Death was breathing quietly in the dark.

The feeling hadn’t left Adwyn since that cursed iron gate came close behind him. From everywhere and in everything⁠ ⁠—⁠ sight, sound, smell⁠ ⁠—⁠ there was a certain malignity, and it settled into his scales. He would molt next cycle, he knew; and it wasn’t soon enough.

Adwyn drew a calming breath and spat out spicy venom. After an inhale the dew came back, and he let it; his soul needed it.

The gate had seen him into a wide entry chamber that turned to a ramp which slinked down to something that already felt somber even when half invisible.

He lifted the glowing lamp, and when the light brushed the deteriorating walls, he saw script. Without the high guard’s eye, there was no telling for true, but he bet it was Pteryxian.

The murderer had said this was a mass grave. Were these cenotaphs?

Did they spell final praise, or condemnation?

Would anyone even return to find out?

Above many of the big bold letterforms (names or titles, perhaps) there lingered engraved portraits, dragons with the short, thin snouts of desert-dwellers, who gazed listlessly out from fading visages.

These forgotten dragons fading away seemed so close to some ultimate death that one could imagine⁠ ⁠—

Adwyn did not believe in ghosts.

Death was a blank, but all dragons were seen eternally in the gaze of Dyfns. These dragons were gone from the world, but they were not gone.

A whispering on the edge of thought. Mutely, Adwyn nodded and he tugged his high stand into striding steps toward one wall. Here the weathering of rain or whatever else was near complete, and any cenotaph or portrait was utter dust.

A rock from the ground went to his foot and the orange drake began working.

In his best, straightest serifs, the pits gained new memory: “Wedd” and “Ysais.”

Please forgive me.

A thought, and he took a finer rock and wrought a portrait. Every Dyfnderi monk knew the science of drawing, and painting.

There were no proper pigments, but crushed leaves and mushrooms did their part. The blood of wormrats gave colors of life to their cheeks.

And last, dipping a toe into the lamp’s glowing, glairy liquid, Adwyn tried to limn some effect like a living soul staring out from those eyes. But it was known impossible.

The science of rendering had come as easily to him as all else, and at his painting any critic would be impressed.

But Adwyn...

He stared at those likenesses, at the sum of his memory of Ysais and Wedd. Wedd, caught laughing with some curious gleam, and Ysais, silently sneering, yet some hope hiding in her brow. Details he’d noticed, and never considered or identified. Subtleties of dragons he’d surely never miss.

There were definitions of the yawning chasm of loss, which no lights illume.

Adwyn stood there, silent, for a long time. Waiting for something to change, waiting for anything to get better. Nothing did. Nothing ever did.

The lamp went out, and now Adwyn was waiting in the dark.

----------------------------------------

When he felt himself skip a thought, that was when Adwyn ceased waiting. It had gotten late, hadn’t it? The adviser would finish this now, before exhaustion became intolerable.

His bones cracked when he moved, he’d been still so long. Adwyn knew personal noises weren’t as loud as they felt, but he trusted instinct. And instinct told him that sudden skitter in the shadows was something new.

Dragons leapt quick, and body kept pace with thought as the orange drake dodged into a chamber mouth he’d spied on the walls and almost quietly he rushed forth. His wings stretched in front and from this he knew with time to slow when he came to the wall.

He snuck along the wall for another mouth and all this happened two more times before tiredness overruled instinct.

Panting, fanning his frills and wings, falling onto his haunches, Adwyn hoped it was enough distance and he thought about his next action. The baton made way to his wing, and already the drake was standing up.

He’d fought in webs before. He’d fought alone in webs before, when the battle had gone to worsts.

And this wasn’t a web.

He smiled like another would grin. The next steps were slow, as the drake collected detritus. Dead or now dead mushrooms, odd sticks or leaves, bits of sorry cloth or linen time had yet to devour, and equally suitable things that nonethelesss he could not identify in the dark.

He put them in the lamp.

He had enough now, and picked up two rocks and for a moment clawed for any other survival minutia he could manage remembering.

