VENDEVOREX STOOD before the trio of sun-dragons, juggling a white ball of flame between his foretalons.
“All fire is subservient to my will,” he said, allowing the crackling orb to fade into a coal-black lump, which he crumbled to dust. Though he didn’t mention it, light was also Vendevorex’s plaything. The wizard bent light in a dozen subtle ways to enhance his appearance. The sky-blue scales of his hide glistened like wet gemstones. The diamonds that studded his wings cast rainbows with every movement. The silver skullcap that adorned his brow was wreathed in a shimmering halo. Vendevorex hoped to impress the king by looking more like a being from another world than a humble sky-dragon.
“Your so-called magic has an odor to it,” said Zanzeroth, the sun-dragon who stood behind the king. “It reminds me of the scent of a storm. It smells like . . . trouble.”
Zanzeroth was the king’s most trusted advisor. Vendevorex knew it was vital to win him over. “Your senses are finely tuned, noble Zanzeroth,” Vendevorex said, in a flattering tone. “Only a few dragons are refined enough to detect the aroma of true magic. Of course, magic is trouble . . . trouble that may be directed against the king’s enemies.”
Though he delivered his comment to Zanzeroth, Vendevorex carefully watched King Albekizan for a reaction. Albekizan was a giant bull of a sun-dragon, a creature who, even resting on the azure silk cushions of his throne pedestal, looked like the embodiment of raw power. Sun-dragons were the unquestioned pinnacle of the food chain, beasts with forty-foot wingspans and toothy jaws that could bite a horse in two. With symmetrical features and muscles sculpted beneath a hide of ruby scales, Albekizan looked down on Vendevorex with the assured poise of a creature confident he could kill everyone in the room.
Vendevorex was half the size of the king. It was the height of arrogance for him to seek admittance as a peer in the court. Sky-dragons earned places of respect in the kingdom as scholars and artists, but they were seldom found in positions of true authority. Vendevorex knew it would be a challenge to convince the king of his value. So far, he’d demonstrated abilities that he was certain the king would find useful in a personal wizard. He’d turned invisible, he’d populated the room with doppelgangers, and he’d conjured fire from thin air. Albekizan had greeted these feats with indifference, even boredom.
Vendevorex looked toward the king’s companions. Zanzeroth, a dragon over twenty years the elder of the king, gazed at him with suspicion. To the left of Albekizan sat Kanst, the king’s younger cousin, openly scowling. Vendevorex had studied all the residents of the palace invisibly before requesting an audience with the king. He knew that persuading either Zanzeroth or Kanst would lead to acceptance by Albekizan. Alas, the sun-dragons were proving more skeptical than he’d hoped.
“Other conjurers have come before us,” Zanzeroth said. “They present us with mirrors and juggling and dare to call it magic. What makes your claims any different?”
“Better mirrors,” Vendevorex said, as he willed his eyes to appear as dark pools full of stars. “I’ve journeyed to the abode of gods and stolen their secrets.”
“Your talk of gods falls on deaf ears, little dragon,” Kanst said. “What use has the mighty Albekizan for your illusions?”
“Illusions?” said Vendevorex. He spread his wings wide, to show that he had no hidden devices. In truth, most of his magic was mere illusion, but he possessed genuine power as well, the ability to manipulate matter with but a touch. “You misjudge me. The king is indeed mighty. I, however, am master of an unseen world. I hold power over fire and wind and stone. I’m no simple conjurer. Behold.”
Vendevorex leaned down, allowing a wreath of white flame to envelop his foretalon. He touched it to the marble floor and melted his talon-print into the stone. He stood up, the outline of his claws in the marble still spitting jets of flame.
He looked the king once more in the eyes. “You sit there,” he said, aware of the arrogance in addressing the king so brusquely, “the proudest dragon ever to have lived. Your pride is well earned. In far-away lands I’ve heard of you, Albekizan. I’ve heard of your hunger for power. What I’ve done to this marble tile I could do to a mountain. There is no fortress your enemies can hide within that I could not burn to ash. I am power, Albekizan. And for a price, I will be a power at your command.”
To his relief, Albekizan looked more intrigued than angry at his bold display.
“What price?” the king asked, in rumbling voice. It was the first time Albekizan had spoken to him.
“An appointment to your court,” said Vendevorex. “A home within the confines of your castle, and a position of authority as your chief consultant on all matters of magic.”
Zanzeroth asked, “With your boasts of power, why would you desire these things?”
“Noble Zanzeroth,” Vendevorex said, with a slight bow. “When I say I have been to the home of the gods, I do not speak metaphorically. I’ve traveled outside the ordinary world to gain my knowledge. The price I’ve paid is great; I can no longer return to the land of my birth. My choice is now to wander the world, an eternal stranger, or seek a new home. King Albekizan is the mightiest of earthly dragons. It’s natural that I desire to serve him; he’s the only dragon alive who can grant me the wealth and status that I feel are my rightful due.”
“Why would you need wealth?” Zanzeroth scoffed. “Instead of defacing the king’s floor, couldn’t you have turned the marble to gold? Those diamonds in your wings . . . are they mere glass?”
“I measure wealth in more than gold and jewels,” said Vendevorex. “True wealth comes from being valued in one’s work and knowledge.”
This answer seemed to please Albekizan. His eyes brightened as he said, “I can think of many uses for a dragon who may become invisible.”
“Such as a spy?” Kanst asked. Kanst was a dragon nearly as big as Albekizan, even more heavily muscled, but with a certain blockiness to his features that made him look less intelligent than his companions. “How do we know you aren’t one? Or an assassin in league with the Murder God?”
“If I were a spy, would I not simply linger in your midst invisibly to learn your secrets?” Vendevorex said, deciding that Kanst’s question was too dangerous to leave unanswered. “And if I were an assassin—”
“If you were an assassin you could have killed us unseen,” said Zanzeroth. “Or made the attempt, at least.”
Vendevorex tried to judge from the older dragon’s tone whether he was leaning in support of him, or simply annoyed by Kanst’s poor reasoning.
“No,” said Zanzeroth, narrowing his gaze. “You’re no assassin. You are, however, a liar, to come here and speak to us of gods. I don’t know the source of your ‘magic,’ but I know a falsehood when I hear one.”
“Lie or not,” the king said, glancing toward the imprint in the marble, “I’m intrigued by your abilities. You could burn a stone castle?”
“I call the flame I control the Vengeance of the Ancestors,” said Vendevorex. (In truth, until that exact second, he’d only called it “flame,” but he felt that his presentation needed more dramatic flare.) “There is nothing the Vengeance will not consume, and it responds to my will alone.”
The king rose and moved toward the far end of the hall, which was open to a night sky full of stars. He spread his broad wings and said, “I’d like a larger demonstration. I’d also like no further damage to my floor. Follow me.”
The king leapt into the air. Winds swept the hall, buffeting Vendevorex, as Zanzeroth and Kanst joined the king, beating their enormous wings. Vendevorex, unsure what the king had in mind, turned invisible. He found the large leather satchel he’d hidden behind a pillar. This bag contained all his worldly goods, including the true source of his powers. He opened the satchel and dipped his right foretalon into a jar of silver powder, coating it with a fresh dose of the miraculous stuff. The dust immediately vanished into his hide. Then, he closed the jar, slung the satchel over his back, and gave chase to the king.
The head start the sun-dragons possessed proved little challenge for Vendevorex. Though sky-dragons lacked the sheer physical power of sun-dragons, they were much faster and more graceful in the air. Invisibly, Vendevorex drew to a glide behind the royal party. When the sun-dragons flapped their wings, it sounded like gusts from an enormous bellows. Vendevorex’s own flight was utterly silent as his sensitive wings rode on the turbulence left in the trio’s wake.
Kanst flew directly beside Albekizan, which came as no surprise to Vendevorex. The roles of the king’s companions had become evident during his surveillance. Kanst possessed an arrogance that came from knowing he was related to the king by blood. Zanzeroth followed behind the king, perhaps slowed a bit by his age. But as the elder dragon looked over his shoulder, searching the sky, it soon became apparent that the true reason Zanzeroth lagged behind was to watch the king’s back. From what Vendevorex had learned, Zanzeroth didn’t boast any sort of royal lineage. He’d lived the earliest years of his life feral, a wild young dragon surviving purely on wits and instinct, before being discovered by Albekizan’s father. The old king had treated the task of civilizing the savage young Zanzeroth as an obsessive hobby. The civilizing hadn’t fully taken. To this day, Zanzeroth was respected as the most effective hunter in all the kingdom, the only dragon who dared to best the king during recreational hunts. Zanzeroth was, at heart, a creature ruled by instinct, and Vendevorex gathered that the elder dragon’s instincts were not to trust him.
Albekizan led them to a nearby cornfield. It was late summer, and heat still rose from the dark earth. Corn stalks fluttered in great waves as the wind of the king’s wings beat down upon them. He was coming down for a landing near a stone cottage. Vendevorex had spotted the place during his flights around the castle and knew something of its history, as the residence had been discussed by the king’s tax collectors. Until recently, the cottage had sat empty. The king’s soldiers had killed the former residents for reasons Vendevorex had yet to discover, and in the aftermath no humans claimed the abandoned property. That had changed in the spring, however, when a human family had moved in and begun repairs. Apparently they were migrants, with no claim to the place. Within the king’s bureaucracy, there was a debate as to what was the wiser course—to allow the humans to return the farm to productivity, or to kill them for squatting.
The king tilted his wings to use the air as a brake and landed before the cottage, allowing his shadow to loom over the place. The moon was a dim sliver; the stars were cottoned by the humid air.
As the sun-dragons landed, Vendevorex swooped in front of them, coming to a gentle landing. He allowed his invisibility to fade away and gave a deep and dramatic bow. With his unseen and silent approach, it looked as if he’d known the destination and had been waiting here all along.
“This cottage is no castle,” Zanzeroth said.
“But its walls are made of stone,” said the king. “Since I’ve chosen it on a whim, our would-be wizard can’t have prepared the structure with any trickery.”
“Clever,” said Kanst.
“You’d like me to burn this hovel?” Vendevorex asked. “It’s hardly a challenge. I’d prefer to demonstrate on something more impressive.” Vendevorex instantly regretted saying the words. He could see a look of skepticism flash through the king’s eyes. “Still, if it is your will, it is done.”
He turned toward the cottage. It wasn’t much to look at. The walls were slightly off plumb, and the roof no doubt leaked in a dozen places. The whole structure was tiny by the standards of sun-dragons, and far too cramped for even a sky-dragon. Though he was no taller than most humans when he stood on his hind claws, if he stretched his wings they would reach from end to end of the dwelling. While the cottage was fashioned from thick slabs of river rock, the walls were so badly constructed that, from many yards away, Vendevorex could hear a man snoring within. He pondered if he should do something to alert the humans. Living in such poverty was bad enough; to die without warning on the whim of a king only added to the unfairness. Then, looking back at the Albekizan, Vendevorex steeled himself.
He turned to face the stone dwelling. He concentrated, forming giant orbs of glowing plasma around his foreclaws. With a thrust, he threw the flames against the stone. Instantly, the walls ignited in bright orange gouts of flame. Seconds later, a woman began to scream.
“Step back,” Vendevorex said to the king as he walked away from the cottage. “The smoke is poisonous.”
“Poison is the tool of the Murder God,” said Kanst.
“The poison is a necessary result of the basic chemistry,” said Vendevorex. He worried for a brief instant that he’d revealed too much, then decided that the word “chemistry” was probably as strange and open-ended to the sun-dragons as the word “magic.”
Within the cottage a man’s screams joined the woman’s. There was the sound of frantic activity, until, after only a few brief seconds, both voices trailed off into hoarse coughs before falling silent. The smoke had already claimed them. At least they’d be dead before the flames ate their flesh.
“I thought you could control this,” said Zanzeroth. “Yet your own magic creates poison fumes you fear?”
“I’ve no fear of poison,” said Vendevorex. “The flames are completely under my control. It’s only your safety I have in mind. Flames create their own wind. The smoke moves in ways that are difficult to predict.”
“I’m pleased to see the flames eating the stone,” said Albekizan. “Still, if the poisons would endanger my own armies. . . .”
“My king, you will no longer need armies to lay siege to a castle. The heat and smoke are no hindrance for me. Watch.”
Vendevorex walked back to the cottage. The flames were spreading aggressively across the roof. The wooden door was completely ablaze. With a wave of his wings, Vendevorex caused the flames eating the door to flicker out, leaving only glowing embers on the edges of the blackened wood. Before he could open the door he noticed a sudden movement in the field behind the castle. There was an old barn perhaps twenty yards away. Something moved near it. It was difficult to make out clearly through the haze of smoke, but it looked like a human running from the barn toward the field of corn. A man, if he wasn’t mistaken, or at least an older boy.
Vendevorex looked back, wondering if the king had seen the human. Albekizan was focused solely on him. Only Zanzeroth seemed to be gazing beyond the house. Still, he’d been charged with the mission of burning the cottage, not killing every last human on the property. He decided it was best to carry on as if he’d seen nothing.
