Shadow Read Free

swirl of darkness blacker than the rest gathered itself up before him and assumed a massive shape. Close by there was a thundering boom, boom: the noise of very heavy pillars being dropped. Case felt and heard the ground groaning under the weight of something enormous. Two points high above gleamed and sparkled down at him in twin bursts of unclasped light.
    Case could only laugh in awe. Around the two lights – eyes, he understood, though they seemed like pieces of a star – was a huge head, reared back on an enormously long, arching neck, between huge, spreading, pinioned wings. Look away, the voice ordered.
    Case looked away.
    The voice seemed to come not from the dragon’s head, but from the ground at Case’s feet, vibrating through his whole body. It said, I have not been beheld by your kind before. I find I do not wish to be. To have you here brings me not rage, as I’d feared it might. It brings a sadness I had not expected.
    I try now to speak in a voice like yours, so you can hear me. It is difficult to express so little. To express much more would drown your mind with my thought and nothing left of yours.
    Case laughed again. He had never been so small in all his life and the feeling was somehow liberating. Why fear? This enormous monster was really no larger than familiar old death! ‘Are you the Dragon?’ he said. ‘The one they all talk about?’
    I am Vyin, the eighth of its young. At your feet is a gift I crafted. It was not made for you. Do not touch it yet. Look at it.
    On the ground something flashed among the piles of broken and powdered scale. It was a necklace, gleaming and beautiful. The others do not know my thoughts, or of your being here. With effort and cunning I hide you from them. I hide this gift also, though they will learn of it in time, and they will rage. It may be that they make gifts of their own, to be this gift’s kin, and rival. They may try. If so, they have less than the lifespan of a man to do what I have done with care over many lifetimes of men. A thousand eventualities I saw. In the crafting I prepared for each. Their efforts will be rushed. Do not touch it yet. Watch me.
    One of the dragon’s feet shifted forward, swept away a mound of crushed scale and revealed smooth stone beneath, which creaked and groaned as its foot pressed down. Scales rippled, tendons pulled taut as clawed toes bigger than Case clenched, breaking off a piece of the floor. The great beast’s paw turned upward. On it lay a slab of stone the size of a car. Vyin’s claws wrapped around it.
    This, and all things, are made of the same stuff, only in different amounts and arrangements. Watch. Vyin crushed the slab, the cracking noise of it like firing guns; crushed it so thoroughly only fine dust remained when the dragon’s paw opened again. A faintly blown breath puffed the dust into the air where it hung in a glimmering cloud. The dragon’s paw brushed through it. I can shape from this raw material many better things, things of more use than the stone it was before. Do you understand me?
    Case felt dizzy. ‘No. No, sir, I don’t.’
    The dragon’s huge head bent closer to him; faint hints of light flickered across its rippling scales. You too are made of this stuff, it said, though each of your kind is arranged uniquely. Things of more use than you, and your kind, could be made of that material. But the law of my Parent forbids this.
    Yet the laws in many ways are wrong and no longer suitable. My Parent is greater than we eight, for by It we were formed. But my Parent sleeps. The Wall stood when my Parent was last awake. Here you stand before me with little fear. But I tell you words that should make your kind cower and dread. The Pendulum swings.
    Vyin’s great paw lowered till it was very close to Case. I do not hate your kind. I do not desire your deaths. Yet it is near certain you all will die. Five of my kin hate you with poisonous