Simon

I swallowed nervously as Enola motioned with one wing to the tunnel that led into her lair. I had glanced at the wide entrance several times, but now I was noticing that – aside from the small crystal sunk into the dirt on one side – it was very, very dark.

And Enola's teeth were still very, very sharp.

And the term, 'mouth of the tunnel' kept coming to mind as I stared at the opening. With a heavy emphasis on the word, 'mouth'.

"What is the matter, human? You have been pestering me to help since the day I met you. Now that you have wasted the chance to leave, are you suddenly gaining some sense?" Enola stared at me from where she sat beside the entrance, looking uncomfortably like a cat waiting patiently to pounce on a mouse, with only the expression on her face conveying her impatience. "Either go inside and let me show you the crystals, or do what I have been telling you all this time and leave."

I gripped the strap of my pack a little tighter and stepped into the dark tunnel. The creepy, ominous, pitch-black tunnel. The light from outside brightened the tunnel for a few steps... then Enola moved in behind me and blocked the entrance. What little light there had been vanished, and I stumbled on my next step.

The tunnel was quiet except for my footsteps and the clacking of Enola's claws against a random rock. There was nothing to see, though I could swear that every time I glanced back, Enola's pearly-white teeth were gleaming right behind me.

I was half a second away from stuffing the whole plan and running back the way I came, preferably screaming, when I began to make out shapes ahead of me. Small crystals jutting out from the wall... and then the walls themselves. Colors teased my eyes, growing brighter with each step, as the gentle glow of magical crystals began to light the tunnel.

My breath left me for an entirely new reason as I continued walking. The crystals ranged in size from the size of a finger all the way up to the size of my arm, and each new crystal I saw glowed its own unique color – some green, others purple, still others red or orange – and the soft light from them melded into interesting patterns on the rock and dirt around me. It felt like walking on a rainbow, and each step brought new patterns and color combinations.

I remembered the old myth about treasure being at the end of a rainbow, and wondered what Enola's lair would contain. Gold? Precious gems? Ancient books, long forgotten by the rest of us and read only by her? Sculptures and paintings? Dragons were famous for their riches, and stories abounded of the various treasures they collected over their long lives.

Though knowing Enola, I would probably be greeted by gruesome skeletons arranged around a crude sign that had "GET OUT!!" written in some poor animal's blood.

I shuddered at that thought, but the soft mixture of blue, green, and purple crystals around me calmed me back down. It was hard to imagine anything that ugly being among the beautiful sight all around me. I glanced back behind me to ask Enola how much further it was to her lair, but forgot the question entirely as I saw the way the crystal glow played out over Enola. Each pink scale seemed to glitter in the light, but seemed to shift and change colors as the lighting changed. The dragon didn't seem to walk so much as glide down the tunnel, with different patterns shifting and flowing over her tucked-in wings.

Okay, I thought to myself. This was worth walking into the scary tunnel to see.

"Is something wrong, human?" Enola caught me looking at her and glared down at me, though it was hard to be very intimidated as her head passed by a light-blue crystal that caused her scales to twinkle as they reflected its light.

"Not at all." I looked back in front of me before giving in to the urge to grin, knowing how well that would go over with Enola. "Just admiring how pretty you look."

"So insufferable..." Enola sighed under her breath and shook her head, then turned her attention back down the tunnel.

We walked in silence for a few more minutes while I continued to admire the glow of the crystals. At first they had been all sorts of different colors, but I was noticing more red tones in the crystals as we went. The blues seemed less blue and more purple, the yellows felt more orange... and there were more and more pink crystals, matching the same light-red color of Enola's scales.

The tunnel gave way to a larger cavern – or at least, large to me. For Enola it was probably three times her body length, which would give her enough room to turn around and stretch out, but probably little more than that. The ceiling wasn't much higher than the tunnel, either – Enola might have enough room to sit up, but if she tried to stretch her neck up she would bump her head against the ceiling.

And all of the crystals in this cavern were the same color as Enola's scales.

That was an interesting discovery. This must be the room Enola slept in. Her presence had obviously had some sort of impact on the crystals, and caused them to become the same color as her scales. Or maybe it was something she had done on purpose, like when a musician made adjustments to an instrument to make it easier for them to use. I didn't know much about mages – other than to stay as far away from them as I could – but I did know they used these crystals in spells. Maybe the comparison to a musical instrument wasn't that far off.