He pressed forward, reaching out to touch his foretalon to the charred wooden door, which disintegrated at his touch. He stepped into the burning room, the smoke pushed before him in a perfect arc by the bubble of fresh air he gathered. He moved further into the cottage, his heart sinking as he looked upon the ragged possessions of the family. It was the lot of humans in the kingdom of Albekizan to live modestly, but this family had been especially impoverished. He moved into the next room, at the rear of the cottage. The flames had yet to reach this far, though the heat made the air shimmer and the smoke from the other room rolled across the floor in a thick black cloud. Vendevorex’s eye was caught by something rising above the smoke—a crib. He crept closer, afraid of what he would find. His worst fears proved true. There was a baby in the crib, a girl if he judged correctly, though human infants mostly looked the same to him. She lay still as death. Then, as he drew closer, she coughed. Though still alive, she was pale. He reached out and placed his claws on her chest. The silver powder he’d covered his foretalon with swirled from his skin, coating the infant, before vanishing into her flesh. He closed his eyes in concentration as he looked inside her body. She’d inhaled trace amounts of smoke, knocking her unconscious, but had suffered no permanent damage. Now that she was within the circle of clean air that followed him, her breathing grew more comfortable.
He decided that the only merciful thing to do was kill her.
He placed his foretalon over her mouth.
Her tiny fist moved reflexively in her sleep to grasp the claw that lay against her cheek.
He changed his mind. Killing this child would do nothing to bring him favor in the king’s eyes. He scooped her up and placed her into his leather satchel. She was bundled tightly in a gray, fibrous blanket. She looked, atop the jars and pouches and notebooks he carried, more like a neatly packed provision than a passenger.
He willed the stones around him to burn even faster and headed toward the front door once more. He moved his wings to fill the doorway with smoke to make his exit more dramatic. He stepped into the doorway just as the walls began to moan and crack. The whole structure collapsed behind him, filling the night sky with a tornado of sparks. Vendevorex strode forward confidently, emerging from the wall of smoke unscathed. Albekizan looked pleased with the drama of the moment. Even Kanst seemed impressed. Only Zanzeroth still wore a scowl.
“I trust this has answered any doubts about my powers?” Vendevorex said.
“Sire,” said Zanzeroth, leaning in close to the king before he could answer. “We should consult further on this matter.”
Albekizan glanced toward the older dragon, looking ready to argue, then nodded in agreement.
“Return to my court tomorrow at mid-day, wizard,” said Albekizan. “You shall have my decision then.”
Albekizan leapt into the air and headed toward the castle. Kanst stood for a moment, studying the mound of burning stone, before turning to give chase to the king.
Zanzeroth lingered, his red scales even redder in the flickering light. He drew close to Vendevorex and said, in a low hiss, “I don’t know who you really are or what you really want. The only thing I know with certainty is that you don’t smell right. To be blunt, I wouldn’t enjoy the atmosphere of the castle with you in it. Do us both a favor . . . fly far from here tonight, little dragon.”
Vendevorex kept his face expressionless as Zanzeroth turned away and launched himself with a mighty downthrust of his wings.
As the king and his entourage vanished into the night, Vendevorex opened his satchel and removed the baby. Laying his foretalons upon her once more, he used his abilities to mend the small damage that had been done to her lungs. The girl responded by drawing a deep breath, then unleashing a loud wail. She continued to scream for the next half hour as Vendevorex moved to the barn in search of any other survivors. He found no one. He waited a while longer, thinking that soon neighboring humans might turn up to investigate the blaze. Unfortunately, anyone who had seen the fire must also have seen the sun-dragons. No one came.
Vendevorex cradled the baby and stroked her tiny pink cheek, trying to comfort her. It didn’t work. She cried all the louder. He thought for a moment about simply leaving her in the barn. Sooner or later, someone would come and discover her. Then, he sighed, and placed her into his satchel once more. He moved to investigate the cornfield and discovered footprints and a trampled stalk near the area where he’d spotted the human. He flapped his wings and lifted skyward. From above the cornfield, his sharp eyes could spot the bent and broken stalks that marked the path the human had taken. He swooped across the corn, arriving soon at the distant edge of the field, which was bordered by a large stream. As he circled the area, searching for any signs of movement, the baby’s cries fell to a few half-hearted sobs. Seeing no one, Vendevorex landed gently on a well-worn pathway that ran along the stream. To his relief, the baby settled into silence.
He searched the site, at last finding the scrape of a footprint on the sandy pathway. The object of his pursuit had headed toward the forest that lay upstream. Vendevorex remained on the ground to follow the trail, keeping a keen eye for further clues. The path was apparently popular with humans and cattle. He wasn’t certain he was following the right footsteps until he found a cow patty that had been deposited at some point the previous day. The whole of the patty was swarmed by beetles, save for a flattened section at the edge, where a foot had stepped quite recently. Beetles hadn’t yet disturbed the newly exposed dung.
Soon, he found himself at the forest’s edge. It was dark beneath the trees. Spotting footprints was no longer possible. He moved ahead, following the path, feeling certain that the human wouldn’t be able to see any better than he could and was unlikely to stray far from the stream.
At last, in the distance, he heard the sound of someone crying. He turned invisible and crept forward. A teenage boy sat on the thick root of a tree by the stream, his arms limp at his side, his face twisted in grief. No doubt, this was the person he sought.
Remaining invisible, he asked, “What’s your name, boy?”
The boy stopped crying and snapped to attention. He jumped up, brandishing a fist-sized rock. “Who’s there?” he said, his voice trembling with fear, or rage, or both.
“I asked first,” Vendevorex said.
“I’m Ragnar,” the boy said, turning toward Vendevorex’s voice, then twisting his head further, searching the shadows.
“Ragnar, I mean you no harm,” Vendevorex said.
“Where are you?” Ragnar said. “Who are you?”
“A friend,” said Vendevorex. “At least, not an enemy. I’m here to return something you value.”
Ragnar spun around, raising his rock to throw, then spun around again, still seeking a target. “Are you one of them?” he demanded. “A dragon?”
“That isn’t important,” said Vendevorex. “Did you live in the cottage in the cornfield? Were you in the barn?”
“You are a dragon,” Ragnar snarled, his face becoming a mask of rage. “You killed my family!”
“Did you have a sister? An infant?” Vendevorex said, keeping his voice calm, swaying his long neck to make his location harder to pinpoint.
“Jandra?” Ragnar said.
“She’s alive,” Vendevorex said. “I’ve brought her to you. Put down the rock. Turn around. I will place her at your feet. I’ll also leave diamonds. They cannot replace what was taken from you tonight, but they will help you flee here and begin a new life.”
“This is a trick!” Ragnar screamed, lunging toward Vendevorex’s voice. With a violent grunt, he hurled the rock. Vendevorex easily leapt aside. The sudden jolt caused Jandra to start crying.
Ragnar picked up another rock from the stream bank and threw it toward the sound. Vendevorex jumped from its path, but it was followed instantly by another, then a third.
“Stop!” he cried out. “You’ll injure your sister!”
“I don’t care!” Ragnar cried, finding a large, dead branch near the path. He lifted it with both hands and wielded it like a club. He chased toward the sound of the crying baby. Vendevorex ducked and darted among the trees as Ragnar shouted, “I’ll kill you! I’ll kill every damn dragon in the world!”
Ragnar swung his makeshift club with such force it splintered against a tree. The end of the club spun through the air and caught Vendevorex on the cheek. He let out a hiss of pain and Ragnar charged toward the sound. He dodged away at the last second, then, with a flap of his wings, vaulted to the other side of the stream.
“Calm yourself!” he shouted. “Think of your sister!”
“I’m thinking of your blood!” Ragnar screamed, twisting and turning, searching both for the source of Jandra’s cries and a new weapon. He spotted a sharp stone on the ground and lifted it, then eyed the far side of the stream. Vendevorex took a deep breath. Ragnar wasn’t an adult, but he was still big and in good health, a farm boy with a body chiseled by labor. Judging from the force with which Ragnar had splintered his own club, he could no doubt injure Vendevorex with a lucky blow, or kill Jandra with an unlucky one.
To his relief, Ragnar made the mistake of stepping into the stream, wading into knee-deep water. Calmly, Vendevorex leaned forward and allowed the dust from his talon to fall over the stream. With a thought, the stream turned to ice, trapping Ragnar.
Ragnar gave a cry of alarm, beating the ice around his legs with the rock he carried.
“You’ll injure yourself if you’re not careful,” Vendevorex said. Invisibly, he loosened his satchel and removed the screaming infant. She was still swaddled in the blanket, a neat, if noisy, bundle. He lay her on the ice, placed three diamonds on her chest, and shoved her toward her brother.
“Take care of her,” Vendevorex said.
The bundled infant slid across the ice until she came to a halt against Ragnar’s knee. Ragnar looked down, confused, seeming to calm a bit. Then, he raised the rock over his head.
“I’ll take no gift that’s been touched by a dragon!”
He plunged the sharp stone toward the infant’s head.
It never connected. From nowhere, a thick red tail flicked out and knocked the stone from Ragnar’s hand. In a flash, the tail whipped back, catching the boy full in the face. He fell backwards, still frozen at the knees, completely unconscious.
Vendevorex looked up. In the tree that towered over the stream, Zanzeroth crouched. Vendevorex had never seen a sun-dragon resting in a tree before. Their size and weight normally made them unsuitable for such perches. Zanzeroth moved gracefully as a cat as he leaned down and swooped up the infant with his foreclaw.
He brought the screaming infant to his face. The baby looked tiny against his giant jaws. He could devour her without bothering to chew. He sniffed her, the delicate white feathers around his snout fluttering like smoke. The baby instantly grew wide-eyed and silent.
“She’s soiled herself,” Zanzeroth said. “She’d probably be quieter if you kept her dry.”
In the dark, his eyes seemed to glow with an emerald flame as he turned toward Vendevorex and offered the baby to him. Vendevorex took the infant and clutched her to his chest.
“I can’t believe he would have killed his own sister,” Vendevorex said.
“Humans aren’t like us,” Zanzeroth said. “They’re beasts driven by primitive urges they cannot fully control. Fear, anger, hatred, lust . . . they have the same emotions as dragons, but lack our ability to keep them in check. They’re all instinct and no reason.”
“I’ve known humans who would prove you wrong,” said Vendevorex.
Zanzeroth shook his head. “Think what you wish, but I’ve hunted humans for many decades. A good hunter understands his prey with a certain . . . intimacy.”
“Why did you save the baby?” Vendevorex asked.
“Why did you?”
Vendevorex sighed. “I’m not a creature who enjoys needless death. I killed her parents only as a consequence of proving myself to your king. But I don’t regard humans as prey. I saw no need for her to die when there was a possibility of reuniting her with a family member.”
“I knew you’d seen the boy flee the barn,” said Zanzeroth. “Your body language betrayed you. I was curious when you didn’t mention it. When you exited the house, I smelled the baby in your satchel. Again, you kept it secret. I’ve followed you to find out why.”
“I had no idea you were following me,” Vendevorex said.
“I’m the most experienced stalker in the kingdom,” said Zanzeroth. “Your invisibility doesn’t impress me.”
Vendevorex once more placed Jandra into his satchel. By now, the water of the stream had backed up over the dam of ice and was flowing over its surface, half submerging Ragnar, who was still out cold. Vendevorex waded forward carefully. The ice beneath the water was slick; he dug his sharp claws in for traction. He reached Ragnar and melted the ice around his legs, then dragged him to the riverbank.
“I’d rather not see him drown,” Vendevorex said.
“You’re going to let him live?”
“Why not?” said Vendevorex. “He’s more a threat to himself than to me. Still, I’m not going to leave Jandra with him. I’ll have to care for her a bit longer, I’m afraid, until I can find a suitable home.”
“The king wouldn’t look kindly upon this softness, wizard,” said Zanzeroth.
“I’ll kill for the king when I am his subject and obeying his orders,” said Vendevorex. “For now, I’m a free dragon. I will be as soft or as hard as my conscious commands.”
Zanzeroth slinked down from the tree, standing next to Vendevorex, drawing up to loom over him.
“Within the castle, the king keeps hundreds of humans as slaves. They do the menial labor of the place, the cleaning and cooking. You can find someone there who will care for the infant.”
“As long as I’ve saved her life,” said Vendevorex, “I’d as soon not deliver her into slavery. Besides, what does it matter how many humans live within the castle? You’ve told me to stay away.”
Zanzeroth stared at Vendevorex for a long moment. “Use your own judgment as to the baby’s fate. It isn’t my custom to hunt human females, so I don’t care what her eventual destiny may be. And yet wizard . . . you should know I have something in common with this child, no matter how improbable that may seem.”
“Oh?”
“I, too, was an orphan. I endured many years on my own, but I’ve no doubt I would never have survived to adulthood had I not been shown kindness by a dragon who had every right to kill me. Albekizan’s father had compassion; Albekizan does not. It would be useful, perhaps, to have a voice in the king’s court willing to stand for mercy.”
“I can be that voice,” said Vendevorex.
Zanzeroth nodded. “Perhaps.” Then he said, “Kanst, doesn’t trust you. I saw him back at the cottage after you left, poking through the ash.”
“Do I need Kanst’s trust?” Vendevorex said.
“No,” said Zanzeroth. “The king enjoys his cousin’s company but is wise enough not to listen to his counsel.”
“The king listens to you, though,” said Vendevorex.
“On occasion,” said Zanzeroth. “Come to the castle at the appointed time. The king leans in your favor. I won’t oppose you.”
“Thank you, Zanzeroth,” Vendevorex said.
“Save your thanks, wizard,” Zanzeroth said, turning away. “I still don’t like the way you smell. My instincts tell me that the day will come when I’ll be the dragon that guts you.”
Vendevorex wasn’t certain what to say to that.
Zanzeroth stepped over the body of the unconscious boy and glanced back at Vendevorex. “Fortunately, unlike our sleeping friend here, I’m a being whose reason is in control of his instinct. As long as you don’t give me an excuse to kill you, you may yet die in your sleep.”
