Lynaelle opened her eyes and nearly screamed again.
The dragon was dropping like a stone through a great shaft of ice, a hole in a glacier that was nearly vertical and just large enough for the dragon to unfurl its wings. Overhead, the dim gray of the sky was a receding circle, while below, the shaft plunged into deeper and deeper darkness.
The great white beast fanned its wings out, drawing up sharply and slowing its descent. Lynaelle was jostled roughly as the beast beat its wings three or four times in rapid succession and settled onto a solid surface. As it dropped into a crouch, the dragon released the girl from its grasp, sending her tumbling across a floor of cracked and rent ice, covered by a dusting of snow. She wound up sprawled on her back, staring upward, the book pressing painfully into her from beneath.
Some light shone down through the shaft, and permeated the area with an eerie bluish glow. It was ample illumination for Lynaelle to see that she was in a large domed chamber, a hollow bubble in a great glacier of ice. The shaft through which she and the dragpn had descended opened through the ceiling of the chamber, near one side. The rounded walls of the domed room were slightly uneven, like a drawn curtain, though still smooth and solid like glass. There would be no climbing those surfaces, at least not without tools or magical aid. Only the floor seemed the least bit rough and uneven.
The chamber was an effective prison.
"You will serve me," the dragon said, its harsh, crunching voice reverberating through the chamber.
Lynaelle's attention was drawn instantly back to the beast, which loomed over her, its wings folded in against its body for the moment. Unlike before, out in the weather, she could see the dragon clearly then. It peered down at the girl, its fang-filled jaws open slightly in an unsettling way as it regarded her. Muscles rippled along its chest and flanks, chorded and strong, yet shielded by plates that overlapped all along the surface of the beast. Its body must have stretched a good twenty feet, ending in a tail equally as long and segmented. It reminded Lynaelle of the tail of a beast called a crocodile, pictures of which Ambriel had once shown her.
Lynaelle realized she was shivering from her wind-blasted ride and from lying on the icy floor of the chamber, so she sat up and drew her cloak around herself more tightly, staring fearfully at the dragon.
"Serve you?" she asked, startled by the timidity of her voice.
Unlike the dragon's, which had echoed loudly in the domed room, her own speech was hollow and faint. In a way, the girl was surprised she could speak at all.
"Yes," the dragon replied, settling on its haunches and craning its neck down so that its head hovered closer to its captive.
Lynaelle cringed involuntarily.
"I am Torixileos, Master of the Blizzard, Bringer of Icy Agony, and Lord of the Frozen Mountain," the dragon said, his cold and pungent breath washing over Lynaelle and making her flinch away. "You will help me, or I shall devour you!" he roared, making the floor rattle and causing Lynaelle to quake in terror and curl up into a ball. She brought her hands up over her head as she cowered, as though to placate or fend off the beast. Torixileos darted forward, bringing his head down close to Lynaelle and sniffing at her. "You would make a sorry meal," he said, his icicle-teeth mere inches from the girl's face, "but perhaps you will cure nicely if I froze you."
"No!" Lynaelle pleaded, flinching away and wrapping her arms more tightly around her head. "Please don't! I will serve you!"
She could feel tears running down her face as she lost all composure.
I don't want to die, she thought desperately, miserably. Please, she silently begged. Ambriel, come find me.
The dragon laughed, a great, thundering roar that shook the whole icy cavern and made the floor beneath
Lynaelle rumble. She screamed and tried to scramble away. But in her panic she could get very little traction on the slippery surface and only succeeded in slipping and sliding a couple of feet.
"Very wise, little morsel," Torixileos said, quieting. "You may serve me well. And if you do, then I might free you."
At such an offer of hope, Lynaelle stopped frantically trying to escape and turned back to face the dragon, abasing herself before it.
"Yes," she said, ashamed of her own cowardice but unable to find any courage under the gaze of the terrible beast. "I will do whatever you say. Tell me."
She hated how eager she was to please the dragon, but Lynaelle knew she would do anything, anything at all, to convince him not to eat her.
"I am yours to command," she added, shame making her voice waver.
"Then stand up," Torixileos ordered.
When Lynaelle slowly, carefully managed to get to her feet, the dragon swung his head toward one wall of the domed chamber and said, "Go through there."
