Free Eye of the Oracle by Bryan Davis Page B

you fall asleep.”
    Naamah yawned again, set her foot in Morgan’s hands, and climbed into the window. As she straddled the sill, she looked down from the dizzying height, her mind swimming as the ark rocked back and forth on white-capped waves. She grasped the window frame with both hands and cried out, “The water’s so far down, I can barely see it. Can’t we wait until morning?”
    Naamah felt a sudden shove. She toppled over and plummeted headfirst toward the sea, screaming. Just before she struck the waves, blackness snuffed her thoughts.
    Makaidos lifted his head. “Did you hear that?”
    Thigocia’s ears twitched. “A scream?”
    “That’s what I thought. But it was brief . . . silenced.” Makaidos raised his body, his weak legs shaking beneath him. “I think it came from the window.” He aimed his eyebeams, casting twin rays toward the ark’s breezeway. The dim rays darted around the walls of the listing ark until they landed on the window. A gust of wind threw open the shutter. It banged against the hull, squeaked loudly as it drew back toward the window, then banged open again.
    “Just the shutter squeaking?” Thigocia asked.
    “No. It was different . . . louder. A human voice.” Makaidos lumbered into the corridor, passing Ham’s quarters. Baby Canaan lay swaddled in the hay, alone. It was Ham’s turn to patrol the lower decks, so it made sense that he was gone, but Naamah only left her bed to eat and take care of personal hygiene, and she usually took Canaan with her. She had always been so possessive of her baby, even keeping him away from his other relatives, it seemed strange to see him lying there alone.
    Makaidos extended his neck and gently nudged the baby with his snout. Canaan squirmed and reached his pudgy arms over his wrappings, stretching his mouth into a yawning oval. The dragon nodded. The baby seemed fine. Perhaps Naamah had thought him old enough to sleep on his own. Maybe she decided to accompany Ham this time. They did not get along well, certainly not like Noah and Emzara, or his brothers and their wives. Spending time working together with the animals might be just what they needed. But why the scream? Could she have fallen down the ladder?
    Makaidos lumbered to the hole leading to the lower levels and peered down. Although his eyebeams were dimmer than usual, he could still see the deck below. A single lantern hung nearby, casting yellow flickering light on the gopher wood planks. He stretched as far as he could, but the light gave no hint of any awakened animals, except for a few birdcage tenants, including two owls that stared back at him, their eyes wide and curious.
    A strange shadow seemed to crawl along the floor, like fog creeping from one cage to the next. The lantern’s weak glow gave only a hint of the fog’s depth and color shallow and black as it drifted closer to the owls. The other birds seemed to take no notice, and the owls kept their gaze locked on the dragon’s beams, as though the fog were invisible to their probing eyes. One of the parrots, however, shifted back and forth, bobbing its head excitedly.
    A hint of danger crept over Makaidos’s body. After so many months of safety, the subtle tingling that buzzed through his scales seemed like a distant memory, yet alarming all the same. He blinked at the fog. Could that be the cause? It would have to be a powerful evil for his weakened senses to pick it up.
    A loud footstep clumped on the lower deck, and a pair of sandals came into view. As Ham reached for the lantern, his feet swept away the black mist. His glance landed on Makaidos, then quickly averted. “Strange fog,” he mumbled.
    Makaidos shut down his eyebeams. “Exactly my thoughts.”
    Ham waved his hand and kicked at the mist. “It’s nothing, really. It’s been showing up on the lower decks every morning for a week, but no harm has befallen either man or beast.”
    “So the animals are thriving?” Makaidos asked.
    Ham chuckled.