Song of the Dragon Read Online Free PDF

the top of the staff was now shining with a brilliant white, revealing a great underground avenue running between facing sets of narrow structures. All featured an arched opening next to large, ornately framed windows fitted with thin plates of polished crystal through which Drakis could see with almost perfect clarity. Yet, in spite of their common features, each was uniquely appointed with different carvings and strange dwarven symbols.
    â€œWhat are they? Drakis asked.
    â€œShops, I should think,” Braun replied.
    â€œShops?” Drakis asked. “What are shops?”
    â€œYou don’t know what a shop is?” Braun gave a sad little laugh.
    â€œI am a warrior of House Timuran,” Drakis said, setting his jaw. “I have had no need to know of such things before, nor do I see any point in it now.”
    â€œLet’s find out anyway,” Braun replied, stepping toward the open archway of one of the buildings. The light from his staff shifted the shadows across the buildings as he moved.
    Drakis realized he was being left to the darkness. He quickly sheathed his sword and fell into step behind the Proxi. “Braun! We’ve got to find the Octian!”
    But the Proxi was already inside the archway of the structure, his light shining out through the gentle ripples in the polished crystal window. Drakis ducked quickly through the low arch. He was stopped almost at once by a vertical wall beautifully carved with dwarf figures, some carrying baskets over their shoulders filled with vegetables and grains while others were enjoying eating loaves of bread and drinking from tall mugs. He easily stepped around the wall and into a large room. The fitted stones of the floor shone like a white marble mirror under the light from the Proxi ’s staff.
    Drakis shook his head. He knew they had to move, to rejoin the Octian and press the battle forward. ChuKang had told them time and again that to stand still on a field of battle was to invite death to find you. Drakis had to join the battle, had to find some honor in this debacle. More importantly to him, he secretly dreaded the silence and the stillness around him; it gave the music in his mind space to grow.
    â€œWhat do you think, Drakis?” Braun said as he stood in the center of the room.
    â€œI think we need to find our Octian and . . .”
    â€œNo,” Braun snapped, an angry edge to his voice. “Do you see the picture? There’s a large flat platform inside the window. There . . . back there . . . is a carved stone counter and behind it . . . can you see it? . . . there are three ovens.”
    Awaken the ghosts long forgotten . . .
    Recall the loved dead . . .
    Drakis began to sweat in the chill room. “It’s a . . . a kitchen . . . a kind of dwarf mess hall . . . a place to eat . . .”
    â€œYou look , but you don’t see !” Braun urged, stepping closer to Drakis. “The spirits still breathe whispers of their passing in this place. Their voices shout to us from the silence, and you! You hear nothing !”
    They eat here. They love here. They laugh here.
    Better if left and forgotten . . .
    Nine notes. Seven notes.
    â€œI hear enough.” Drakis swallowed hard. “Leave me alone, Braun!”
    â€œIt isn’t what is here , Drakis; it’s what isn’t here that you need to see!” Braun swept past Drakis to the window. “Here on this shelf were the wares of this shop: baked goods, breads, meats—can you smell them still in the air? There . . . there in the archway that we came through, there is no door . There have been no doors in any of the openings or halls through which we have come in the three days we have been wandering down here in our graves. By all accounts, the dwarves love their gems and their precious metals and their stonework—we are told they are all even more covetous of such things than our righteous elven masters. Why, then, are there no doors