The giant dragon leapt toward the sky, his massive wings knocking aside branches as he rose into the night.
Vendevorex let out a long, slow breath. He looked down at the little girl in his wings, who stared up at him with big dark eyes. “Perhaps he’s right,” he said to her. “Perhaps, in this kingdom, there aren’t any humans who’ve been raised to value reason over instinct.”
Her mouth moved into what he interpreted as a smile. He stroked her pale cheek with the back of his scaly talon.
“At least,” he said, gently, “not yet.”
BITTERWOOD
 AUTHOR’S NOTE: The e-book edition of Bitterwood has been slightly modified from the original print edition. Bitterwood was purchased by Solaris as a stand-alone book, and only after strong sales and critical response did Solaris invite me to expand the tale into a trilogy. I’m happy they did; in the process of writing Dragonforge and Dragonseed, I had the opportunity to further explore and expand upon an already complex world and cast of characters. Alas, some of the choices I made created continuity errors with Bitterwood, already in print. The backstory of Gadreel was especially contradicted by changes I made to the breeding habits of sky-dragons. In this edition, I made the necessary tweaks to bring his history in line with later continuity. I’ve also corrected the handful of typos that readers have brought to my attention over the years (though it’s possible I’ve introduced fresh ones). As always, I welcome feedback from my readers, and if you have any comments on content or formatting, feel free to drop me a line at nobodynovelwriter@yahoo.com.
BITTERWOOD CONTENTS
Part I: PYRE
 Prolog Part I: SEED
 Chapter I: LIGHTNING
 Chapter II: CIRCLES
 Chapter III: STONE
 Chapter IV: FLIGHT
 Chapter V: WOUNDS
 Chapter VI: SPARKS
 Chapter VII: SCHEMES
 Part II: CROWS
 Prolog Part II: SPEAR
 Chapter VIII: ZEEKY
 Chapter IX: PET
 Chapter X: WAR
 Chapter XI: FLESH
 Chapter XII: BAIT
 Chapter XIII: ARROWS
 Chapter XIV: MASKS
 Part III: RIVER
 Prolog Part III: LIES
 Chapter XV: BLASPHET
 Chapter XVI: HEART
 Chapter XVII: SATISFACTION
 Chapter XVIII: REFLECTIONS
 Chapter XIX: RECKONING
 Chapter XX: SKELETONS
 Chapter XXI: HOMUNCULUS
 Chapter XXII: MYTH
 Chapter XXIII: GO!
 Chapter XXIV: DEATH
 Chapter XXV: JUSTICE
 Epilog: HOME
PART ONE
PYRE
Can a man take fire in his bosom,
and his clothes not be burned?
—Proverbs 6:27
PROLOG PART ONE
* * *
SEED
1070 D.A. (Dragon Age), the 39th Year of the Reign of Albekizan
FRESHLY PLOWED EARTH and the perfume of women scented the night air. Naked, Bant scurried along the furrows, crouching low as he made his way toward the orchard. All around him women sang out and men grunted with pleasure. Bant strained his eyes in the darkness, fearing that any second some white arm might snake out of the moonless night and pull him close, demanding from him that which was Recanna’s.
As he reached the far end of the field, the sounds of passion grew more distant. The black shadows of the peach orchard loomed before him. He paused at the edge of the trees, warmed by the rising heat of the earth, awash in the sweet scent of newly opened blossoms.
“Recanna?” he whispered.
He leaned forward, listening for any faint sound. Behind him, he heard the distant laughter of a woman. He ducked his head and stepped into the orchard, inching forward, his arms held before him. Under the low, thick canopy of the boughs, even the dim starlight vanished. He saw no sign of his beloved. Had she decided not to come? Worse, had someone else caught her as she traveled through the fields? In theory, on the Night of the Sowing, women were free to choose any partner they wished. In practice, no woman could ever refuse any man of the village on this night; to do so would be an insult to the Goddess.
Bant was only fifteen, Recanna fourteen, and this was the first time each had participated in the sowing, the rite of spring practiced in honor of the Goddess Ashera. They had waited a lifetime for this night. If all their whispered plans and shared dreams were to come to nothing now . . . It was too terrible to contemplate.
“Recanna?” he said again, louder, almost a shout. He held his breath to listen for her reply. His heart sounded like a drum in his ears.
At last, her faint voice answered, “Here.”
He crept toward the sound. Bant was all but blind beneath the branches. For a second he thought he saw her slender form in the darkness, a black shape against a gray background. When he drew nearer he saw it was only the trunk of a tree. Then her soft, cool hand closed around his and pulled him to her.
She was naked, of course. From sunset to sunrise on this night, it would be a sin to allow cloth to touch her body. Her soft skin pressed against his. He felt as if he’d slipped into dream. He wrapped her in his arms, holding her tightly, trembling with joy. He leaned and pressed his lips to her neck, nibbling her, breathing in the rich aroma of her hair. Then he moved his mouth to seek her lips. But she turned her face and his lips fell on her cheek, which was wet, and salty. She shuddered. He realized she was crying.
“What’s wrong?” he whispered, rubbing her back.
“This,” she said, sounding frightened. “Us. Bant, I love you, but . . . but we shouldn’t be here. I’m afraid.”
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Bant said, stroking her hair. “As you say, you love me. I love you. Nothing done in love should cause fear.”
She swallowed hard. She was still crying.
“Everything’s all right,” he said, wiping her tears.
“No,” she said. “I know I agreed to this. But, at the ritual, the women who prepared me for the sowing kept talking about the Goddess. They kept telling me of my duty.”
“Damn duty,” Bant said, grabbing her shoulders and looking her in the eyes. “We’ve waited so long. I won’t share you with the others. I can’t.”
“But it’s the Night of the Sowing. The Goddess is good to us. She makes the orchards blossom and the crops sprout. All that she asks in return is this one night of—”
“Hush,” Bant said, placing his fingers on her lips. “The old women have really scared you, haven’t they? Where’s the Recanna I knew just yesterday, the girl so intent on following her own heart?”
“But . . .” she said.
“There will be other sowings,” he said. “There will be time enough for duty.”
“But—”
Bant pulled her to him, silencing her with his lips. Despite the warmth of the night, her naked body was cold and she shivered as he embraced her. He ran his hands along her skin, warming her. He continued kissing her until her lips grew softer, and she opened her mouth to his. She cautiously placed her gentle fingers against his hips. Her skin, chilled only moments before, flushed with heat. She moaned softly, and pulled him closer. They fell to the earth together, the soil warm and yielding beneath Bant’s back.
For the first time Bant understood the deeper meaning of the sowing, the powerful connection between the seasons of the world and the passions of the body. He felt as if he were a part of the earth, a thing of rich loam and hard rock. Recanna’s breath against his lips was as sweet and life-giving as the spring breeze. Their defiance of the traditions of the village no longer mattered. There was only lingering, sensual tension of the now.
Then, with a gasp, Recanna turned her head and pushed Bant away. She rose to her knees.
“What?” Bant asked, sitting up and raising his hand toward her. “What’s wrong?”
“Look,” she said, pushing his hand away. “The road.”
Far beyond the trees, a single lantern flickered on the distant road, breaking the sacred darkness of the sowing. Who would approach the town on this of all nights? A murmur rose from the nearby fields. They were not the only village folk to have spotted this sacrilege of light.
“It’s an omen,” Recanna said, her voice once more fearful. “We’ve angered the Goddess. What have we done?”
“W-we . . .” Bant’s argument trailed into silence. No one would dare light even a candle on the Night of the Sowing. The Goddess graced this night with a perfect blanket of darkness. Had he risked too much?
A snap of a twig nearby raised the hair on his neck. Someone else was in the orchard. By now, his eyes were better adjusted to the gloom. Recanna’s pale skin almost glowed. But looking around, all he could see were the silhouettes of the tree trunks. Anyone could be hiding. Then one of the dark shapes broke free from the others and moved closer. Bant jumped as a deep, beefy voice shouted, “Runt!”
Bant knew the voice well. Even in the gloom, the hulking shape of his older brother Jomath was unmistakable. Jomath was two years older than Bant, but a giant by comparison, a foot taller and with thick muscular arms. Bant had always been a target of his brother’s bullying. But, if the light on the road presaged something dangerous, it was good that he was here.
“Jomath,” Bant said. “I’m relieved it’s you. What do you think the light on the road is?”
“Who cares?” Jomath said, striding boldly forward and placing a callused hand around Recanna’s frail arm. “Some lost fool, no doubt. Not my concern. What concerns me is to see you and this lovely morsel breaking the commandments. Do you think I’ve been blind to your plotting?”
“Ow,” said Recanna. “You’re hurting me.”
“You deserve to be hurt. The commandment is that any woman shall lay with any man on the Night of Sowing. Defiance of this is a great sin. I’m here to save you from your folly.”
“Let her go,” Bant said, leaping to his feet. “She’s in love with me, not you.”
“To speak of love is blasphemy,” Jomath said, pushing Bant back with one hand while continuing to hold onto Recanna’s arm. “There’s no place for such refinement on the Night of Sowing. The Goddess commands all of nature, and tonight we are reminded that we are part of that nature. We leave behind our daily roles to become the animals we truly are. It’s a woman’s duty to submit to any man who wants her. I’ve waited a long time for Recanna to come of age. It’s time for me to teach her the sacred lesson of the Goddess.”
“Let her go,” Bant repeated, clenching his fists. “You don’t care anything about the Goddess. You’re only doing this to spite me.”
“Please, Jomath,” said Recanna, twisting in his grasp. “You don’t have to be so rough. You’re right. We’ve sinned. But at least allow Bant to be the first. We’ve waited so long.”
“Don’t speak to me of waiting,” Jomath said, his teeth flashing white. “I’ve wasted far too much time searching these shadows for you. Resist if you like. I find it more pleasurable if you struggle.”
“No!” Bant shouted, rushing toward his brother. He punched Jomath in the back with all his strength. His older brother spun around, using his free hand to punch Bant on the jaw.
Bant hit the ground hard, his mouth full of blood. The teeth on the left side of his jaw wiggled with sickening ease as his tongue brushed against them. When he tried to rise, Jomath kicked him in the belly, forcing his breath out in a painful gush. Jomath kicked him in the guts again and this time Bant vomited, choking on the bile. Unable to breathe and with stars dancing before him, Bant clutched dirt in his fists. He struggled to make his legs obey him. His hate was like a thousand whips lashing him, driving him. Bant had been beaten by Jomath before, but this would be the last time. Bant had no doubt that if he could reach Jomath’s windpipe with his fingernails, he would gladly rip it out. Yet his body betrayed him. He remained glued to the ground.
Recanna screamed. Jomath silenced her with a punch then threw her down beside Bant.
“I’ll kill you,” Bant whispered through bloody lips.
“Empty threats.” Jomath lowered himself to his knees before Recanna. Recanna was groaning, barely moving, as Jomath parted her legs. He glanced over at Bant and said, “Watch. You might learn something.”
Bant spat at his brother, but the blood-darkened spittle landed on Recanna. Bant closed his eyes tightly until all he saw was a wall of red, a sea of blood. He imagined Jomath drowning in such a sea.
Then, far away, a man shouted and a woman screamed, not in pleasure but in panic. Quickly, the other villagers echoed the scream. Bant opened his eyes to find Jomath standing, ignoring Recanna, and staring off toward the village.
Across the fields, a bonfire rose from the heart of the village.
“This will have to wait,” Jomath said, and raced away.
Bant crawled to Recanna’s side. Together, they helped each other sit up. Recanna was weeping, her body heaving with great sobs.
“Oh, what have we done?” Recanna moaned. “This has all gone so wrong. Oh, Goddess, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Bant looked her in the eyes, trying to show courage. “This isn’t our fault,” Bant said. He prayed it was true. “Come on. Let’s see what’s happening.”
He helped her to her feet. Grabbing her by the wrist, he guided her from the orchard, picking up speed and breaking into a run as they cleared the low branches and reached the freshly plowed field. Alone, Bant could have outpaced Jomath, even with his head start. Jomath had gotten all the brute strength in the family, but Bant’s slight, wiry build made him the fastest runner in the village. He slowed his pace, not wanting to leave Recanna behind. In truth, he wasn’t eager to discover the source of the evil that gripped the village this night. Could Recanna be right? Was this their fault?
At the edge of the village square, Bant stopped, drawing back in fear. Harnessed to a nearby wagon stood a gigantic black dog, as big as an ox. It was the biggest beast Bant had ever seen, save for a brief glimpse of a sun-dragon that had once flown high over the village.
The dog regarded Bant with a casual eye. Its huge pink tongue hung from its mouth as it panted, giving it a friendly, bemused expression. The dog’s breath was foul, filling the air with a rotten meat stench. Bant kept his distance from the creature as he led Recanna around the edge of the square to join with the crowd of villagers.
The crowd consisted of the village men, all three score of them. All were still naked from the sowing. The women stood on the nearby hill, clutching their children to them. Everyone’s eyes were fixed on the temple of the Goddess. The structure sat in the heart of the village. Its wooden columns were the ivy-covered trunks of ancient trees, and its walls were dense hedges. It held the most sacred artifact of the village; a carving of the Goddess, taller than a man, resting on a pedestal that was once the stump of an enormous oak.
Flames engulfed the temple. The fire roared with a noise like heavy rain. The stone steps leading up to the temple interior were covered with offerings: baskets containing bundles of fresh spring ramps, loaves of brown bread, and a catfish as long as a man’s arm. The woven reed baskets curled and warped in the heat of the blaze.
