Dragons and Destiny Read Free Page B

towards the stone and peeked
behind. Could he possibly hide in there? Was there room enough?
Yes, plenty room enough for his skinny body. No one, he was sure,
would look for him there. For the young Niaill to think was to act.
With scant regard to what it might do to his clothes (and what his
mother would say about it later), he squeezed behind the stone.
    He managed to
get himself into a fairly comfortable position, a third crouching,
a third sitting, a third standing and settled down to wait.
    Danal and the
others wouldn’t find him here. He pressed his body hard against the
back-facing of the stone monument.
    He heard Danal
calling, his brother found Doug and Catlina who usually hid
together, the twins then little Gemma. Now they would all be
looking for him. He could hear their excited voices.
    Absently, he
rubbed a grubby finger against the moss and stickleweed, exposing a
small section of the stone underneath.
    He had
previously noticed that the front facing of the stone had been
smooth and now he found to his astonishment that the back of the
stone was of the same smoothness. Strange that the ancestors had
smoothed the back where no one would see it set against the rock
face.
    Keeping as
quiet as a vuz, he probed his finger deeper and encountered the
unexpected; there were letters carved into the stone, regular
indentations, man-made.
    Game forgotten,
he began to scrape away more of the weed and moss and feel for the
indentations. Why, there was the letter W and an H right next to
it.
    He could hear
the others calling his name, searching for him, they were getting
closer. If he didn’t want them to find his hiding place and the
secret it contained he’d better get out fast.
    He raised his
head, there was no one in sight and he scrambled out, flinching as
rough bits of the stone and stickleweed scraped at his arms and
legs. He would come back later, on his own. Niaill didn’t want to
share this discovery with anybody.
    It took Niaill
a whole two days free-time to clear away the stickleweed and moss
from the letters and he gathered not a few scratches and bruises in
the process. What he did to his clothes brought his mother’s anger
down on him again, not that he cared. At last it was done and he
was able to trace out the letters with his fingers. He couldn’t see
them, there was barely room enough between the stone and the rock
face and the light wasn’t too good.
    With eager
fingers he traced out each letter, spelling them out in his mind
and committing them to memory.
    ‘ If danger
dire dost thrive.
    And north and
south fight to survive,
    Look ye to the
west,
    Where at our
behest,
    As Mariya was
solemnly bidden,
    Gtrathlin
evermore keep hidden,
    Deep inside the
ground,
    Answers may be
found.”
    “ TS and
K’
    Greatly
mystified, he pulled the stickleweed back over the letters. This
was his secret. He hugged himself with glee.
    Over the next
few years Niaill thought over the riddle he had discovered and
tried to make sense of it. Who was Mariya? Who were TS and K? He
grew older and taller, too big to squeeze in behind the stone. At
fifteen he life-bonded with his Lind, Taraya, and became a Vada
Cadet. He thought back to the riddle on occasion and discussed it
with her but these occasions became ever more infrequent as he grew
into adulthood. By the time he was eighteen, he and Taraya had
become a vadeln-pair within a fighting Ryzck and he began to look
back at the great secret of his boyhood with nostalgic
indulgence.
    Months, years
and decades passed.
    He forgot about
the riddle. Taraya did not.
     
     
    * * * * *
     
     
    AL582 - The
Ammokko
     
    It was dark; it
was black, it was space. It was large; it was huge; it was
gigantic. It carried with it an aura of threat and menace.
    The colossal
ship turned and began the slow, ponderous journey towards its
destination.
     
     
    * * * * *
     
     
    AL590 -
Elliot
     
    Paul,
Prince-Heir of the Kingdom of Murdoch ran on light feet towards the
Conclave Chamber at the