, was probably why the dog was ‘Ruby.’ She looked around for ‘Emerald,’ but he was nowhere to be seen.
Xavai’s boots appeared in front of her. “I will go with you.” He paused. “No. Not with you. I have been charged to protect the grail, for the sake of our people and kingdom.”
Astra opened her mouth to ask what in the Celestials’ Realm the dragon’s grail had to do with Am-Ayat, but thought better of it. She nodded, pulling herself back up on her angry feet.
Zochur was hugging Traz, talking in his ear. They let go of him and then stepped over to Astra, who looked away. She squeaked in surprise when strong arms pulled her into a hug. “You will always be my grumpy Little Monk, Ashtrakur. Be safe. Do what is right. Come home.”
Astra hugged Zochur with all her might, holding back her tears.
They left Hiloh sitting on the ground, grimacing, while Zochur fussed over his bandages. At the last minute, Astra had handed over her dress, keeping only the petticoat, so that Zochur could use it as dressing for Hiloh’s wound. That, at least, gave Astra some peace of mind as she walked into the void of the dark, dank old tunnel.
She was not sure how long they walked. The sharp downhill angle was constant, sometimes mild and sometimes it was almost like walking down a ladder. Behind her, Traz carried a weak, broken moonstone in a knotted kerchief, which at least gave her enough light to see by that she did not trip and break her neck. Xavai followed up behind them, sure-footed and silent.
Eventually, when Astra thought she would just stop walking forever and die in the tunnel out of exhaustion, she saw a dim light ahead. As they got closer to it, tree roots, thick as legs, began poking through the crumbling wall. The entrance itself was overgrown by roots, and they had to dig to get enough dirt out of the way to tumble out of it onto the floor of the forest.
Just from the smell and the temperature, Astra knew they were probably near the valley floor. The forest was thick and virgin, uncut and untamed by any human hand, so overgrown with branches and vines that it was impossible to see the sky. Sunlight filtered down through the foliage in a haphazard way, the blue leaves and branches turning the light a sickly green, but it could have been dusk for all the light they had to see by.
Yet for all of that, it felt dead and empty. She shuddered.
“The dragons won’t see us,” Xavai said, still staring up.
“They have sharp ears, but they do not like flying this low,” Astra said, looking around. “They have rarely been this far north anyway, not outside of individual galesprings. At least, not in recent memory. Anyway, dragons are not trackers. They attack and they fight, but they rarely even hunt their food, mostly taking what they find convenient,” she added, brushing down her trousers from the dirt of crawling out the tunnel exit.
“You know them so well, do you?” Xavai asked bitingly.
“I read. There is a much written about them, in the books of my library.” She looked at the tunnel. “Or, there were.” She turned back to the cave. “Do you think they left Qordashi standing?” She asked in Dishilli of no one in particular, and not expecting an answer.
Traz tutted at her. “It is old, and massive, mostly stone and rock. They could burn it, have the dragons knock down temples and barracks, perhaps flatten the east ward, but they would have to tear down the mountain to destroy it completely. It is protected by the Gods of the Four Winds. It still stands.” Traz stretched out his arms and back. “We will find a way to go back home. I promise.”
Astra tried not to think of all the times she had imagined something similar to herself as a child, when “home” was an odd, distant, and barely remembered lodge. Home had changed, but she wondered if her life was going to be spent continually ripped from one home, then another.
“We cannot stay, but I don’t know where to go from here.” She waved a hand around at the thick foliage, the soulless trees with trunks so large it would take three people to circle them, the dark eerie nature of the place stinging her mind like a wasp.
“We’re on the western side of Ice Mountain, in the middle of the Blue Forest of the valley. There is nothing nearby, you know how vast this cursed place is,” Traz sighed, standing up from where he had sat down to catch his breath. “But, I can easily climb up one of these trees, get a better fix on our location. The Broken Hump Mountain is northwest of Ice Mountain, and that will get us to the Kuzi valley and out of this place.” He scampered off and deftly started climbing one of the huge trunks.
“Are we safe here? Will the Yosoi not simply walk over the mountain?” Xavai spoke up. “And where is the thief going?”
“The thief’s name is Trazkhor,” Astra ground out.
Xavai’s mouth tightened into a thin line, but he did not challenge her.
“He is going up to see exactly where we are. The answer to your question is no, the Yosoi will not come over the ridge. They are mountain people, true, but their mountains are to the east, and their forests are all green.” She waved a hand around at the blue plants and trees, varying in every shade of the color imaginable. “They are superstitious and believe blue forests belong to the dead.”
“Do they? Is that why you led us here?” He said, stepping forward, his voice rising.
“I don’t need to lead us to a forest of the dead. Do you know why?” She snapped at him.
He shook his head once, his expression guarded.
“Because the dead are everywhere! Don’t you understand? I do not need to go look for them. Beasts and animals and people have died over every inch of this land since the gods brought it up from the ocean! Every step I take is on a deathbed!”
He paused, his jaw sagging and his hand dropping from the hilt of his sword.
“I have to ignore them! I have never talked directly to them before this foul day! I didn’t want to! It hurt!” She held up her hand, which still ached and looked red and inflamed. She lowered her hand at his silence. “Believe what you like. I don’t know where we are, exactly.”
“A cursed forest,” he offered, looking around.
“That is what people say about it. Maybe it is. But to me, it’s just…soulless. Things live here, but only in the barest sense. Nothing lives, nothing dies. It just exists.”
“Nothing here is dead?” He looked a branch lying on the ground, gray and brittle looking.
She pointed at the ground. “The dead live under our feet. But these things?” She stopped to stare up at the tall trees and the vines dripping from them, the ferns caught in corners and branches, all of it varying shades of dark blue. “Can something die that never lived?” She reached out and picked up the branch. “This never held a soul, or even part of one. None of this does. Even the philosophers cannot explain it, and wizards refuse to go near blue forests.” She dropped the branch.
He grimaced. “We should get out of it as soon as possible.”
“Head’s up!” Traz called down from above them, and there was a crashing noise from distance, then another that was closer, then another, until the fire dragon dropped down through the canopy, grabbing at a massive tree branch to stop its fall. It held on with its front legs, its back legs and tail wiggling uselessly for a bit until it managed to claw up to sit on the branch, flat on its belly with its limbs hanging down.
The temple dogs appeared out of the tunnel exit at the exact same time, racing like puppies until they were beneath the dragon and playfully jumping up, trying to bite its swishing tail.
Xavai shook his head. “I know the dogs brought the dragon to our aid earlier, but I find the friendship of the beasts disturbing.”
“Did they? Oh. Yes, that makes sense,” Astra nodded. The dragon, looking placid and sleepy, blinked at her. Its tail swung out over the dogs, back and forth, teasing them by staying just out of reach.
Xavai cleared his throat. “I’m sorry…about your hand. Do you need it wrapped?” He stood carefully away from her, hunched over slightly.
“No, it’s already much improved. But, ah, thank you.” She nodded and tilted her head away from him. He took it as a dismissal and went to sit on one of the exposed roots. He looked utterly whipped, like the ritual dancers after the end of the four day long Ascension of Tema ceremony. Astra felt much the same and wondered how Traz even had the strength to climb up the tree the way he did. She looked up, unable to see him in the canopy, and traced the edges of dappled light that shone through and died in the darkness of the legendary, terrifying Blue Forest of Burshok Valley.
NEXT: Making a Run for It
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