Then, from the smoke and flame rolling from the temple’s entrance, a giant stranger emerged, rudely dragging behind him the voluptuously carved mahogany statue of the Goddess. If the smoke stung his eyes or irritated his lungs, the stranger gave no sign. Nor did he cringe from the terrible heat. He kicked away the offerings as he moved forward. He placed the Goddess below him on the stone steps of the temple, moving her heavy wooden body as if it were weightless.
Confused voices ran through the crowd. Had this stranger set fire to the temple? Or was he saving the Goddess from the blaze?
The crowd fell silent as the stranger straightened to his full height, easily ten feet tall, his shoulders broad, unbent by fear or labor. Despite the commandment that no cloth could touch flesh on this night, he wore a black wool coat that hung down to his heavy leather boots. His skin, stained by soot, was as dark as his clothes. The only bright things about him were his eyes, glistening beneath a broad-brimmed hat. His giant right hand held a thick, black book.
In the stunned silence, the stranger opened the book, and read, with a thunderous voice, “THOU SHALT HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME. THOU SHALT NOT MAKE UNTO THEE ANY GRAVEN IMAGE, OR ANY LIKENESS OF ANY THING THAT IS IN HEAVEN ABOVE, OR THAT IS IN THE EARTH BENEATH, OR THAT IS IN THE WATER UNDER THE EARTH.”
With this proclamation, the stranger opened his long black coat to reveal a woodsman’s axe, nearly four feet in length, its finely honed edge catching the firelight. It hung from his belt without touching the ground.
“It may be,” the stranger growled, “that you dwell in ignorance, unaware of your sin.” He lifted the heavy tool with a single hand high over his head. “I have been sent by the Lord to show you the way.” The axe flashed down like lightning, splitting the Goddess in twain. The two halves flew apart, clattering on the stone steps.
From the hillside the women began to wail. Even some of the men were weeping. Recanna clung tightly to Bant who felt numb. The Goddess was eternal; she had always dwelled at the center of the village. How could this be happening, unless they were in the presence of something—some god—even more powerful than Ashera?
“Now that this nonsense is behind us,” the stranger said, “the truth shall set you free.”
“Truth?” one man cried, stepping forward. It was Jomath. “You dare speak of truth in the face of such blasphemy?”
“I dare,” said the stranger. “Have care. Do not act in anger or haste. I am a servant of the Lord. He will not allow a hair on my head to come to harm.”
Jomath’s face twisted with rage. His hands were tight fists. But Bant knew his brother well, and could see something in his eyes that others might have missed. Fear. It was on the faces of all the men. Fear of the blasphemy they had witnessed, yes: fear of the coming wrath of the Goddess, no doubt; but more immediately, fear of this giant, this devil standing before the raging flames, his sharp axe gleaming.
Jomath looked back to the men. “Who’s with me? Who will join me in avenging this villainy?”
The men looked down in utter silence.
“Cowards,” Jomath cursed. He turned to face the stranger. “Let the Goddess give me the strength of the storms, the fury of lightning!”
He bellowed with rage as he rushed the steps. He drove his shoulders into the stranger’s stomach with a force that made Bant flinch.
The stranger did not bend. Jomath recoiled from the impact of the blow, stumbling on the steps. The stranger raised his axe. Then, a shout flew from the crowd. A blacksmith’s iron hammer flashed through the air. The heavy tool struck the stranger squarely in the face, knocking him backward. Namon, the stout-armed blacksmith, had hurled the weapon and now charged up the steps. Before Namon reached the man, Faltan, the huntsman, rushed from the edge of the burning temple and threw himself against the back of the stranger’s knees. The stranger staggered forward, allowing Jomath to grab his belt and pull until all three men and the stranger tumbled. Bant had difficulty discerning whose limbs were whose in the cursing ball of flesh and black cloth that landed in the square.
As one, the men of the village gave a blood-curdling shout and rushed forward, drowning the stranger beneath a human wave.
Bant didn’t move to join them. He couldn’t, standing there, his arms around Recanna. His heart held an unspeakable desire. He wanted the stranger to live. He wanted the stranger to kill Jomath. Let the temple burn, let the Goddess send her wrath as storms, as floods, as plagues of locusts and flies: Bant feared none of these things. All he wanted was for Jomath to die, to satisfy the hate he’d felt only moments before.
The ox-dog at the edge of the square barked and charged forward, the wagon bouncing behind it like a toy. The beast’s teeth sank into the shoulder of one of the men on the ground who screamed as his bones snapped. His scream died as the ox-dog shook its enormous head, sending the man’s body hurtling through the air. It landed before Bant and Recanna, splashing them with blood. Bant recognized the man; it was Delan, his uncle, the man who’d been training Bant in the art of archery. Bant understood that it wouldn’t be only his brother who died tonight.
So be it, he thought.
Recanna screamed, tugging away from him, trying to run. Bant tightened his grip on her, deaf to her cries. He couldn’t bear to part with her, and he didn’t dare to turn away from the carnage before him.
The ox-dog tossed men into the sky like rag dolls as the bright-eyed stranger fought to his feet once more, his robes now wet with blood. His axe rose and fell, chopping and hacking. Limbs were severed, skulls split, men died with each blow. The dog tore and savaged the men. Quickly, the few men with limbs still intact slipped and skittered on the bloody cobblestones before fleeing into the night.
The stranger didn’t pursue them. He stood in the middle of a mound of bodies, straightening his coat. He pulled the brim of his hat back down over his eyes and wiped his cheek with a gore-encrusted palm. He wasn’t even winded.
He kicked the bodies at his feet—two-dozen men at least—making a path for him to walk.
With a chill of satisfaction, Bant spotted Jomath, dead among the bloody mound. It was almost as if his hate had killed Jomath, as if it had been a palpable thing, a force, making his darkest desires real. He knew he should feel remorse or some sense of loss. Instead, he felt something that bordered on joy at seeing his brother’s torn and twisted corpse. It frightened him that he was capable of such hate. Nothing could ever wash the blood from him.
So be it.
The blood-soaked stranger walked toward Bant.
“You,” the stranger said. “Boy. What’s your name?”
Bant looked up into the giant’s eyes. They were piercing, unflinching. Bant knew the stranger was studying his terrible soul.
“B-Bant,” he said. “Bant Bitterwood.”
“You did not fight me,” the man said.
“No,” whispered Bant.
“Do you fear me, Bant Bitterwood?”
“No,” Bant said. In his hatred for Jomath, all other emotion had been lost.
“This marks you as a wise man in this village of fools.”
Of all the words that could have left the stranger’s mouth, these were the last ones Bant had expected.
“Tell me, Bant Bitterwood, is this woman you cling to your wife?”
“No,” said Bant.
“What is your name, girl?”
She turned her head away as she whispered, “Recanna Halsfeth.”
“Are you any man’s wife?”
“No,” she answered.
“Then the Lord’s work in this place shall begin with you. As you stand together tonight, so shall you stand for all eternity. Bant Bitterwood, look upon your wife. Recanna Bitterwood, look upon your husband.”
“But—” Recanna began.
The stranger raised his open palm, silencing her. “Do not question the commandments of the Lord.”
“Th-the Lord?” asked Bant.
“Can you read, Bant Bitterwood?”
“No, sir.”
“Then you shall learn. It is important training for all servants of the Lord. One cannot know the Lord without knowing the Word.”
The stranger held forth a black book. Bant took it, surprised by the weight as the stranger released it. He knew it weighed only a few pounds, but somehow, it felt like the heaviest burden he’d ever carried.
Bant asked, “Are you . . . are you the Lord?”
“No. I am his prophet. My name is Hezekiah. Now go, Bant Bitterwood. Find clothes to cover your nakedness. Your days of living as a pagan savage are no more. Recanna Bitterwood, find clothes of your own then prepare food for your husband. He will need his strength. There is much work for him in the coming days.”
Bant looked to Recanna. She was afraid. She tried to pull away but he held tight.
“I know you’re frightened,” Bant said. “I don’t understand what has happened tonight, but I have a feeling. I think everything is going to be all right. Don’t be afraid.”
“What you feel, Bant Bitterwood,” said Hezekiah, “is faith.”
Recanna nodded. Something changed in her eyes. Bant realized that she also had faith, faith in him. He stood straighter, feeling somehow more powerful.
He pulled her closer then looked to Hezekiah, who nodded.
“You may kiss your bride,” the prophet said.
Recanna surrendered as Bant placed his lips upon hers. The world spun beneath his feet. Gone the musty smell of the fields and the sweet scent of peach blossoms. Here, in this perfect kiss, in the first moment in his life where he felt no fear, no shame, all the world smelled of smoke, and sweat, and blood.
This is how Bant Bitterwood learned that hate could improve the world.
This is how Bant Bitterwood found God.
j
CHAPTER ONE
* * *
LIGHTNING
 1099 D.A. The 68th Year of the Reign of Albekizan
THE SAD LITTLE FIRE gave out more smoke than warmth. The hunter crouched before it, turning a chunk of ash-flecked meat on the flat stone he’d placed amidst the coals. The movement of the stone stirred more smoke. The hunter coughed and wiped soot from his eyes. He stretched his bony, knotted fingers above the embers, fighting off the chill. He was a thin man, hair shoulder-length and gray, the deep lines of his leathery face forming a permanent frown. He pulled his heavy cloak more tightly around him.
 In the tree above him hung the body of a dragon, blood dripping from its mouth.
 The creature was a sky-dragon, the smallest of the winged dragon species. Strip away the ten-foot wings and the long tail and a sky-dragon was no bigger than a man and half his weight. They were known as sky-dragons both for their prowess in flight and their coloring, the pale, perfect blue of a cloudless day. The hunter had killed many sky-dragons over the years. They weren’t particularly dangerous. Despite talons ending in two-inch claws and crocodilian jaws full of saw-like teeth, sky-dragons prided themselves on being civilized. The beasts fancied themselves as artists, poets, and scholars; they considered it beneath their dignity to engage in such menial work as hunting.
 The hunter had brought the sky-dragon down with a single arrow, expertly placed on the underside of the jaw, the iron tip coming to rest dead center in the dragon’s brain. The beast had fallen from the air like a suddenly dead thing, catching in the crook of a tree. The hunter had climbed the tree and retrieved the leather satchel the dragon had slung over its back. He’d tugged at the beast’s body but found the corpse jammed too tight to budge. Lowering himself even with the beast’s head, he’d stared into its glassy, catlike eyes. Sky-dragon heads always reminded him of goat heads, albeit goats covered in smooth, opalescent scales. With a grunt, he cut out the beast’s tongue.
 Moments later, a fire had been built and now the tongue sizzled on the flat rock at the center, giving the smoke an oily, fishy tinge. To pass the time as the tongue cooked, the hunter searched the contents of the dragon’s satchel. Food, of course. A bottle of wine wrapped in burlap, a loaf of rock hard bread powdered with flour, two apples, some eel jerky. He also discovered a fist-sized crock capped with oily parchment bound with string. He punched through the parchment and recoiled at the stench. The crock was filled with strong-smelling horch; a paste that dragons loved that consisted of fish guts and chilies ground together then buried in a ceramic jar and fermented. The hunter tossed the jar as far into the woods as his arm could heave it.
 Turning his attention once more to the satchel, the hunter found a map, a rolled-up blanket of padded green silk, and a small jar of ink. He sniffed the cap and judged the ink to be made from vinegar and walnut husks. Several quills crafted from the dragon’s own feather-scales were in the bag. No wonder the beasts fancied themselves scholars—they were covered with the tools of writing.
 The hunter paused to examine a leather-bound book, the linen paper a pristine white, the opening pages covered with sketches and notes about flowers. The drawings were meticulous. Rendered in dark walnut ink, the flowers had a life and beauty. The blossoms swelled on the page seductively enough to tempt bees.
 The hunter ripped out the drawings and fed them to the crackling fire. The paper writhed as if alive, curling, crumbling into large black leaves that wafted upward with the smoke, the inky designs still faintly visible until they vanished in the dark sky.
 The hunter used his knife to retrieve the roasted tongue and sat back against the tree, oblivious to the blood soaking the trunk. As he chewed his meal, he stared at the ink bottle. It stirred memories. Memories for the hunter were never a good thing.
 After he finished the tongue, he wiped his fingers on his grungy cloak. He picked up the book, contemplating the remaining blank pages. Opening the bottle of ink, he dipped the quill and drew a jagged, uneven line upon the page. He tried again, drawing a circle, the line flowing more evenly this time. Across the top of the page he began to write “A B C D E . . .” and it all came back to him.
 Dipping the quill once more, he turned the page and wrote in cautious, even letters, “In the beginning.” He stopped and drew a line through the words. He turned the page and stared at the fresh parchment, so white. White like an apple blossom. White like a young bride’s skin. He lowered the quill to the page.
 Dear Recanna,
 I have thought of you often. What I would say if I could see you again. What I should have said those many years ago.
 Twenty years. Twenty years since last I heard your voice. Twenty years I’ve been at war, alone.
 If only
 Here the hunter stopped. If only. These were weak words, regretful. They had no room in his heart. This was not a night to lose himself in memory and melancholy. Tomorrow was an important day. The most honored ritual of the dragons was scheduled, and he had a special, unscripted role to play.
 If only.
 The hunter closed the cover on those cursed words and placed the book upon the coals.
 Flames licked the edges, dancing before his eyes like ghosts.
