up, worthless minion.’ ‘Missed a scale there, you indolent wretch.’
Shortly, however, their fun gave way to impatience to continue. With the help of the long vines, it took Lia less than an hour to descend to the prekki tree. Galvanised by the prospect of escaping Ha’athior’s holy soil, she immediately set about preparing a vine to sling up to the branch. Having a dragonet’s deft paws made the job much easier. One fist-sized rock, a length of thin vine, and a decent cast–yes! Darting up to the tree, Flicker returned the loose end of the vine to her. Lia rapidly pulled a thicker, triple-braided length up over the branch.
“Make sure you tie it properly,” she called up to Flicker.
“Ready,” he called back.
Fine. She could do this. All she had to do was take her life into her hands …
“You should start lower,” Flicker advised. “You don’t want to jerk the vine with your weight.”
Hualiama clambered down a further ten feet, until she reached a reasonably flat boulder which would allow her a two or three-step run-up. Right. She leaned back, testing Flicker’s knot. Now she had fifty feet of vine to work with, a target of the prekki tree’s base, and a dragonet who needed an arrow-swift education in what not to say to a woman. Grr.
She peered over the edge. There were no trees further down, just a straight drop to a red-hot lava flow, if her eyesight served her rightly–not that it would make an iota of difference if she fell from this height. Before she could think the better of her madness, Lia launched over the abyss.
Thump, thump-thump. Her heart pounded up in her throat as she swung smoothly across the divide. Land. Twist–wobble and grab! Safe.
Lia tied the vine to the base of a strong purple-current bush. “I’ll be seeing you again,” she said, patting it fondly.
“Now the madwoman is talking to bushes,” said Flicker. “Come on.”
“I need a rest before we climb that cliff.”
“Why don’t you just take the staircase?” asked the dragonet, flicking his eye-membranes drolly at her. “Or would that be too easy for a stubborn Human? Er–what does it mean when you put your hands on your hips like that?”
“Exasperation!”
Flicker’s expression clearly communicated that Humans were a great mystery. He said, “There’s a stairway hidden just inside this crack.”
“Luckily for you.” But Lia’s scowl mellowed. “Let’s go spy on the monks.”
So, could she conclude that the monks once had reason to secretly visit Ha’athior Island? Lia considered this as she trudged up the never-ending, perfectly regular spiral staircase. A thick layer of dust made it clear that the stairway had not been used in many years, and she had to brush her way through fifty feet of dangling spiderwebs near the top. The entryway was completely overgrown, well-hidden in a rocky outcropping directly behind the most ancient prekki tree she had ever seen, its roots gripping the boulders like gnarled Dragons’ paws.
Lia crept into the monastery.
Suns-set spoke its valediction to the dying day, casting the scene in a rich, ruddy light. She emerged near the shore of a neat, circular crater lake, surrounded on all sides by a rim wall three or four hundred feet in height. To her right hand stood an ancient temple, part-built and part-carved into the rim wall, so overgrown with prekki trees and towering giant figs that she guessed it must be extremely well concealed from the air. Directly ahead of her, on a wide stone porch, a wizened, bald-headed monk faced a class of equally bald-headed but lean and muscular young men, all of whom knelt in absolute stillness, and not one of whom wore more than a loincloth by way of attire.
Her cheeks flamed scarlet. Oh, flying ralti sheep! They were all men–of course, she should have remembered. Most of the secret monasteries were exclusively devoted to men, who would not appreciate their vows of purity and celibacy being challenged by the unwelcome, even offensive, presence of a young woman, Princess or none.
“Is this sight attractive to a Human female?” Flicker inquired.
Lia shrugged. “Perhaps.”
“As a matter of purely scientific speculation, is it considered normal behaviour for a Princess to start drooling in the middle of–”
“Go stuff your mouth full of intestines, you insolent insect,” Lia returned, her tone sweet yet as honed as a dagger. “Make yourself useful. Go scout or chat to your dragonet friends.”
To her surprise, Flicker darted off at once.
Hualiama padded through the trees, making for the back corner of the building,