No wind here, no worry about that. It was humid, worse than a web, but nothing could be done. Between that and the poor quality of his fuel, he glimpsed difficulties lighting a fire.

What else was there?

Ah. He knew dragons had a certain temperment of venom oily enough to help. Was it spicy? Bitter? Tart?

He hoped it was of the latter two; the adviser wasn’t as good at⁠ ⁠—⁠ inspiring temperments in himself, as some he knew were. He didn’t consider it a virtue.

At length Adwyn managed a droplet of both. He judged the right flavor bitter by the slimy feel of it. But this little bit wasn’t enough.

Every dragon was a touch different, with their own little language of scent. Adwyn found that bitter venon came best when he was angry, jealous, stubborn. He thought of what mattered to him, what he really wanted to protect, out here in Mlaen’s country. His sister, who refused to ever again speak with him, whom he hadn’t seen in gyras? It only made him sad. The people of Dyfns, who needed an effective king, someone like him? He found it vaguely annoying.

They were his usual answers, and truly they did nothing for him.

What about the handsome high guard, who’d wet the adviser’s fangs more and more the longer he’d lived here? ...Secrets hurt, Adwyn had learnt. It⁠ ⁠—⁠ changed things, to know that Rhyfel the younger was Rhyfel the elder, that Gwymr/Frina’s beacon of justice and comaraderie was the murderous, thieving bandit who’d roamed the cliffs, who’d stolen the Berwem outpost from the Dyfnderi protectorate, who’d conspired to dethrone Dwylla. Adwyn would have listened to his reasons⁠ ⁠—⁠ but if the scarlet drake did not even find him worth telling?

This was something angry, but not the right kind of anger.

What about the frustrating bluescaled exile? The wiver who could do things, important things⁠ ⁠—⁠ if she cared to. No, in the depths he didn’t care for her.

Adwyn sighed. Really, it was a farce that he’d had to think this hard. The answer was the very first thing he thought of.

The insomniac red wiver, who no doubt still sat awake on that dillerskin rest, still from time to time worrying about Adwyn in that scheming way of hers.

It would be a very sad thing, if Adwyn were lost forever down in the pits, and never again knew a morning with Mlaen and a chat over coffee; him having just woken up, and her having not.

Cynfe too, the cryptic halfbreed. She took after the faer like a daughter. The bundle of net came out his bags. Perhaps her gift would prove useful again. He dropped it into the lamp.

For morning coffee with Mlaen, for her wouldbe painter of an adoption, and maybe for Gwymr/Frina itself, Adwyn supposed he could go forth.

The bitter venom was a trickle now, and the drake spat into the murderer’s lamp. The rocks grinded against one another and sparked and sparked. Nothing. Nothing. A little ember which didn’t catch. Nothing. Another ember, a lucky one.

Adwyn had light.

The pits were very dark, but Adwyn had light.

----------------------------------------

The pits were unlike a web.

One could have a flame here, yes. The air wasn’t chittering and humming with secret conspiracy, yes. And yes, there were no strings of unsightly strength slowing every step.

Really, the pits were unlike every no drake’s place in which Adwyn ever had to operate a mission. In a number of ways, but the one that shone out was here his efficiency⁠ ⁠—⁠ even his survival⁠ ⁠—⁠ depend on his care for other dragons, rather than his lack; the lamp’s new flame was fueled as much by his bitter venom as it was by what poor flammable bits he could find.

The magical net had done something⁠ ⁠—⁠ given the flames some electric nature that left it crackling and smelling of ozone and sending little shocking fingers dashing out on the cursed iron of the lamp.

These bolts were very bright, so Adwyn added more torn bits of net every so often.

More often, he had to think of Mlaen and what he would fight for. Enough to dew bitter, and spit that into the flames.

He would need water soon, he knew; his canteen was dimming fast. He prayed the pits had a pool or stream, or that he would find the rumored door very soon. There came a rumbling, and the drake added food to that prayer. He could cook it now.