Three other tunnels branched off from the room, and Enola stepped past me towards one. "I will move my things to another cavern further down this passage. Do not bother me there. I will scratch some markings on the rock later so that even you can remember which one is mine." She turned in the cavern and began walking the short distance towards a small pile of coins.

I frowned as I looked at Enola's treasures. There wasn't much there.

The pile of coins looked to be copper in the pink light, not gold, and I doubted there were more than fifty or sixty coins. That might be a decent sum for a traveler like me, but it felt pathetic compared to the stories I had heard of dragon treasures. A fancy silver cup had been knocked onto its side beside the coins, which seemed odd – the cup seemed to be more expensive than the pile of coins by a significant amount, but I had the impression it had been tossed into the room and simply left where it landed, rather than treated like the most valuable object in the room. A stack of books were arranged against the wall, though the words on the side of the books weren't in any language I was familiar with. Lastly, what looked to be a broken claw or horn was propped up against the wall, with two coins arranged neatly around it to keep it balanced and upright.

A quick glance at Enola showed that she wasn't missing any horns, and I didn't see any signs that one might have been broken off in the past. I flinched a little as I watched her roll the expensive cup along the floor and scoop the coins into it, imagining all of the scratches and dings that would have left on the fine craftsmanship of the cup. She gripped it awkwardly in one hand – it was much too small for her to properly hold in her large claws and fingers – then carefully reached down with her other hand to pick up the broken horn. With that she turned and walked down the other tunnel.

Some of the coins had been left behind, as well as the books, but I was sure she would come back for them later. Hopefully without using that expensive cup to carry them around in. Maybe the next time I was in town I could find a coin purse for her, something large and with loops or handles that her claws could fit in. I doubted that would provide any extra evidence for what Katerina had told us about the magedebts, since Enola was still very stubborn about taking anything from me... but it would make me feel better to know she wasn't scuffing up that cup any longer.

I frowned again as I thought back to that horn. It had obviously been the least expensive item there – as a dragon she had several horns of her own, and she could collect horns from any number of animals she caught for food – but it had also seemed to be the thing Enola valued the most. She wasn't worried about leaving me alone with the books, and the cup was obviously not something she had any interest in. It had been hard to tell with the pink light coloring everything, but it had seemed like the horn had been a darker color. Blue, maybe? The same color as that other dragon I had seen? Could it have been one of his horns, which Enola was keeping for some reason?

Was the unfriendly, abrasive dragon sentimental?

That was a question for another day. For now I had work to do – by this time next month I had to have thirty crystals dug out and delivered to Yellowseed, where Captain Mason had agreed to take delivery of them. And after seeing the beauty of the crystals in the rock around me, I felt regret at the idea of removing any of them. I was going to have to map out the remaining tunnels and hopefully find some crystals that wouldn't be as upsetting to remove.

It would also be a good idea to find somewhere I could keep my things. That way I wouldn't have to worry about my food raided by wild animals, or my cloak getting soaked if it started raining while I was digging out crystals. It was also much cooler and dryer inside the tunnels, which would be a good thing for my food. Probably not enough to make a difference at my attempts at coffee, but it would keep things from spoiling or rotting as quickly. Moving into a cavern inside the mine would make things easier than trying to keep my camp outside.

Smokey might take a bit of convincing to bring inside the dark tunnel, but things would be a lot easier if I could 'stable' the horse down here while I was working, instead of worrying about it being tied up somewhere outside. I might not think that after having to deal with the smell, or after having to clean up after the horse if he left a mess down here, but right now it seemed like the best option. I hadn't seen much in the way of predators nearby – I suspected that they were either too scared of Enola, or that her impact on the food supply meant there weren't enough prey to support them – but I was going to need Smokey's help hauling these crystals to town. The last thing I needed was to dig thirty crystals out of the tunnels and get them ready to carry off to town... only to find he had been attacked and killed by a cougar or some other wild predator.

I was also going to need to get a cart to haul the crystals with. Hopefully somebody in Lakeshire would have one they didn't need anymore. I was sure I could find one in Yellowseed, but trying to manage the first trip there without a cart would not be fun.

There were so many things to do... but sitting here thinking about them wouldn't get them done any quicker. I reached into my pack and fished out the piece of chalk I had brought with me, then set off down one of the tunnels. It opened up into another cavern after a bit of walking – this one with crystals of multiple colors in the ceiling and walls, and with four more tunnels branching off of it. I drew an arrow pointing back up the tunnel I had come from, then started down the right-most tunnel.

It was going to take a lot of walking to map this all out...