Dragon Rigger Read Online Free

smell of magic was strong, ancient, and unmistakable. "To whom," he rumbled, "might I be speaking? Do I know you?" What had the voice meant by, ". . . challenge the one you abandoned "?
    He was answered by harsh, reverberating laughter, then a sound like a claw being drawn across stone. Windrush squinted and saw movement. Something was dancing, just out of focus. Something enormous. Some great enemy warrior? Or perhaps merely a shadow.
    He shrugged. He had not come here to be intimidated, and he didn't care if the thing outsized him. He probed again in the underrealm and, to his surprise, found a recognizable tangle of a simple spell of obscuration. He tugged the threads apart with his thoughts.
    The haze of light abruptly shrank; and a small, glowing, crystal-faceted thing became visible, floating in the air directly in front of him. It looked alive; it pulsed and changed shape with a fluid movement, growing tall and slender with only a few glowing facets, then collapsing and billowing out to the sides with a great many facets. Inside it, a much smaller thing moved—a thing of dark, dancing fire. Windrush thought he recognized that shadow-fire. It looked exactly like the moving shape that, just moments ago, had appeared so huge and menacing.
    "So. You are not without powers." The dark fire spoke in a smaller, but not friendlier, voice. "To answer your question— you I might not know, but I know your kind well enough."
    "I see," the dragon murmured. He knew now what he was facing. It was a spirit jar. It was a cell containing a consciousness that had been stripped from its original body. Dragons in past times had used them for the capture of demons, or those believed to be demons. Though Windrush had never actually seen a spirit jar before, he recognized its appearance from tales told over the years. It was not a physical vessel of any sort, but rather a powerful confinement spell. He probed briefly, but could not make out the precise weaving in the underrealm; it was a highly complex crafting, far beyond his skills. Probably it was beyond the skills of anyone left in the realm—anyone on the side of the true dragons, anyway.
    How did one deal with a spirit in a jar? He had no idea—nor did he know how dangerous it might be. He didn't think he could free it by accident, but then again he wasn't sure. He assumed there was a good reason for its imprisonment.
    "Have you come to release me?" the thing asked curtly, as though reading his thoughts.
    "I hardly think so," Windrush answered. "I don't know who you are, or why you are here. Perhaps you would like to tell me."
    The being hissed and danced violently in its squirming prison. "Why should I tell you, dragon?"
    Windrush cocked his head, blinking first one eye, then the other.
    "You don't answer," the thing said.
    "I won't answer," Windrush said, "until I have an answer to give." The dragon peered again around the enormous cavern, which was lit only dimly now by the glow of the spirit jar. It had the look of a dragon stronghold, but one musty and long abandoned. There were many forgotten holds scattered through the southern parts of the realm, but he had heard of none so large. Windrush felt dwarfed by it, and that made him uneasy.
    With a rumble, he asked the spirit, "Have you done some wrong, that you are imprisoned—?"
    " I have done nothing wrong! " the being cried, interrupting him. "It is your kind that holds me here! Imprisoning me and then abandoning me!"
    Windrush deliberately opened one eye wider than the other. "You have done nothing wrong? You are an innocent captive?"
    "That's what I just said! If you wish to challenge me, then first free me!"
    The dragon drew a silent breath and studied the demon. "Allow me to pose a question. I have been told that there is a creature living here who is possessed of . . . certain knowledge and wisdom. I was wondering if you might know of this creature."
    "Who told you that?"
    "A being of my acquaintance. An