But hope for that was scarce. He watched the bugs and fungi grow thinner deeper in the pits, and really, what could live this deep underground? Would he want to eat it?

All that said the rooms if anything grew thicker⁠ ⁠—⁠ or at least more numerous. Many more cenotaphs rotted away in their fashion. Some had fallen apart so that skeletons could be seen, and a thing had gnawed at the bones.

All the while the walls still felt the engaved letters of that unsure script.

Till suddenly even that changed, from possibly Pteryxian, to antiquated y Draig: Who taketh to the highest skies, or In memoriam, or Walk fain in the gaze of Dyfns. The numbers he found were as early as gyra 547, and as late as 651.

Were the old outpost workers buried here? Before or after the fanciful legends of terror had limned its reputation?

It was an inappropriate thing for such a grave site, but Adwyn felt relief. Both for the change of epoch which surely foretold the end of all this scenery of death (and perhaps, that persistent feeling of dread quickening like breath), and because it in total meant him closer to the door.

Even lost in reflection, Adwyn did not misss that glimmer in the dark. He thought it looked like scales.

Baton out, he dashed forward.

The steps were fast, and to his left, the sound of little wings flapping.

Adwyn knew speed, and he chased. Catacombs weren’t built for chases, and walls stood to block, fire clay urns rolled to trip, and odd remaining doors swung to attack.

He could be careful, or he could be fast.

Dyfns saw that the chase led to a final room where three doors collapsed, (and the last through which they entered wanted to, but couldn’t).

Into this room the figure had fled and Adwyn blocked the exit. There was a lot of debris on the ground⁠ ⁠—⁠ perhaps a pillar had fallen also?

There the figure stood, quickly turning and seeing it was trapped.

Adwyn peered: four legs, two wings, one tongue. This was a dragon, a very small one, wearing silken, cowled robes and little sandals.

“Who are you?” asked Adwyn. “Why are you here?”

A grin under that silken cowl, a tongue flicking through it, and a high, lilting voice: “Beware the monster, mister Adwyn.” It sounded posh, and could have been imperious or commanding if it wasn’t playful. And if it wasn’t the voice of a moltling.

There was a lot of debris on the floor, and when the moltling looked up, the adviser realized. The ceiling had collapsed, too.

A leap and a flapping of those little wings, and the child in silken robes was gone. He opted not to follow, turned around, and went deeper into the pits, and he thought.

Adwyn was not alone in the pits.

----------------------------------------

With the other dragon gone, and the hungry tiredness only looking worse, Adwyn had to think deep about navigating the pits.

Catacombs did not have a direction; they sprawled. To a drake with somewhere to go, the winding corridors and identical rooms only had him groaning and muttering. Yes, a learnèd noble like he could appreciate the⁠ ⁠—⁠ not elegance, but accomplishment, perhaps⁠ ⁠—⁠ of the old Pteryxian stonemasters. He would admit it could impress even on the wrong side of a battle with time, and perhaps he would admit more on a full stomach.

With focused breaths, Adwyn settled himself, and remembered: He done more on less; a few gyras in an office and with full coffers shouldn’t let him forget that.

Adwyn flicked his tongue. His eyes couldn’t guide him here, so he scented. While the catacombs had a particular deathly smell, the pits proper knew a closer relation to the lake Berwem. Beneath the Wydrllos prison out in the lake’s center, an elevator went straight down to the deepest reaches, to the pits. The murderer’s route clearly wound, for no gleaming reason, but Adwyn would smell his way.

Sulfur would be the biggest hint, and one smelt just a glimpse of that; not enough for a gradient, not enough to follow.

Dustone and fire clay had a smell all their own, but Adwyn didn’t expect either to form this far down.

The drake was clouded in his thoughts. Forget what one should smell, he told himself, what did one smell? Linen. Ancient embalment. Something... fungal. An unwashed dragon⁠ ⁠—⁠ the moltling, he thought. Should he follow them?

The other smells were the teasing hints of sulfur, the bitter trail from his lamp, and a reek of blood and pus and shed scale⁠ ⁠—⁠ it was very strong for how far away it must’ve been.