 THE DRUMMERS BEAT their rhythm as the choir of sky-dragons burst into song, filling the great hall with celestial music. Jandra shivered with excitement as the ceremony began. She was sixteen now, and this was the first time she’d persuaded Vendevorex to allow her to attend the contest. For centuries the sun-dragons had used this ritual as the first step toward the enthronement of a new ruler. She would be the first human to ever witness the ceremony.
 More precisely, she reminded herself, she would be the first human to ever witness the ceremony and survive. She looked at the two human slaves in their cages across the room. She knew her sympathy should lie with them. Alas, it was difficult to feel any connection to the brutish, wild-eyed men in the cages. Wearing her blue satin gown with an elaborate peacock headdress, Jandra felt more kinship with the dragons that surrounded her.
 She sat beside Vendevorex, her mentor. A sky-dragon and the king’s personal wizard, Vendevorex was widely hailed as the most clever dragon in the kingdom. As such, the exotic quirks of his personality were given broad tolerance. Jandra was one such quirk. She’d been raised since infancy by Vendevorex, and now trained as his apprentice.
 Jandra looked around the great hall, at the eyes of the assembled dragons. They all had a look of disdain as they gazed toward her, from the brutish, thick-muscled earth-dragons, to the elite, scholarly sky-dragons who sat around the vast chamber on their elegant silk mats.
 Only the immense sun-dragons didn’t look upon her with scorn, because they didn’t look upon her at all.
 The sun-dragons were the nobility of the dragon clans. Twice the size of sky-dragons, they ruled the world with their heads held high in the regal air that came so naturally to them. The sun-dragons sported fiery red scales that faded to orange at the tips. Wispy white feathers lined their snouts, giving the illusion that they breathed smoke.
 The drummers and the choir reached a crescendo as King Albekizan and his queen, Tanthia, appeared in the sky, their bright scales in dramatic contrast against the dark storm clouds behind them, tinted a rich red by the sunset. The ceremonial hall was a vast circle hundreds of yards in diameter, half covered with a dome and half open to the sky. Albekizan swooped into the hall, the wind from his wings causing the ceremonial torches that lined the perimeter to flicker. The air took on the scents of patchouli and lavender—the queen’s favorite perfumes—as she swooped to rest behind him. The king’s dagger-like claws clicked on the marble floor as he crossed the room in a stiff and formal march. Dragons were bipedal, and when no one was watching them, they walked in a fashion that reminded Jandra of birds, big, toothy, scaly chickens to be exact. But, in court, they held their backs and necks unnaturally straight and kept their heads high, emphasizing their great height. Though Vendevorex was seated directly next to the king, Albekizan didn’t bother to glance at them as he took his position on the huge mound of gold cushions that covered the raised dais of his throne. The queen took her place beside him atop a smaller mound of pillows. Two earth-dragons quickly rushed to either side of Tanthia, fanning her with wands of woven palm fronds. When the king and queen had settled into their seats, the drums and choir abruptly stopped.
 At the rear of the chamber stood a set of enormous golden doors that led to the bowels of the earth. In the silence the doors slowly swung open, revealing a stooped sky-dragon, Metron, his once blue feathers turned silver by age. Green scarves hung around Metron’s neck, denoting his office: the High Biologian, keeper of the ancient secrets. He hobbled forward, supporting himself with a gnarled staff as his crooked body trembled with the effort of remaining upright. Despite his infirmity, Metron commanded respect. The assembled dragons lowered their eyes in reverence.
 Metron swayed as he stood before Albekizan, and Jandra wondered for a moment if the old dragon was about to collapse. The strength in Metron’s eyes allayed her fears. The High Biologian turned his back to the king to gaze out upon the sunset. It seemed as if the entire room held its breath. All that could be heard was faint thunder and the torches fretting in the rising wind.
 Then, above the wind came the flapping of gigantic wings. Long shadows raced across the hall as Albekizan’s sons spiraled from the sky, spreading their wings to descend with downy grace in the center of the hall. Bodiel, the younger of the two, was the first to land, his outstretched wings nearly blocking from sight his brother, Shandrazel, who touched down behind him.
 Bodiel was radiant. The crimson of his open wings blended with the sunset behind him as if all the sky were part of his being. The wind ruffled his feathery scales, making the mane of his long, serpentine neck flicker like flame. Light played on the rings of gold that pierced his wings. He stretched and relaxed the long, powerful talons at the mid-joint of each wing, displaying sharp claws painted with powdered emerald. The crowd nodded with silent approval at the display. Jandra’s heart fluttered at Bodiel’s beauty.
 Shandrazel made no such display, keeping his wings folded. His brooding eyes stayed fixed on the floor. The long, reptilian faces of dragons didn’t display the same range of emotions as humans, but Jandra recognized a scowl when she saw one.
 The focus once more shifted to Metron as he began the ritual greeting.
 “Glorious salutations, oh mighty Albekizan!” Metron spread his wings as he spoke, and spoke with all the power his old lungs could muster. “You who own the earth, and all who fly above it, and all who walk upon it. We live in the shadow of your magnificent incandescence! Great is your mercy.”
 Metron bowed deeply as the assembled dragons lowered their heads to touch the floor. Jandra bowed low, wishing she had a longer neck.
 “Greater still is your bounty,” Metron continued, spreading his wings once more. “The seed you planted long ago has produced a bountiful crop. Your sons stand before you, mighty and tall. Their wings span the arcs of the heavens. The fire of their will cannot be quenched by rain, or river, or sea. Each is your pride, each is your promise, and one of them, we pray, will be your death!”
 The assembly erupted in cheering as Metron lowered his wings. Twice before during Albekizan’s reign the dragons of the kingdom had gathered to witness this ritual in which the king’s older sons competed to earn the honor of banishment from the kingdom. The hope of the ritual was that a banished son would one day return to overthrow the father, and rule with even greater strength. This was the ritual of succession that had kept Albekizan’s family in power since time immemorial, with strong rulers replaced only by stronger ones. In previous contests the banished sons had returned only to be slain by Albekizan.
 This year marked the first time Bodiel was eligible to compete. The king’s youngest son, Bodiel was universally recognized as the dragon most likely to best his father. He was strong, fast, and charming, a master of politics as well as combat. Shandrazel was larger and, most agreed, smarter, but few believed he could prevail. Bodiel possessed the will to win at all costs. The lust for victory boiling in his blood rivaled Albekizan’s and perhaps even surpassed it.
 As the sun set, few in the great hall doubted that before dawn Bodiel would defeat his brother, who would be castrated and sent to the libraries to live out the rest of his days in service to Metron. Bodiel would then be granted one day of grace in which to flee the kingdom before all would have the duty to raise their claws against him.
 Jandra saw no reason to doubt the consensus of the crowd. She believed that one day Bodiel would return and vanquish his father to seize the kingdom. She hoped he would be a fair and wise ruler.
 “Ready the prey!” Metron shouted, tilting his staff toward the open end of the room where a dozen earth-dragons stood guard over the iron cages that held the slave men. The men were lean and tan, their oiled muscles gleaming like brass. Both were rebel slaves famous for their ability to escape; though, as evidenced by their presence, neither had yet perfected the skill of avoiding recapture.
 Bodiel would be pursuing Cron, the younger of the two slaves. Shandrazel had the advantage of pursuing Tulk, the older slave. Tulk, though strong and wily, was rumored to be nearsighted. Jandra had reason to wonder if this was true because, from across the room, Tulk was staring at her. Jandra again felt a stirring of guilt. She was in awe of the ritual she was witnessing, swept up in the grandeur. Shouldn’t she feel some remorse over the fates of the slaves? She averted her eyes, unable to watch Tulk’s face. She stared at the sleeves of her gown, stitched with metallic blue thread to resemble the scales of a sky-dragon.
 The thick-muscled earth-dragons grunted as they wheeled the iron cages to small doors in the rugged stone wall. Beyond the doors were mazes, and beyond the mazes lay the vast forest.
 “Release the prey,” Metron said, lowering his staff to the ground with a crisp snap. On cue, the drummers pounded a bass rhythm that filled the night air. The cages rattled open. Tulk tripped as he left his cage. The crowd gasped. Jandra looked up to see Tulk jumping back to his feet. Tulk cast her one last glance then turned from her, vanishing into the dark tunnel. The crowd murmured in hushed tones. A human stumbling from the cage was a bad omen.
 “Humans these days are worthless,” Albekizan said, addressing the High Biologian. “In my youth the humans had more spirit. They were always finding sharp rocks to wield as weapons, or hiding in tiny caves. I remember how one doubled back and hid within the palace for two days before being captured. Now, the slaves run blindly, leaving a trail of excrement any fool could follow. Why can’t we find good prey anymore, Metron?”
 “Sire, the laws of nature are strict,” the sage dragon answered. “For centuries we have culled the finest men from the villages, only to kill them for their excellence. The breed must inevitably decline.”
 Vendevorex startled Jandra by interrupting the conversation between the king and the High Biologian.
 “Perhaps, Sire, a moratorium on the sport of hunting humans might improve things,” Vendevorex said. “If you banned the sport for a century, the human stock could recover. They breed at a much faster pace than our kind.”
 “Bah!” Albekizan snorted, raising his bejeweled right talon dismissively. “You and your softness for humans. They make fine pets and adequate game, but you would let them breed like rabbits. The stench of their villages already sullies my kingdom.”
 “Their villages fill your larders with food and your coffers with gold,” Vendevorex said. “Allow the humans to keep more of the fruits of their labors, and they will improve the conditions in which they live. They dwell in squalor only because of your policies.”
 “Be silent, wizard,” Albekizan growled. “You shouldn’t speak to me thus.”
 “You asked for my opinion, Sire.”
 “Did I?”
 “Indeed, Sire. Over a decade ago, you commanded me to speak freely in your presence. Your infallible decree still stands to this day, does it not?”
 Albekizan ground his teeth and turned away from the wizard. Jandra always feared for her master’s safety during these exchanges. She admired Vendevorex’s boldness, but worried one day Albekizan might be pushed too far.
 Metron broke the tense silence by saying, “Sire, it is time. You may give the word.”
 Albekizan rose, spreading his wings wide. His voice boomed through the hall: “Let the hunt begin!”
 Bodiel leapt into the air. The dragons cheered as he beat his wings against the rising wind and lifted into the darkening night. But the crowd’s cheers changed to whispered confusion seconds later. Shandrazel remained standing in the hall.
 The king growled. “It may be you failed to hear me above the thunder. The hunt has begun! Go!”
 “Father,” Shandrazel said, then paused to take a breath. After a moment he looked up, facing the king squarely. He said in a firm but respectful tone, “You know my feelings. I do not desire your throne. I will not hunt Tulk. This ceremony is archaic and cruel. There is no need for blood to be shed. Simply appoint Bodiel as your successor. Your word is law.”
 “And you are breaking that law!” Albekizan shouted, spittle spraying the floor before him. “I command you to hunt!”
 Jandra drew closer to Vendevorex who wrapped a wing around her.
 Shandrazel stood unflinching before his father’s anger. With a shrug he said, “I am indeed breaking your law. Command the guards to arrest me. I won’t resist.”
 Albekizan leapt from his pillows and raced toward Shandrazel. He pulled up short of his rebellious son, their eyes locked. The king’s muscles tensed visibly beneath his hide. He stood frozen in rage but Shandrazel did not back down.
 All the dragons in the room averted their eyes. No one wanted to witness this shameful confrontation between the king and his son. No dragon would risk the king’s wrath by staring. So most heads were turned to watch events outside the hall. The edge of the storm had reached them and rain began to splatter on the marble floor. Illuminated by the still distant lightning, Bodiel could barely be seen gliding low over the treetops nearly a mile distant, searching the foliage for signs of his prey.
 Then, Bodiel folded his wings back and dove into the forest, swift as an arrow racing toward its target. Lightning flashed again, now much closer, momentarily blinding Jandra. The thunder made her jump. Vendevorex hugged her more tightly. When her vision cleared, Bodiel had vanished.
 “Oh!” Queen Tanthia cried. “Oh no!”
 “What is it, my love?” Albekizan asked. “Is our rebellious son breaking your heart?”
 “It’s the shadows,” Tanthia said, quivering. “The shadows in the room have grown so dark. I feel their chill in my soul.”
 Albekizan turned his back to Shandrazel to face Tanthia. Calmly he said, “There’s nothing to fear.”
 Almost as if his saying it had made it so, the night fell quiet. The thunder faded and the wind shifted, silencing the rain for an instant. At this moment, a mournful, anguished howl rose from the distant forest. Lightning flashed and thunder washed away the voice. The wind twisted, whipping back into the hall with a harsh blast of cold rain, sending the torch flames dancing wildly. Tanthia gasped as one of the torches extinguished, a soul forever lost.
 “He’s dead!” Tanthia cried. “My son is dead!”
 “No,” Albekizan said, looking out into the storm. “No human could . . . could . . .”
 The king fell silent then turned and rushed past his rebellious son. He leapt into the rain, catching the wind, climbing into the air. Shandrazel paused, gazing after his father, then glanced back at his mother.
 “Please find him,” Tanthia said. “Find him.”
 Shandrazel nodded. He walked to the open side of the dome then beat his wings to rise into the night.
 Vendevorex took Jandra by the shoulders and whispered, “We should take our leave. The king may need my assistance. It’s best that you wait back in our quarters. I will accompany you.”
 Jandra nodded. Vendevorex sprinkled a pinch of silvery dust in the air. The whispers of the assembled crowd let Jandra know he’d just made them invisible. As they moved quietly from the great hall, Jandra watched over her shoulder as Shandrazel faded into the rain.
