“When do we march?” someone cried out.

“Soon,” was the answer.

The troops dispersed, laughing and talking.

The child looked very grim.

“What are you going to do?” Ven asked. “Warn Marcus? Go fight alongside him?”

“It’s not that simple,” said Draconas, and the child’s eyes were dark and troubled. He glanced at Ven. “For me or for you, Dragon’s Son.”

Draconas rose to his feet. “Come with me. There’s something else you need to see.”

They wended their way back down through the tunnels. Ven found that he had a sense of where he was and that he could choose which branching corridor to take nine times out of ten. He liked being here. He could walk tall and straight in these dark corridors. He liked the feeling of isolation, the comfort of the silence. He thought he would like to remain here, maybe forever.

They did not leave the cavern, as Ven half expected them to do. Draca took him on a new route, one that led deeper into the mountain’s heart, deeper underground. Now the silence was heavy with the weight of the mountain pressing down upon them. Ven added these new corridors to his mental map, and it was like a corkscrew, spiraling ever downward.

They were far from civilization. Far from the world. So far that, when Ven heard the sound of human voices, he was severely disappointed.

“Hush!” The child caught hold of his hand and squeezed it. Her words were little more than a disturbance of the still air. “We are close.”

The child tugged him gently forward down a tunnel that grew lighter with every footfall. The voices were clearer now; Ven could distinguish words, and they were obviously human.

“What is all this?” he asked, mouthing the words.

The child shook her head and urged him on.

The light was quite bright now. It was not the light of sun. This light had a pure, white quality to it that Ven recognized.

The white light was his light, the light of the emptiness that hid him from the dragon.

The voices were only a few feet away. The child stopped and looked up at him. He could see her quite clearly. He could see the child and, in the stark, white light, he could see the shadow of the red-gold dragon standing behind the child, wings spread protectively.

“Go on ahead,” said Draconas. He paused, then added, regarding Ven intensely, “If you want to make yourself known, that is up to you. Grald will almost certainly be informed that you were here, and I have no idea how he will react. You might be putting yourself in danger. The choice is yours . . . Dragon’s Son.”