For the first time, Lynaelle noticed a tunnel set into the icy wall, though she could see why it had escaped her notice before. It was partially shielded from her view because of the way it opened into the room, angled away from her and behind a lip of ice that jutted out on the near side. She began to make her way toward the opening, taking short, tentative steps. Her whole body was weak with terror, and she feared losing her footing on the slick floor as well. As she walked carefully across the open room toward the exit, Torixileos followed her with his head, giving Lynaelle shivers down her spine. Then the dragon began to pad after her, each of his steps a tremendous thump upon the glacial floor.
Lynaelle had to use every ounce of her willpower to fight the urge to run.
The half-elf followed the passage out of the domed cavern. It sloped gently downward and bent around to the right, then back to the left. As a result, she could not see where it was leading, though the dim light filtering through the ice from outside was bright enough for her exceptional eyesight to view everything clearly enough.
Finally, Lynaelle rounded the last bend in the passageway and came upon another large chamber, though it was more irregularly shaped than the previous cavern. It was clear to the half-elf that the room was actually ice-rimed stone, a shallow cave chiseled out of the mountain itself. Only the area surrounding the passage in which she stood, as well as a smaller section opposite and to her right, consisted of massive sheets of ice, more of the great floe that covered the mountain. The condition of the second chamber was more uneven, with numerous small shelves and ledges along the periphery, and jagged stone and rubble strewn across the floor. A handful of other holes and openings pierced the walls and ceiling, varying in size, distance, and angle.
The girl realized after a second glance that the other ice wall seemed different somehow. In addition to letting in more light than could be found anywhere else in the glacier, it had an unusual look to it, as though it wasn't part of the floe.
It's newer, Lynaelle decided. The ice is cleaner, fresher.
Lynaelle didn't realize she'd stopped moving until she felt Torixileos' icy breath on the back of her neck. Suppressing a shudder, she quickly stepped to one side to allow the dragon to enter. It was only then that she realized the white wyrm had been forced to crawl through the passage, snaking along on its belly with his wings furled tightly against his flanks. Once he was through the narrow tunnel and fully into the stone chamber, the dragon rose up again to his full height and peered down at the girl expectantly.
Lynaelle backed away from the creature until she felt the cold hardness of a wall pressing against her, stopping her. She waited there timorously for the beast to give her some indication of what he wanted from her.
"I have sealed the entrance," Torixileos said, nudging his nose in the direction of the fresh ice. "You cannot escape."
Dumbly, Lynaelle nodded, realizing at last why the ice looked so different. The dragon had created a barrier to seal her inside.
"There is now only one way out, and you cannot fly, little morsel. I can keep you here forever."
With those words, Torixileos bent his head back around to stare balefully right at the girl.
Lynaelle slid down the wall she had pressed herself against, feeling panic rising in her gut again. She began to shake her head, and opened her mouth to protest, but the dragon continued on.
"If you help me get my treasure back, I will let you live. Perhaps I will even take you back outside and set you free. But only if you obey. Will you be good, little morsel?"
Lynaelle found herself nodding emphatically, even as she flinched at the nickname the dragon had chosen to bestow upon her.
"Yes, sir," she said without thinking. "I will be good and help you."
"Yes," Torixileos said, bobbing his own head up and down, mimicking Lynaelle's eager nodding. "Help me get my treasure."
"But how?" the girl asked, confused and curious at the same time. "Where is your treasure?"
"Come here!" the dragon said, perhaps more loudly than he'd intended.
The whole room vibrated and shook with those words, and Lynaelle cringed again. Fearful that she might anger the beast if she didn't react promptly, Lynaelle scrambled to her feet and followed Torixileos's head as it swiveled around and he began to nuzzle with his nose the opening to a small tunnel on the opposite side of the room. She approached the small egress, which sat about chest-high to her, and waited for the dragon to move aside so she could peer in.
"I caught a thief trying to steal my treasure. I hurt it, but it escaped in there. I am too big to follow. You must bring them back to me."
Lynaelle recoiled from the small opening upon hearing that she and the dragon were not alone.
"A thief?" she exclaimed, afraid. "How did it-?"
She snapped her mouth shut when she realized that Torixileos was glaring at her.