 SHANDRAZEL HATED FLYING in the rain. He disliked the water in his eyes and loathed the way the wind treacherously shifted and vanished beneath his wings. Yet duty drove him, duty and love. Despite their differences, he loved his father and cherished his spirited younger brother. He hoped that no harm had come to either of them. The only real danger he could imagine was if Bodiel had crashed in a sudden downdraft. But even then, he’d been so low over the trees that the crash wouldn’t have been fatal. If Bodiel had been diving in pursuit of Cron, what possible harm could the slave have done? Despite his father’s keenness for the sport of hunting humans, Shandrazel saw no more challenge in it than he did in his mother’s appetite for devouring baskets of white kittens. An unarmed human was a small-toothed, clawless thing. Certainly, Bodiel was safe.
 During the confrontation with his father, Shandrazel hadn’t watched where his brother flew. He had no idea where to start his search. He blinked through the rain, trying to make sense of the tangled treetops that rushed beneath him. The jagged ends of broken branches caught his eyes. There was a gap in the forest canopy. Shandrazel descended into a small clearing to find his father already there.
 A slain dragon hung in the crook of a tree. It was a sky-dragon, not Bodiel. In the dim light, Shandrazel drew closer. The beetles swarming over the dragon’s body gave testimony that it had hung here for hours. The body stank; the sky-dragon’s bowels had loosened after death. Oddly, just beneath the stench, the air carried the unmistakable mouthwatering scent of horch.
 A single arrow jutted from the dragon’s jaw. Shandrazel studied the arrow, which was fletched with a red feather scale from a sun-dragon’s wing; black thread wrapped around its split core fastened it to the slender shaft of ash. He then looked closer at the dragon’s face. He gasped. He knew this dragon.
 “His name was Dacorn,” said Shandrazel. “A biologian. He taught me botany during my summer on the Isle of Horses. Who would do such a thing? He was a gentle soul. He had no enemies.”
 Albekizan paid no attention to Shandrazel’s words. He, too, had noticed the arrow. He plucked it from the corpse to examine it. It was a tiny thing in Albekizan’s talons, a fragile sliver of wood that Albekizan snapped effortlessly.
 Shandrazel raised his long neck and bellowed, “Bodiel!”
 “He won’t be answering,” said Albekizan. His father leapt up, knocking aside branches as he caught the air, rising once more to continue his search in the violent rain. Shandrazel tried to follow but the rain made it difficult to see his father, let alone keep up with him. They flew in ever widening circles, searching the trees, and soon Shandrazel had lost all trace of his father. He continued his search, hoping that finding the corpse of his former teacher was only a macabre coincidence.
 At length, Shandrazel found Albekizan sitting by the riverbank with Bodiel’s head clutched against his chest. Bodiel’s arrow-riddled, lifeless body lay half in the water—it was possible he’d died further upriver and drifted to rest here. Shandrazel landed, feeling as if his own heart were pierced with an arrow. Never had there been a soul as bold and joyous as Bodiel’s. It seemed impossible that he should be dead.
 Shandrazel stepped forward, using his wings to shelter his father from the rain. He froze as Albekizan looked at him. Their gazes locked. Albekizan’s eyes burned with fury, fury and something more, an emotion he’d not seen in his father’s eyes for many years: passion. Albekizan, cradling Bodiel’s dead body, was filled with frightening, fiery life.
 Shandrazel stumbled backward, his talons slipping in the muddy earth. The air seemed charged, ready to spark.
 The king dropped Bodiel into the mud and rose to his full length. In his fore-talon he held a single arrow and he studied the bright red fletching of the arrow as if he were studying his soul. Lightning struck nearby, again and again, shaking the ground. Fire spouted from the tops of the tallest, most ancient trees. Albekizan didn’t flinch. Shandrazel couldn’t move. As the thunder faded from their ringing ears, Albekizan held the arrow to the sky and shouted a single, bone-chilling word.
 “Bitterwood!”
CHAPTER TWO
* * *
CIRCLES
BY THE TIME GADREEL returned to the clearing the only sound in the night forest was the constant staccato of water dripping from leaves. His master, Zanzeroth—an old sun-dragon who rivaled even the king in size and the finest tracker in the land—still studied the scene. Zanzeroth’s golden eyes glowed in the trickles of moonlight seeping through the breaking clouds. Albekizan stood nearby, watching the aged hunter step gingerly over the muddy ground. Albekizan ignored Gadreel. Gadreel hoped the king’s snub was due to his fascination with Zanzeroth’s methods. The patch of ground they stood on seemed unremarkable to Gadreel, but Zanzeroth had instantly proclaimed it as the site of Bodiel’s death, three miles upriver from where his body was discovered. Gadreel suspected, however, that the king ignored him due to his status. It was a simple matter to treat a human as a slave. The notion of a sky-dragon such as himself forced into servitude made some uncomfortable.
 “How much longer?” Zanzeroth asked.
 “A few minutes, at most,” Gadreel answered. As he spoke the distant baying of ox-dogs confirmed his words.
 “Good,” Zanzeroth said. “The sooner we start, the better. The ground here has told me all it can.”
 “If you have knowledge,” Albekizan said, “give it to me.”
 “Of course, Sire,” Zanzeroth said, straightening his stooped form and approaching the king. Next to Albekizan, Zanzeroth’s extra years were apparent. The king’s hide glistened on his muscular body like red paint. Zanzeroth’s scales were faded from years under the sun, almost pink along the back. His scales had fallen away at his joints, revealing black hide beneath. His scarred skin sagged over his skeleton, under which his slender, wiry muscles moved like thick ropes. Zanzeroth asked, “Shouldn’t we wait for Shandrazel to join us? I’m sure he wants to help find his brother’s killer.”
 “Do not speak that shameful name,” Albekizan said, his eyes narrow. “I’ve placed that traitor under guard for now. His final fate will be left for the morning. We will not discuss this further. For now, Bitterwood is our only goal.”
 Zanzeroth nodded. He waved his fore-talons toward a patch of mud that seemed to Gadreel no different than any other.
 “Here is where the slave, Cron, skidded to a halt as Bodiel dropped from the sky. See, the handprint here?” Zanzeroth paused to allow Albekizan time to discern what was being shown to him. Gadreel stared at the chaotic mud and, to his surprise, found he could see the handprint, or at least the heel of a human palm.
 Zanzeroth continued: “The human fell and had difficulty regaining his footing.” Zanzeroth moved his claw to direct the king’s view to a patch of broken ground several yards away. “That is where Bodiel dropped from the sky. Cron’s footprints then reappear several feet behind where he stopped—he’s jumped away out of fear of Bodiel. There are signs that Bodiel toyed with the human, blocking his moves, prolonging the moment before the kill. And then . . .” Zanzeroth trailed off, his gaze flickering over the mud, studying it as one might study a book. “And then Bodiel staggered backward. See the marks? Cron fled, passing through the brush . . . here.”
 As he said this, Zanzeroth parted a thicket with several bent branches and revealed a man’s muddy footprints beyond.
 “We could follow Cron with ease but he’s not the one who killed Bodiel.”
 “I know that,” Albekizan said. “Bitterwood’s to blame. The Ghost Who Kills haunts these woods tonight.”
 “Perhaps,” Zanzeroth said. “But I’ve yet to see a ghost leave tracks. The murderer of your son was merely a man.”
 “He’s more than a man,” Albekizan said. “You’d do well to remember that.”
 “Yes, Sire,” said Zanzeroth. He walked to the bush beside Gadreel and touched a torn leaf above his head. “Man or ghost, the assailant struck from behind. Here is where the first arrow passed. That branch, there, is where he wrapped the reins of his horse. He stood on the large branch in yonder tree to take his first shot.”
 Zanzeroth stalked back to the center of the clearing, placing his hind-talons in a pair of long, smeared trenches. “Your son stood in this spot. The arrow strikes Bodiel low in the back. In pain, Bodiel spins,” Zanzeroth twisted around suddenly, fixing his gaze above Gadreel, “to see another arrow fly forth, burying deep in his shoulder. Bodiel hears Cron running and turns, reflexively fearing the loss of his prize, then catches himself. This is the first instant where he understands his own life is in danger.”
 Zanzeroth held his wings wide for balance as his talons skittered in the mud, duplicating Bodiel’s actions.
 “Bodiel leaps but never reaches the bush. His foe is already running through the woods, flanking him, and the third arrow comes from there.” The hunter pulled a long spear from the quiver slung on his back and used the shaft to point to a narrow gap in the trees. Sun-dragons used such spears to kill prey from above; Zanzeroth was so skilled he could drop a spear from five hundred yards above a field to pierce a bounding rabbit. Now, he used the tip of the spear to gently push a leaf torn by an arrow’s flight. “The fourth arrow follows swiftly, puncturing Bodiel’s lung.”
 Zanzeroth crouched, spreading his wings over the mud, “Finally, the prince falls. He’s alive but in terrible agony. He screams only for an instant as the fifth arrow lodges in his throat. The prince struggles to rise, unwilling to accept his fate. He crawls toward the water, seeking relief. Still the arrows come. The archer knows Bodiel has mere moments to live but wants him to suffer. The shots that follow aren’t meant to hasten death, but to increase agony. The arrows fall upon the tender flesh of the wings and tail. Bodiel at last collapses, his left wing in the river. Slowly, the speeding current drags him from the bank.”
 Zanzeroth started to rise but slipped in the mud. Gadreel hurried to his side, extending a claw for the hunter to steady himself. Zanzeroth spurned him by digging his hind-talons deeper in the muck and pulling his wings free from the ground with a wet slurp. He shook his wings to clean them, spattering Gadreel with mud that smelled faintly of dung.
 “And Bitterwood?” Albekizan said, studying the trees surrounding them. “What became of him?”
 “He fled, of course,” said Zanzeroth, placing his spear back in its quiver. “On horseback. He’s miles away but we’ll find him. Even after a hard rain the ox-dogs can follow a horse’s scent.”
 As Zanzeroth spoke, the brush behind him shuddered and then parted as two massive ox-dogs lumbered into the clearing, dragging their earth-dragon handlers behind them. Earth-dragons were solid and squat, no taller than humans but twice as broad, with thick muscular arms instead of wings, and powerful shoulders to support their thick-boned tortoise-like heads. They were strong as mules but their strength did little to slow the powerful dogs. The dogs dragged their handlers to Zanzeroth’s side. Their rank breath steamed in the rain-cooled night. Moments later a squad of a dozen earth-dragons, the finest the palace guard had to offer, emerged from the brush.
 Zanzeroth took the leashes of the dogs and led them to the spot where the horse had stood. The dogs sniffed and snuffed, rooting through the damp debris of the forest. Suddenly, one froze. The second rushed to the same spot and pushed its nose to the ground. They lifted their barrel-sized heads and bayed with excitement.
 “They’ve found the scent,” said Zanzeroth.
 The dogs trotted back into the clearing, following the hoofprints through the mud. Zanzeroth unwrapped the leather leashes from his wrist and loosed the dogs. They charged past the king and smashed into the undergrowth, panting with excitement.
 The hunt was on. The ox-dogs moved forward in fits and starts, racing when they had the scent, then stopping suddenly to sniff the wet ground where the trail was diluted by washouts. Zanzeroth and Albekizan followed with the soldiers rushing ahead of the king to chop away growth that might slow his progress.
 Gadreel was half the size of the sun-dragons, but he still found the dense vegetation suffocating. He wished he could take to the sky to follow from above. As long as Zanzeroth remained earthbound, he must also. Walking through the forest like a common earth-dragon didn’t sit well with him.
 He looked to the nearest earth-dragon and shuddered. The creature was as tall as a human male, broad-shouldered and muscle-bound, with a thick tail like an alligator’s that dragged the ground as it waddled forward on stocky hind legs. The creature was green as moss and dull-eyed. Yet, as a soldier, the earth-dragon had higher status than Gadreel, a slave. Not for the first time, he silently cursed the biologians that had betrayed him.
 Gadreel knew better than to voice his indignation. He’d learned his lesson about showing weakness. Three years past he’d been ill and failed to attend the Council of Colleges, an annual gathering of sky-dragons representing the various academies and libraries scattered about the kingdom. Albekizan had recently imposed a new tax that was to have been paid with human slaves. The elder sky-dragons had balked at the idea of parting with the slaves. Humans performed all the menial labor required to keep the colleges functioning on a day-to-day basis. The scholarly sky-dragons were too busy with their research and studies to be bothered by such things as cooking their own food or emptying their own chamber pots. However, there were always the occasional young sky-dragons at every college whose research was judged to be derivative or shallow. Thus, the elders had approached Metron to ask the king if, perhaps, the tax could be paid with sky-dragons instead. Metron’s powers of persuasion had led to Gadreel’s ill fate.
 Most of the sky-dragons enslaved had been entrusted to the king’s aerial guard, an air-borne force that supported the king’s ground troops. Other’s had been pressed into duty as messengers. Gadreel had served as a messenger for a few weeks, and slowly begun to reconcile himself to his fate. Then, Zanzeroth, the only dragon who dared best the king on a hunt, had won a bet to be paid in slaves, and Gadreel had discovered that the king regarded him as his most expendable property. Yet in his humiliation, Gadreel could also see opportunity. As Zanzeroth was the king’s loyal companion, he found himself almost daily in the presence of Albekizan. One day, he vowed, he would impress the king so greatly that he would be rewarded with freedom.
