Rhiannon - Dragonrider

Chapter Nine - The Rhian Lair

When I woke up, everything was quiet and, for a while, I could sort of pretend it was all just a horrible dream... except there wasn't a mattress on the bed... so the hard wooden planks let me know that there was something wrong.

And then I opened my eyes and the granite walls... and the heap of charred human bones in the middle of the floor... left me in no doubt

I didn't dare to do the full cloud world thing but I sort of crept towards the edge and kind of peeped through. I was pretty much dazzled by the galaxy of stars that were out there but I could tell that Rhiannas wasn't about... I wasn't going to forget his mind in a hurry...

So, for the time being, I was safe.

Only then did I let myself think about last night... what he'd forced me to do to Megan... and how he'd totally crushed and humiliated me. I sort of braced myself for the waves of disgust and anger that I knew were bound to follow...

But there was nothing!

I felt totally flat with just the tiniest hint of regret... something was all kinds of wrong.

So I cautiously reached into my cloud.

I mean... the thing was a total mess after last night... I guess it looked like you'd expect it to look after I'd been beaten up like that. OK... the familiar swarm of memories and emotions and stuff was still there... but I could tell that there was something up.

And then I found it... deep down inside, pretty much wrapped around the kernel bit that I somehow knew was the most important bit of me... there was this ugly grey blob that just didn't belong there.

He must have left the thing there... sort of lurking inside my cloud. And the horrible thing was kind of putting a damper on my emotions... flattening down the intensity of my feelings.

And I knew for certain that, if the repulsive thing wasn't there, I'd be totally appalled at this outrage.

So I sat up straight in bed, held my head in my hands and tried to chuck the vile lump out... but I just couldn't get any sort of grip on it. I tried gently easing the thing out... I tried battering against it with the fists of my will...

But nothing worked. All my efforts flowed round it like water round a stone leaving me with nothing but a headache.

And when, at last, I worked out that I just couldn't shift the thing, I collapsed back onto the bed in total failure.

I lay there for a long time... numb... unthinking...

But at last I made a decision.

There was nothing I could do about it for now so I was just going to have to live with it. But I made myself a promise... the thing was going to come out and the dragon... Rhiannas, he said his name was... was going to pay a heavy price for putting it in there.

With that, I climbed painfully to my feet and had a look around.

I was in a little room whose walls had been cut from solid granite. In one corner there was the bed... a simple thing made from a couple of planks of wood, nailed together... and a simple fireplace in one wall that looked like it hadn't been lit for years.

A doorway led out to the main chamber. There'd once been a door but it had been reduced to ash and splinters and I decided not to think about how that had happened. A bit of light was creeping in through the doorway.

But the thing that really caught your eye was the pile of charred human bones in the middle of the floor. You could tell why Rhiannas needed a new servant.