Jean Rabe - Redemption

“What are you going to buy dinner with?” the draconian asked testily, as he thumped his stomach.

“Certainly not with your charm.” Ragh’s gaze again dropped to the scales on Dhamon’s legs.

“Someone will feed us,” Dhamon promised.

“When we get to that town,” Ragh said, “I’d better not go in with you two.”

“Good idea.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t either,” the draconian added, glancing at the scales again.

A crow sprang up from behind them, something dangling from its beak. Fiona went back for a closer look, then waved Dhamon and Ragh away.

“A skeleton,” she told them. Then she resumed her march to the town.

Dhamon paused to inspect the skeleton, though. The man had been dead for weeks, he guessed, most of his flesh picked clean by the crows. There wasn’t enough there to show how the man died. However, he could tell the man hadn’t been poor and that he was slight in build, likely either an elf or a half-elf.

Though his tunic had been ripped by the birds, Dhamon knew it had been expensive material, with polished metal buttons and braid trim. He looked for a sword or dagger but didn’t even find sheaths. The boots had been fine polished leather, now pitted by the blowing grit. The heavy coin pouch that hung from the skeleton’s side and the silver chain that dangled around its neck quickly found their way into Dhamon’s pocket.

“That’ll buy dinner,” Ragh said appreciatively. The draconian dallied a moment to see if anything else valuable had been missed.

“Hopefully it will buy us a way out of this place and passage to Southern Ergoth.” Dhamon started west again.

When Dhamon caught up with Fiona minutes later, she was waist-deep in silt and struggling to get out. She stood in the middle of a depression.

“The ground disappeared!” she sputtered angrily, reaching a hand to Dhamon.

He stepped forward to take her hand but found the ground opening up beneath him as well. He thrashed about, trying to grab something to hold onto, but his frantic motions only served to send him down faster.

“Quicksand!” he cursed. This unusual quicksand didn’t feel wet and gritty. It was dry and powdery, and in the span of a few seconds Dhamon stood up to his chest in it, and was somehow being pulled farther down. He told himself not to panic, to relax and try to swim out of the stuff. He looked anxiously at Fiona, who was up to her shoulders now, trying desperately to extricate herself, and getting nowhere but deeper into the muck.

Dhamon tried to relax, and this seemed to slow his descent somewhat. “Ragh!” The dirt spilled over his shoulders now and was starting to creep up his neck. Despite his great strength, he could not pull himself out. “Ragh, get over here now!”

The draconian hurried up to them but cautiously kept his distance. His darting eyes took in Dhamon and Fiona’s predicament. He cautiously crept closer to Dhamon, clawed foot outstretched and tentatively testing the ground with each step.

“Her first!” Dhamon said. “Save Fiona first!”

Ragh shook his head and stretched a hand out to Dhamon.

“Save her first, Ragh!”

The draconian snarled and moved over toward Fiona, still worried about the firmness of the terrain.

Laying down on his stomach, he reached his arm toward her. “I save her first, Dhamon, if you will swear to help me slay Nura Bint-Drax!”

“Aye,” Dhamon quickly agreed, anger flashing in his eyes. “I swear.”

The silty quicksand had reached Fiona’s jaw, and she had to tilt her head back to breathe.

“Pull your arm up, Fiona,” Ragh instructed. “It’s the only way I can help you! Be quick!”

At last Fiona managed to raise her arms. Half of her face was covered with the gritty dirt, which spilled into her mouth. She stretched her arms toward Ragh. The draconian grabbed her wrists and pulled her toward him until she was on solid ground.

Fiona spat and spat. “Thank you, sivak,” she said.

Ragh turned his attention to Dhamon. His scaly hands clasped Dhamon’s and began to pull. “You swore,” Ragh reminded him.

“Aye.” Dhamon said, as he crawled away from the silty hole, then turned around to watch as it whirled in agitation. “I swore. I will help you slay Nura Bint-Drax.”

“Before those scales consume you.”

As they watched from a safe vantage point, the depression grew deeper and the dirt swirled in its bottom like a whirlpool.

“What in the name of the Abyss is that thing?” Dhamon asked.

“Sinkholes,” Ragh answered. The draconian indicated a few more within their line of sight. “Look there.” As they watched one sinkhole shuddered and during the next few minutes filled itself up, then overflowed, spewing gravel and leaving behind one of the narrow ridges that dotted the land. “Means there’re some underground cavities beneath this land, maybe caverns or rivers. The spaces expand, and there isn’t enough support for the ground on top. So the land collapses in sinkholes.”

“But that one filled itself up,” Fiona said, cautiously gazing at the expanse of land they had yet to cross to reach the town.

“Probably means the caverns underneath are filling up. Strange. I’d say this whole area is unstable.”

This time the draconian took the lead, eyes trained on the ground and looking for any disturbance in the soil. Their pace slowed considerably, as they circled around a half-dozen sinkholes that were churning or erupting. They reached the edge of town just as the sun was touching the horizon.

“I think I’ll go into town with you two after all,” Ragh announced, casting a last look at a large sinkhole forming only several yards away from them. “I’ll take my chance with the local folks instead of the landscape. Maybe they won’t mind our scales too much.”

“This isn’t a good sign.” The draconian pointed toward the main street. The straggly clumps of brown grass looked sad and thin, like the hair on a balding man’s head “Not good at all.”

Shutters banged in the wind, and curtains fluttered in open windows. Signs proclaiming a cobbler and a blacksmith were weathered and nearly impossible to read. Other signs, farther down the street, were bleached beyond recognition and hung crookedly, rhythmically thumping against posts.

Not a single building looked well maintained. The roof of the closest business, a cooper judging by the rotted and split barrels out front, was caved in. Paint on overhangs and trim was cracked and peeling and resembled dried fish scales. Flower boxes sprouted weeds, and everything was pitted by the windblown grit, which seemed a permanent feature of the area.

Dhamon pointed to a lopsided well off to the side of an equally tilting one-story building. “You’re wrong, Ragh. There is something good about this place. At least I don’t think you’ll have to worry about the local folks’ reaction to our scales.”

“I didn’t think you were capable of making a joke, Dhamon.”

“I’m not.”

Dhamon and Fiona headed to the well. The leaning building was precariously poised over a recently formed sinkhole. The ring of stones around the well was on the verge of crumbling from age and lack of repair, and as Dhamon rested his hand on a stone, it fell and he nearly lost his balance. It was oddly cold near the well.

He noticed that Fiona was shivering, but she refused to complain about it. She hadn’t said more than a dozen words to him in the past few hours—though she had talked with Ragh. Her silent treatment of him was unnerving, and he considered trying to draw her out.

His thirst took precedence. “Hope the water’s as cold as the air,” he mused. He could smell the water far below, fresh and inviting, and he eagerly snatched up the rope and bucket. “I’ll bet you’re thirsty, Fiona.”