 The ox-dogs paused on the far side of a stream swollen with rain. Gadreel could tell they had lost the scent. Zanzeroth followed the muddy bank, his eyes shining in the darkness as he read the ground.
 “Here,” Zanzeroth said, at last. The old dragon grabbed an ox-dog by its collar and tugged the beast back across the stream, shoving its head down to mossy stone. Zanzeroth’s great strength allowed him to move the giant dog as if it were no more than a puppy. The ox-dog sniffed and growled at the stone. In seconds the dog once more had the scent and bounded off into the forest with its brother quickly following. The dragons chased the dogs and moments later the forest gave way to a cornfield. Gadreel felt relieved to see open sky once more, with bright moonlight illuminating the few faint wisps of cloud. Free from the trees Albekizan beat his wings and took to the air. Zanzeroth followed, and Gadreel accompanied him at a respectful distance. It took considerable effort not to overtake the larger dragons. Sun-dragons, with their great bulk, weren’t particularly swift.
 Moments later Zanzeroth veered and Gadreel could see a riderless horse at the edge of the grassy field. Zanzeroth dove, his rear claws extended. The horse broke into a gallop as the dragon’s shadow fell upon it but to no avail. Zanzeroth caught the fleeing horse by the neck, killing it instantly with a vicious twist.
 “Damn,” the old hunter said as he landed.
 “Where is he?” Albekizan said as he touched down nearby. “Where’s Bitterwood?”
 “We’ve been tricked, Sire.” Zanzeroth said. “This is the horse we’ve been following. I can smell it. But Bitterwood must have dismounted early in the chase. I saw no sign. Perhaps he clung to an overhead branch.”
 “Damn your incompetent hide,” the king shouted. “If we’ve lost my son’s murderer due to your carelessness, I’ll have your head!”
 Gadreel flinched but his master seemed unperturbed.
 “Of course, Sire,” said Zanzeroth with a slight bow. “The hunt’s more interesting if the stakes are high.”
 By now the earth-dragons had caught up. The handlers grabbed the leashes of the ox-dogs and tugged them away from the steaming carcass of the horse.
 Zanzeroth pulled the three spears from his quiver and handed them to Gadreel. “These are only going to get in my way,” he said. Gadreel struggled to hold the giant wooden shafts with their gleaming steel heads. Only sun-dragons could ever hope to use such massive weapons effectively.
 All stood silently as Zanzeroth crouched down on all fours, his belly touching the wet grass. Though their normal stance was bipedal, both sun-dragons and sky-dragons had claws at the middle joints of their wings that could support their weight if they wished to crawl. The aged dragon moved over the ground with slow, sinuous, reptilian movements, pausing to study each hoofprint. He sniffed the ground carefully, tilted his head, then crawled forward, paused, and sniffed again. He continued his methodical examination, moving back toward the forest, taking nearly an hour to reach the stream where the trail had been momentarily lost. Gadreel’s muscles burned from the effort of lugging Zanzeroth’s spears all this time.
 Zanzeroth stared at the tracks on each side of the stream with quiet intensity. Gadreel wondered how much sense his master could make of ground that had now been trampled by ox-dogs and a small army of dragons.
 Zanzeroth rose, stretching his shoulders until his sinews popped. “The horse was a simple ruse, but effective,” he said. “Our quarry dismounted in the water, no doubt keeping to the streambed for some distance. If we run an ox-dog along each side we can discover the point where he leaves the water. We’ll have him yet.”
 “Find him,” said the king. “I grow impatient.”
 Zanzeroth snatched his spears back from Gadreel, placing them once more in his quiver. He took each ox-dog by the leash and led them upstream, wading in the water. He cast his watchful eyes on each branch that hung overhead. After a few hundred yards the ox-dog to his left stopped, sniffed the ground, and let out a low growl. Zanzeroth crouched to study the bank.
 “Clever,” he said, looking back at the king. “But not clever enough. I have the trail once more.”
 He loosed the ox-dogs and motioned for all to follow as he raced into the dark woods.
 Gadreel’s breath came in gasps as he chased his untiring master through the rain-slick forest. The trees were thick here, and the darkness was such that their prey could have been merely a wing’s length away and still have been invisible. Ahead, Gadreel could see shafts of moonlight and hoped they were again near the forest’s edge. Zanzeroth stopped abruptly and Gadreel nearly collided with him.
 The earth-dragons skidded to a halt behind them. One muttered, “The lines.” Gadreel looked over his shoulder but couldn’t tell which earth-dragon had spoken.
 Straining his neck to see around Zanzeroth, Gadreel could see that whoever had spoken had been correct. They had reached one of the bleached, cracked stone lines that stretched endless miles through the kingdom. Some scholars claimed the lines were only ancient roads, built by a long-vanished race of giants. A more common belief was that the barren, flat stone marked a web of evil energy that ran through the earth. In the presence of this cursed ground, the night was unnaturally quiet.
 “So, hunter,” Albekizan whispered. “You still believe it’s only a man we chase? No man alive would dare to walk the ghost lines.”
 “He will if he’s desperate,” said Zanzeroth. “Our prey thinks we won’t follow because of the curse. You’ve known me long enough to know that I’ve never placed stock in such foolishness. This is merely old rock. We have nothing to fear. The dogs have already run ahead. We’ll catch him yet.”
 “We shall give chase from the air,” said Albekizan. “The soldiers shall run along the line.”
 “Sire?” the captain of the earth-dragons said. The light yellow scales on his throat trembled.
 “You heard the order,” Albekizan said, leaping into the air, his feet never touching the haunted stone.
 Zanzeroth followed and Gadreel, too. The earth-dragons hesitantly stepped onto the crumbling stone line then turned their eyes heavenward and chased their king.
 Gadreel was glad to be in the air once more but he had no time to enjoy it. Barely a quarter mile ahead the ox-dogs turned from the line, loping down a steep, vine-covered bank. They turned and entered a small tunnel that ran beneath the broad highway of stone.
 As Gadreel landed, one of the dogs yelped. The second dog scurried backward from the tunnel.
 Zanzeroth peered into the dark opening. Gadreel strained to see and spotted the first ox-dog, dead, its head crushed by a heavy stone. Zanzeroth took a spear from his quiver, pushed the shaft along the floor, then lifted it to reveal a loop of thin rope.
 “A deadfall,” he muttered. “The killer has booby-trapped his escape route. Cunning, for a human.”
 “This is Bitterwood,” said Albekizan. “The predator. He’s no mere human.”
 Zanzeroth nodded then took the remaining dog by the leash and led him back over the stone line to the other side of the short tunnel. The dog found the scent once more as the earth-dragons at last caught up. Zanzeroth wrapped the leash tightly around his talon so that the dog couldn’t run too far ahead. Gadreel followed, growing ever more nervous. They were walking along the diamond. All the winged dragons were familiar with the place for it could be seen from the air for miles: four gigantic stone circles surrounded by an even larger diamond of stone. There were several of these constructs throughout the kingdom, in places where the mystery lines crossed in elaborate networks of ramps and bridges. The last remnants, perhaps, of a long-vanished culture. These places were much feared, for four circles were the symbol of death.
 To Gadreel’s relief, the ox-dog veered away from the edges of the diamond and led them to a large field of broken stone. In the midst of the field sat an ancient, low building formed of vine-covered brick. The sky brightened with the approach of dawn, giving Gadreel some comfort.
 As he allowed himself to relax slightly, a whistling noise cut through the air. With a sickening wet thunk, an arrow lodged deep between the eyes of the ox-dog. The huge beast sighed then slumped forward, all life gone.
 Zanzeroth leapt before the king, spreading his wings wide to shield him. “He’s in yonder structure. Take cover, Sire!”
 “Never!” Albekizan cried. “If Bitterwood is here, no force on earth shall stop me from ordering my soldiers into that building to drag him out, that I may have my vengeance!” He pointed to the captain, then thundered, “Go!”
 The captain raised his shield and charged forward, his men following at a tail’s length. One by one, they vanished into the dark doorway. Silence followed.
 “He’s fled deeper,” said Zanzeroth. “Or perhaps—”
 His words were cut short as a dragon cried out from the darkness, his voice followed by a thunderous rumble. The doorway glowed suddenly with a light to rival the rising sun. A ball of flame rolled forward, led by a blast of searing, turpentine-scented air that threw Gadreel from his feet.
 “No!” the king cried. “A suicide trap! How dare he deny me justice!”
 “I doubt suicide,” Zanzeroth said, flapping his wings in the still turbulent air. He climbed several dozen feet before shouting, “There!”
 Gadreel and Albekizan rose to join him and quickly spotted a cloaked man carrying a longbow, perhaps a hundred yards away, running across the stony field. The light of the burning building gave him a reddish, devilish cast. As Zanzeroth dove toward him, the man dropped his bow and fell to his knees. He struggled to lift a rusty iron disk almost two feet across that was set in the stone. As Zanzeroth stretched his talons toward his prey the disk came free, revealing a gaping hole. Grabbing his bow, the man dropped into the dark circle a half-second before Zanzeroth snatched the air where his head had been.
 Zanzeroth looped around to land. Albekizan dropped behind the hole and spun around, his eyes burning red with reflected flame. “So close! So close!”
 “He’s not free yet,” Zanzeroth said, rushing forward, his longest spear in his grip. He jabbed the shaft into the dark hole. Without warning an arrow flashed upward to meet the spear thrust. Zanzeroth jerked backward as the arrow slashed his right cheek and tore open his eye. He stumbled back from the opening in the earth, cursing.
 Gadreel gazed at the hole, as black as a starless night, a perfect circle. Albekizan fell to his belly before the dark ring, thrusting his fore-claws into it, grasping blindly, his need to capture Bodiel’s killer blotting out all caution. The hole was much too small for a sun-dragon to enter.
 Gadreel swallowed hard and stepped forward. If ever there was a moment where he might prove himself worthy of greater esteem than a slave, this was that moment.
 “I’ll go,” he said.
 “Hurry,” Albekizan said, rising. Gadreel lowered himself tailfirst into the darkness. He entered a tunnel barely eight feet in diameter and found it half filled with rushing water. He heard echoes from up ahead and inched forward in pursuit, holding his wings as high as he could to keep them from becoming waterlogged. His eyes adjusted to the dim light that filtered in from the opening behind him. He saw no sign of the human.
 The light behind him faded as he crept forward but was replaced by a dim glow far ahead. When he reached the new light, he found another metal disk still in place above him, perforated by four holes. The glow of dawn seeped through and he felt exposed. He reached up to try to lift the rusted disk, but couldn’t budge it.
 Taking a deep, calming breath, he moved further into the gloom. As darkness engulfed him once more, he felt something swirl around his legs, entangling them. He tried to kick himself free but lost his balance in the rushing water. He fell, dragged beneath the chill current, tossed and scraped against the rough walls. He flailed, unable to tell which way was up. He swallowed foul, brackish water and felt his heart freeze within him. The flame of his life began to flicker.
 Then, through the murk, he saw four tiny circles. He’d been washed back to the last disk. He dug his claws into the walls and thrust his head toward the light. He gulped in dank, moldy air, the sweetest air he’d ever tasted. He found his footing and reached down to grasp the heavy weight that still entangled his legs. He pulled it free, lifting it into the light. It was Bitterwood’s cloak.
 Bitterwood.
 The insanity of his pursuit struck home. Bodiel had been no match for the demon. Zanzeroth, the most skilled hunter in all the land, had been bested. What chance had he, a mere slave? He studied the darkness before him. The roar of water masked all other noise. Perhaps Bitterwood was near. But Gadreel knew in his heart that the only reason he was still alive was that Bitterwood was long gone. Gadreel abandoned his chase and inched his way back toward the entrance.
 He reached the open hole and stretched to grab the edge. The king’s enormous talon reached down, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, and lifted him clear.
 “Did you find him?” Albekizan said, setting Gadreel before him.
 “I—I . . .” Gadreel said, staring deep into the king’s hopeful eyes. Gadreel felt he should lie, should tell the king he’d fought the killer. But he only sighed and shook his head. Gadreel lifted the cloak. “I found this, Sire.”
 Albekizan took the cloak and stared at it, his eyes filled with emotions that Gadreel could not fathom.
 “I saw no other sign of him,” Gadreel said. “The water was quite powerful. The current pulled me under. No doubt, the man we chased has drowned.”
 “No,” said the king, softly. “Not this monster. This dragon-slayer, he’ll not die a careless death. You did your best. Be grateful to have escaped with your life.”
 Gadreel nodded. The king didn’t seem angry about his failure. Somehow that didn’t comfort him.
 “Go tend your master’s wound,” Albekizan said.
 Zanzeroth was squatting on the ground, pressing a bloodied bundle of leaves to his injured eye. No one alive knew more about the medicinal properties of forest plants; the entire world was his pharmacy. “It’s not a mortal wound, Sire,” said Zanzeroth, his voice a curious mixture of confidence and agony. “We’ll head back to the castle for more earth-dragons and fresh dogs. The hunt will continue. In daylight our prey no longer has the advantage of shadows.”
 “No,” Albekizan said. “I admire your spirit, old friend, but we need not chase this demon into further traps. There’s a solution to this problem, an obvious one. We’ve paid a horrible price this night. I vow this—the debt of Bitterwood will be repaid in blood.”
 Gadreel stared at the open circle at his feet. Outside the tunnel, free of the rushing water, he felt shame that he’d abandoned the chase. His failure lodged in his gut like an icy stone. He’d been brave enough to enter the hole, why hadn’t he been brave enough to stay? Proving his worth to the king no longer seemed important. The next time he faced Bitterwood, he must prove his worth to himself.