The moltling ran from him; if they expected a chase, they expect it through that hole in the ceiling. Adwyn could loop around.

Why was there a moltling loose in ancient catacombs? They opened right to the malrumored pits, even the Wydrllos itself only dared descend a few wingbeats down into the depths.

If you heeded the whispers⁠ ⁠—⁠ Adwyn didn’t⁠ ⁠—⁠ then Aurisiuf of the night crawled up out of the pits; if one’s shadow fell into the pits, you lost it; even a breath of the foul vapors gave one that new papills sickness; that ugly Ushra had a secret, terrible lab down into the pits. They said, as Rhyfel did, that a demon had lain⁠ ⁠—⁠ or lay⁠ ⁠—⁠ in the pits. Sifters had died in the pits.

The adviser was a floor up, now, and following that drake’s scent. Though he had been walking some time at this point and took to peering at the walls a little closer, searching.

Too much to hope the moltling would be going somewhere instead of wandering.

Adwyn licked his brilles. Would it be a adequate conclusion of the day to take them home to some anxious mother or father? To do no noble duty for sake of Gwymr/Frina, but to save some specific day?

Adwyn passsed an opening where a fat rodent⁠ ⁠—⁠ skinful and pale⁠ ⁠—⁠ set or slept lazily out in the open. As the circling continued, he passed the opening again. Where a blood splat now lay.

The odor of blood and pus and shed scales had crept up very quick.

Adwyn was not dawdling⁠ ⁠—⁠ he was sneaking⁠ ⁠—⁠ yet at that he sped after the moltling.

He found the silkenrobed dragon climbing one of the cenotaphs. Right now, upside down and gawking at him.

At the orange drake rushing in, a tongue flicked, then a smile flattened and the hatchling lighted onto the floor, wings held tight and legs ready to leap. He asked, “Are you running from the monster?” A nod. “I know a place we can hide.”

But what was this monster? Why is a hatchling so adept at avoiding it? Could it harm Adwyn? While the adviser quietly figured questions, the moltling ran off. And Adwyn raced after. While the adviser did not swallow legend and rumor, fearing the unknown in the dark silent pits was sense. He had seen a web glitter, once.

The ceiling⁠ ⁠—⁠ or floor, from this angle⁠ ⁠—⁠ broke a number of times in a number of places he had never seen. Dropping floor after floor made quick pace. As they went the walls seemed to slough even the Dyfnderi graves, till all around them were raw caves and crevices. Perhaps they allowed here and there a support beam or a sign that shed its letters, a lost tatter of clothes, a scrolls, a strange tool, or any other anonymous draconic touch that might linger in this solitude. But they were all guests, and nature made a careless host.

Had it been a ring of wandering? Two? Adwyn looked at the moltling again, saw the silken robes touched with dirt scratches, the personal way his feet sunk into the leather sandals. He glanced to the head, where peering eyes took in the pit’s walls like a reader a favorite book.

Adwyn nodded. “You know the pits well.”

They blew their tongue. “Better than you.”

The orange drake stepped forward, first beside, then past the other.

“It’s only my first time.” He continued toward a cave mouth. It smelt most sulphurous.

“There’s a drop that way.” But the pair had taken drops all the way here. “I threw a few rocks down once. I never heard them clack.”

Spinning around then, smiling, the adviser asked them, “Then perhaps you can guide me. Ever seen a strange door at the deepest?” He lowered his head to their eye level. “Do it, and I shall guide you home to your parents.”

A wing whisk. “I don’t need that.” Then they turned and started off.

“Still, will you lead me?”

“Maybe.” An alula moved to scratch their chin⁠ ⁠—⁠ it didn’t touch, but it made the motion. “There are some strange dragons down here. Can you do something about them? These are my pits.”

His empty stomach protested. His aching legs resisted. His cloudy night mind was against it.

His sense of duty answered, “I can do it.”

He lifted his head and looked around. Here it was, the pits proper. Adwyn had made it.

And a moltling knew the pits better than he did.

* * *