The reference to the 'lithe creature' and the Dark-type material makes me think of Sableye. And Sableye are always cool. So I vote go right.
I'd say look to the right; that Dark-type interference may be some kind of structure. If it is a structure, that structure was created with the intention of interfering with psychic power (aka: foxes). May be a good place to hide.
Obviously, the smart move is to check out the wildcard first.
If there's some broken-up Dark interference to the right, it could mean a structure – and with potentially fewer animals around, that seems to leave it the obvious choice. You back up a little, twist the yawstick and bring the cart carefully around the corner.
This ravine is wider, and indeed appears to be widening; after a few dozen yards, it's a struggle to make out the walls. You can hear water though, gurgling somewhere out of sight, and the wheels are starting to make sucking sounds, which must mean mud. Hopefully the cart can take it. Its tyres are huge and deeply ridged for traction on hostile terrain, but it does not seem likely that they were designed with this in mind. Not many trains pass through marshy ground.
You ask qhamri how much further there is to go, and it tells you that you aren't far away.
“It feels like a cave,” it says. “I can sense beyond the interference now, and to either side – so it is confined to one spot. But what is in the walls of this cave that makes it so opaque to me is impossible to tell. And there are no animals there, except―”
It falls silent.
Except, you prompt.
“Query. Except? Answer. It is difficult to be certain, but I think there is something in there. I cannot tell what it might be.”
You hope it's nothing dangerous. Or at least nothing bulletproof.
One hand on the yawstick and the other on your gun, you steer grimly on, turning the lights down as far as you dare once they begin to flicker, until a tricky corner forces you to turn them up as you round it―
There is something very large lying on the path.
You wrench at the brake lever and the lifecart squelches complacently to a halt in the mud. Before you, the thing on the path opens a large, white eye, then squeezes it shut again against the glare. It rises – up and up – and you see that it is attached to a neck, which snakes away into a cave the size of a house in the left-hand wall―
You cry out and leap from the cart, slipping in the mud and barely keeping your balance, rushing out into the lamplight so that the head can see you―
And it pauses up there, with its mouth glowing orange, and suddenly the firelight fades as it sniffs deeply in recognition and delight.
You hold out your arms, and Charlie lowers her head to your hands.
*
“The High Lover sent kem away,” says qhamri, its chest and Charlie's horns glowing bright in the gloom of the cave. “It would seem ke was leaving you a tool, Subject. Had your dragon remained where ke was,
jinneerah hs.ang would have recaptured or killed kem. Perhaps the Lover hoped that ke would return to you, but it seems kehr injuries have so far stopped kem.” It pauses. “Ke is in pain still.”
Charlie makes a low rumbling noise and lifts herself up on her forelegs a little, and by the light of the fire you see the grey clay plastered across her chest. A glance outside reveals deep claw-marks in the mud. So that was why she chose this place. This must be what Charizard do when they are injured – seek ways to seal the wounds – and of course, there are precious few places to find clay in the desert. The Sinklands was closest, and you know from experience that Charlie's serpentine tongue is more than capable of sniffing out almost anything from miles off. She must have come here straight from the battlefield, lured by the distant taste of wet earth. And then you came along, which you must admit is quite unlikely, given the distances involved. But let's be honest: fate has been breathing down your neck since you picked yourself up off that burning plain outside Rust. It was only a matter of time before it showed its hand, and gave you a nudge in the right direction.
“Kehr memories are a little vague,” admits qhamri, the glow fading. “But it seems ke was looking for clay, and a cave, and precious stones. Things to put a dragon at its ease. And so ke crawled down the cliff and found this place.”
Stones. Of course. Where would a dragon go to convalesce? To the place where the gems and gold are. You stand up and look down into the dark between Charlie and the mud-streaked lifecart. The back of the cave, you'd wager, punctures deposits of gold or jewels.
You turn back to Charlie, awake now and watching you unblinkingly. It is hard to judge how happy a reptile is – they don't act like mammals, and yet dragons are not really much like lizards either – but she certainly seemed pleased to see you again when she realised who you were. Perhaps she was as surprised as you. Certainly she hasn't stopped watching you since you parked your lifecart next to her, as if she feels the need to make sure that you really are there.
You pat her on the shoulder, or as close to it as you can reach, and she flares her nostrils, projecting soot onto the floor with a soft
whumph. That makes you frown – normally, she blows ash and cinders out with her fire, leaving none to build up inside her – but you put it down to her present state of injury. It wouldn't be the first time the stress of being wounded has impacted an animal's health, and Charlie's wounds are fairly severe. You're amazed she managed to fly here: the bone charms that broke off passed through her wing muscles, you recall, and the strain of moving them in flight must have been excruciating. Dragons are tough, of course, but you weren't aware that they were quite
that tough.
Still: for now, you are here, all three of you – and with a lifecart full of supplies, not to mention fire to keep the Sinkland's monsters at bay. Your skin is burnt and blistered, qhamri's wing and tailfeathers are scorched at the tips, and Charlie is still wounded, and yet … the cave is warm and dry from Charlie's presence, and you are hidden from prying eyes in a place of earth and water, where djinn fear to tread. Outside, Dirge and Zavarat are fighting, and Stone's train is rumbling on, and
jinneerah hs.ang is marching ever westwards – but right now, for some reason, that does not seem to matter.
As if the desert agrees, a clap of thunder sounds distantly overhead, and you start, amazed. You barely even recognise the sound. Storms blow down out of the north perhaps once in a decade.
Outside, the gurgle of water grows louder, and soon little streams are dropping across the cave mouth, churning the clay path outside into a muddy brook. Charlie hisses and shuffles further back into the cave, but she doesn't sound truly unhappy. She's a creature of the mountains, after all. Her home in the upper valleys of the Argent Peaks is full of cliffs and rainwater.
The little fire you lit from moss and vines shivers in the faint draught from the cave entrance, and at its side you lean back against Charlie's flank, content. Djinn will not fly in this; foxes will not march; crewmen will keep below decks and warm themselves with whisky in the comforting glow of lamplight. Everything takes shelter in the face of a desert storm. While you wait in here, the frontier will wait too.
Overhead, thunder speaks in words as large as continents:
DA. You imagine all the people you have met –
all of them, Rosalind and Lily, Dirge and Stone, Zavarat and Grant and Sam and John and Mordecai ben Arous and the Captains Westing and Major Frith and Sayre and Morello and the young person with the parasol and all the other people whose names you never knew – you imagine them listening to the thunder as you are, as the storm lumbers on across the wasteland, implacable as glaciers. What does the thunder say to them? It tells you to wait. But the voice of the heavens does not speak in one language alone. Others will hear something different in its roar.
You are hungry.