Ordrune came to the lip of the precipice and stopped, as did the six. He looked out at the Great Maelstrom turning in the distance.

"Pah, the mindless power of that hole in the ocean is as nothing compared to that which I will control, for I will take the stone and unravel the secrets it contains, learn how to command the Drakes, learn… but why am I telling you all of this when you are about to plunge to your deaths? Besides, my Helsteed chariot awaits below in Gron and I must hasten ere Modru begins to wonder at my business here in his realm."

Ordrune stepped back from the lip, and holding the Dragonstone on high, he said, "Farewell, my unwitting allies. I thank you for retrieving my treasure, and now I believe it is time for all of you to march to your-"

"Yaaaahhhh!" From the shadows nearby, Alos charged at the Mage, the old man shrieking, "Unlike before! Unlike before!" And then Alos slammed into Ordrune, knocking the Dragonstone loose to fall to the ledge as the oldster's charge carried him and the Mage over the rim.

Their eyes wide with horror, the six enspelled companions stood as would statues, unable to move, listening to Ordrune's shrieks interleaved with Alos's screams of "Shipmates… shipmates!"

… t-thmp, t-thmp, t-thmp, t-thmp… frantically beat Egil's racing heart…

… as if marking the passage of frozen time…

And slowly, slowly, the green stone rolled toward the lip of the precipice, toward a thousand-foot fall…

… t-thmp, t-thmp, t-thmp…

… down through the air they tumbled, cloaks fluttering about them, the old man yowling and clawing…

… t-thmp, t-thmp…

… Ordrune tried to sketch an arcane rune and speak words in the tongue of the Black Mages…

… t-thmp …

… but Alos's claws raked down the Wizard's face, upsetting the casting…

… t-thmp, t-thmp, t-thmp …

… and the green stone rolled…

… t-thmp, t-thmp, t-thmp, t-thmp …

… and still the comrades could not move…

… t-thmp, t-thmp…

… in the frantic span of but eighteen racing heartbeats, Alos and Ordrune plummeted from the verge of the precipice to the sea below, spinning and tumbling down through the air, bloodred with the setting sun, the old man clutching and clawing and shouting of shipmates, Ordrune shrieking and trying frantically to cast a spell…

… t-thmp, t-thmp…

… and then they struck the water…

… and the companions could move…

… and the green stone rolled to the edge…

Ferret shrieked and dove forward and slid on her stomach across the stone of the great ledge and managed to grab the jadelike ovoid just as it fell beyond the lip, but then, screaming in terror, she, too, slipped over the brim of the thousand foot fall-

– only to be caught by an ankle in the grip of mighty Burel, the big man grunting with the strain.

Now Delon grabbed on, and Egil, too, and they hauled shrieking Ferret back up over the lip and onto the ledge above, the Dragonstone yet held in her white-knuckled, two-handed grip.

CHAPTER 80

Shaking with terror, Ferret wept in Delon's arms, the bard stroking her hair, gently rocking, softly humming. Arin and Egil stood at the rear of the ledge, the Dylvana replacing the Dragonstone in its leather bag, preparing to put it once more in the silver chest. Aiko and Burel stood on the lip of the ledge looking down at the Boreal Sea. There was no sign of Alos, nor of Ordrune, nor of the Dragon Raudhrskal, for that matter. Of a sudden, Aiko turned and clutched Burel and began to weep softly.

"What is it, my love?" asked the big man, holding her close.

She looked up at him, tears streaming down her face. "Alos-he was like the man my father became in the year after I was revealed, in the year I awaited banishment. And in that year when he lost all honor, my father became yadonashi, yopparai."

Burel looked down. "Yadonashi? Yopparai?"

"Outcast. A drunkard," replied Aiko. "I loathed what he had become. Even so, I loved him still."

"I am sorry, my love. -Oh, not sorry you loved him, but sorry he came to be someone you did not know."

Aiko wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands and looked again down into the sea. "Alos was someone like that… someone I did not know. And I think I loved him too, at least a little. He died an honorable death."

They both fell silent and stood gazing out on the moonlit waters, but at last Aiko turned and looked toward Arin and Egil kneeling at the silver chest. "My tiger now does not whisper of peril, though she is uneasy in the presence of the Ryuishi, of the Dragonstone, as if she doesn't… trust it."

"The stone holds a peril?"

"It is difficult to tell, but obvious peril… no."

"Then the peril the tiger sensed earlier must have been Ordrune coming upon us at the very same time Ferret dragged the chest out from the cavern, eh?"

Aiko looked at Burel, her eyes wide in revelation.

"Indeed, my love, you are right."

As twilight fell, they reassembled their packs and prepared to descend that very night. Finally they stood on the precipice one last time, a waning half-moon shining, and they looked out upon the Great Maelstrom rumbling afar.

Ferret peered over the brim at the sheer fall below and said, "I can't believe I nearly lost my life just to save a chunk of jade."

Delon squeezed her hand. "This is no ordinary chunk, luv, but a long-lost token of power. Perhaps now the horrors of Dara Arin's vision will not come to pass."

"Nevertheless…" replied Ferret.

"Thou wert a heroine, Ferai, and none shall forget," said Arin.

Egil looked long at the Great Maelstrom, then said, "Alos is the one-eye in the dark water, love, the one of your prophecy."

"Nay, chier," replied the Dylvana. "He was but one of the one-eyes in dark water. Thou wert the other."

Ferret laughed. "Don't forget the honeyed Ogru eye and the peacock feather. Without them, Raudhrskal may not have been won over."

"Speaking of Raudhrskal," said Delon, "I suggest we get gone from here ere he returns."

Burel grunted and hefted the silver chest now strapped to the frame of his pack, and they turned to the north and strode across the ledge toward the way down into Jord. And as she reached the end of the shelf, Aiko turned and whispered, "Dochu heian no inori, Alos, sonkei subeki ningen toshi totta."

And so, down from Dragons' Roost they went, down by the route they had come, the way eased by lack of having to bear an old man along the difficult path, the way made harder by not having to bear that very same old man.

Just before midnight, they reached the narrow boxed canyon where the cattle and horses and mules were penned, the animals, especially the horses, glad to see them.

They set no camp, but instead turned the cattle loose to fend on their own on the wide-open lush plains. And they laded one of the balky mules with the silver chest, and saddled the horses, and immediately set off at a goodly pace for the town of Hafen.

It was sunset when they rode into the seaport, and a great stir went 'round, for the strangers were back, all but the one-the old drunk, you see, was missing.

That night the Sea Horse inn was jammed, but the strangers were close-mouthed when it came to answering questions as to where they had been and what they had done. Even so, they did indicate that they had been to Dragons' Roost. And they told that the old man had died to save them all. But other than that, there was precious little they revealed. Still, they guarded a canvas-wrapped box they had brought back with them, "… and I shouldn't wonder if it isn't full of Dragon jools," said the barkeep when they'd gone up to their rooms.