CHAPTER THREE
* * *
STONE
AT MID-MORNING, after giving his orders to Bander, the earth-dragon in charge of the guards, Albekizan went to the roof of the palace to bask in sunlight. The night had left him with a chill despite the warmth of the day. It was late summer, nearing the time of harvest. The sky was flawless blue. From his high perch Albekizan surveyed the patchwork of land splayed out in all directions. The deep green forests, the golden fields, and the broad silver ribbon of the river: Albekizan ruled every inch of this land as undisputed master. His kingdom stretched from the impassible mountains two hundred miles west to the endless ocean a hundred miles to the east, north to the Ghostlands and far, far to the south, to the endless, trackless marshes that had swallowed many an army.
 It was said that Albekizan owned the earth and was master of all who flew above it and all who crawled upon it. In over a half century of rule, he had bent the world to his will and had assured that there was no destiny other than his destiny. He woke each day secure in the knowledge that if he desired a thing, nothing and no one could deny him.
 Until this morning.
 Beloved Bodiel was dead. He’d trade his wealth and power, even his own life, to undo this horrible truth. But there was no one with whom he could demand such a trade.
 Albekizan rushed to the edge of the roof, a great platform of stone, and leapt into the sky. His wings caught the wind; he soared upward, his face toward the mocking sun. In his youth he’d often tested his boundaries, climbing ever higher in pursuit of the yellow orb that remained beyond his reach. He pushed himself again, beating his mighty wings until they ached, scaling the sky like a ladder, upward, upward, until the chill in his blood was replaced by fire, by the burning in his chest, by the heat of the gasps that rushed from his throat as he pushed to his limits, then beyond.
 The sun grew no closer than it had in his youth. There were some things even above a king.
 Exhausted, Albekizan tilted earthward and abandoned his futile chase.
 From high above his palace looked like a rocky mountain. A vast mound of stone heaped upon stone, the palace had been under construction for a thousand years, started by ancestors so long distant that their names were now legend. Asrafel, the Firebringer. Wanzanzen, the Lawgiver. Belpantheron, the Just.
 Over the centuries, stone quarried from the western mountains had been floated downriver to this vast rich plain and used to build the home of kings. The structure was in many ways more fortress than palace, with vast walls designed to hold back enemy armies. From the sky the palace was a maze of courtyards and towers, winding alleys and great halls half open to the sky, as befits a race born to rule the air. Despite being built of gray granite, the palace was awash in colors, with terrace gardens bright with riotous flowers. The fiery flag of the sun-dragons—gold-thread suns set against scarlet silk backgrounds—flew by the thousands, on poles rising from every corner of the complex. Inside the palace the colors vanished. Over the centuries, as stone piled upon stone, the oldest rooms of the palace had become ever more enclosed. Immense caverns became hidden deep within the rock, connected by narrow, twisting passages. The vibrant, explosive life of the external palace hid a cold, stony heart.
 Albekizan landed on the highest rooftop with the lightness of a leaf. Indeed, as he touched down, the wind of his passage sent a dried leaf skittering across the polished stone before him. Albekizan took the presence of the dry, dead thing as a sign. Autumn lay close. Cold days were coming to the kingdom.
 He paused, steadying himself against a wall as he caught his breath. He looked over the fields and spotted a small army of earth-dragons at work piling wood in a nearby field. Albekizan’s heart skipped as he realized they were at work on his son’s funeral pyre.
 “Bodiel,” he sighed.
 Then, taking a slow, deep breath, he steeled himself. Once certain that his eyes would betray no emotion unbefitting a king, Albekizan marched down the wide steps into the dark depths of his home.
 Albekizan descended ever further into the bowels of the palace, drawn to the very heart, the nest chamber. This was the most deeply enclosed structure of the palace, sunk into the bedrock. The cool, dank air of the place stirred primitive memories. This was his birthplace. More, it was the place where he had first gazed upon Bodiel, damp from birth. He’d licked away the thick, salty fluid that had covered his son’s still-closed eyes. The taste once again lingered on his tongue. The memory quickly faded, pushed away by the sour thought of Bodiel’s adult body clutched against his own, damp with rain and blood.
 When he entered the nest chamber he found he was not alone. Tanthia waited there, beside the vast fire-pit which lay cold and black. He almost didn’t see her in the darkness. The lanterns that lit the immense room had all been shuttered so that only a sliver of light from the lanterns in the hall penetrated the shadows.
 Albekizan stood silently, contemplating his queen as she turned her head toward him. He felt he should say something, that it was his role to give her strength.
 The only thing he knew to say was, “Bodiel will be avenged.”
 Tanthia’s wet eyes glistened in the gloom as she fixed her gaze upon him.
 “I’m convening a council of war,” Albekizan continued. “This crime shall not go unpunished. There’s no corner of the earth where the guilty may hide.”
 Tanthia inhaled slowly. Softly, she asked, “This is all you have to say in comfort?”
 “What more need be said?” he said. “Last night’s events demand vengeance.”
 “Talk of vengeance is not the same as talk of grief,” she said, her voice trembling. “I hear no pain in your voice. Where are your tears? Come with me, my king. Come with me to the Burning Ground. By now, Bodiel lies in state. Stand by my side as I go see him.”
 “No,” said Albekizan. His eyes were fixed on the ancient rock beneath his claws, polished smooth by the passage of his uncountable ancestors. Could Tanthia not feel the gravity of this place? Here, at the heart of all history, was no place for weakness. “Not yet. At nightfall, perhaps, I will go. But I’ve already seen my son dead. I’ve held his cold body. Do not lecture me about the proper way to grieve.”
 “You sound angry with me,” Tanthia said.
 “You hear what you want to hear,” said Albekizan, turning away. “I’m sorry to have disturbed you. I will go now.”
 “Please,” said Tanthia. “Stay with me. Share the burden of this grief.”
 “Grief cannot be my priority,” Albekizan said, not looking back. “I have summoned Kanst. I must ready the armies. The longer we hesitate, the longer Bitterwood has to work his evil on this world. I hope you understand this.”
 Tanthia replied only with sobs. Albekizan sighed, stepping through the chamber door. In the hall he sensed a presence and could hear scraping against the stone around the nearby corner. Albekizan breathed deeply, catching a familiar scent in his nostrils. He knew who shadowed him.
 “Bander!” he cried, summoning the captain of the palace guard.
 In the time it took Albekizan to blink the earth-dragon dashed around the corner and snapped to attention.
 “Sire,” Bander said. “I didn’t want to intrude but—”
 “Are they ready?” Albekizan asked.
 “Kanst has arrived, Sire,” said Bander. “He waits in the war room with Metron and Zanzeroth.” As he spoke, his voice wavered. The hard, beak-like face of earth-dragons gave little hint of emotion, but Albekizan could recognize a touch of fear in Bander’s eyes. “As for Vendevorex, Sire, the guards continue their search.”
 Albekizan nodded. He wasn’t angered by this failure of Bander’s guards. Vendevorex possessed the power of invisibility. He would be found only when he wished to be found. “Continue the search. The wizard is vital to my plans. What of my second order?”
 Bander looked relieved. “The guards are gathering the humans even now, Sire.”
 “Good. I want their stench removed from this castle—”
 “Please?”
 Tanthia’s voice interrupted them. Albekizan turned to see his mate standing in the chamber door, the feathery scales around her eyes darkened by tears.
 “I beg you,” she said, her voice raspy and weak. “Come with me to the Burning Ground.”
 Albekizan narrowed his eyes with displeasure. “I consider this matter settled. No amount of tears will revive Bodiel. Go and wait at the Burning Ground until the ceremony if you must. I will see to the business of saving my kingdom.”
 Upon hearing his words Tanthia collapsed, all strength gone.
 “You’re so cold,” she sobbed. “So cold. The stones in the walls are warmer than your heart.”
 Albekizan turned from his mate and stormed away, grinding his teeth in anger. But when he reached the end of the hall he stopped and turned to study his fallen queen, her crimson wings stretched forward across the ancient bedrock, her body heaving with sobs. Albekizan walked back and crouched beside his queen. Touching her shoulders, he helped her to rise. He brushed his talons across the delicate scales of her cheeks.
 “Tanthia, my love, it pains me to see you grieve. Nonetheless, mourning is a mother’s burden, and her luxury. My duty is to avenge my son. I must go and consult with my advisors as to the swiftest path to achieve justice. Later, when the moon has risen and the day’s work is done, I will join you at the Burning Ground and watch as Metron lights the pyre. Then I will hold you and assist with the burden of grief. Go now. Wait with our fallen son, until the night comes.”
 Tanthia stood, her legs still trembling, but her head held high. “Yes, my king,” she whispered, and returned once more to the nest chamber.
 Albekizan turned away and saw that Bander now conferred with another guard in panicked, hushed voices.
 “What is it?” Albekizan demanded.
 Bander snapped back to attention. “Sire, my guards have searched every room of the castle. Vendevorex cannot be found.”
 “No doubt the wizard plots some dramatic entrance,” Albekizan said. “He thinks it beneath his dignity to simply walk into a room. Call off the search. I’ll wait no longer. Come.”
 VENDEVOREX, IN FACT, did not consider it beneath his dignity to simply walk into a room. Dignity played no part in his comings and goings; strategy was the key to his movements. He’d served Albekizan for close to fifteen years and he’d decided long ago that life would be more comfortable for him if he maintained his own agenda. Thus, while the night had found Albekizan and Zanzeroth in frenzied pursuit of Bitterwood, Vendevorex had chosen a different course. He’d been present in the forest at Bodiel’s murder scene, watching invisibly from a tree as Zanzeroth pointed out Cron’s and Bitterwood’s trails. As the hunting party left in pursuit of Bitterwood, Vendevorex followed Cron’s path. It wasn’t that he was unconcerned with the capture of Bitterwood. He was simply confident that the deed was within Zanzeroth’s grasp. The old tracker could follow a single snowflake through a blizzard. And when they caught up to the Bitterwood—or to the person pretending to be him—it seemed likely that that the small army accompanying the king would prevail. How dangerous could one man be, after all?
 Cron’s trail led for several hundred meandering yards through the thickets of the forest. Vendevorex didn’t possess Zanzeroth’s skills as a tracker, but he didn’t need them. The king had been right. These slaves left a trail anyone could follow.
 At last he found the young slave hiding behind a fallen log with a shelter of branches pulled over him. It wasn’t a horrible hiding place, except that Cron’s teeth were chattering loud enough that he sounded like some sort of nocturnal woodpecker.
 From ten feet away, Vendevorex said, “I am your friend, Cron.”
 Cron gasped, then clenched his jaw, silencing his chattering teeth.
 “You have nothing to fear,” Vendevorex said. “Rise, I wish to help you.”
 “Wh-who are you?” Cron whispered.
 “Tonight, I am your last, best hope,” Vendevorex said. “You’re safe for the moment. But when the king finds his prey tonight, I have no doubt he’ll come looking for you. It’s best that you be long gone.”
 Cron rose into a crouch, looking around the dark forest with fear in his eyes. Vendevorex chose to remain invisible. But he placed a burlap sack near the log and backed away.
 “The sack before you . . . Do you see it?”
 Cron looked around, trying to find the source of the voice. At last he looked to the ground and spotted the sack.
 “I’ve brought you clothes and food,” said Vendevorex. “You’ll also find a knife within the pack.”
 Cron crawled over the log toward the burlap. He reached out carefully and poked it. Then he pulled it toward him and fumbled at the chord that closed it with trembling fingers. At last he tore it open. He found a heavy cloak within which he draped over his body. In doing so, a loaf of bread fell from the bag, landing on the muddy ground. Cron snatched it up and began to hungrily devour it.
 Between cramming in mouthfuls of bread, Cron said, “You sound close, why don’t I see you?”
 “I wish to remain an anonymous benefactor for now,” said Vendevorex.
 “You’re invisible,” said Cron. “That narrows down who you might be. Venderex, right? The wizard?”
 Vendevorex remained silent.
 “You have that human pet, right? The girl? She was there tonight. She’s beautiful.”
 “You have me confused with someone else, friend,” Vendevorex said.
 “Right,” said Cron, wiping his mouth and digging through the bag’s contents in search of more food. His eyes lit up as he pulled out a hard-boiled egg. “What I want to know is what a person has to do to get to be a dragon’s pet. It seems like a pretty soft life.”
 “I don’t believe the girl you speak of is a pet,” Vendevorex said.
 “She was dressed like a dragon, all those feathers,” said Cron. “What I’m wondering is, is there, you know, sex involved? Do dragons find humans attractive? I know some girls get hot over dragons. I have a sister who—”
 Vendevorex bristled at the speculation, but there was no time to correct this fool’s uninformed opinions. He interrupted Cron, saying, “You must return to the river with all haste. Can you find the place where you witnessed Bodiel drop from the sky?”
 “Yes,” said Cron, spitting out a fleck of eggshell. “I thought I was a goner. Why didn’t he chase me?”
 “You . . . didn’t witness what happened, then?”
 “I turned and ran the second I saw him,” Cron said. “What happened? And why are you helping me?”
 “What happened isn’t important,” said Vendevorex. “Just know that I’m someone who has no patience for needless death. Your lot in life has been a cruel one, Cron. There’s little I can do to change it. Return to the river. The area is abandoned. The king’s party is miles away by now. When you arrive, you’ll find a small boat and, if my luck holds, you may also find Tulk waiting for you. Take the boat and go as far downriver as you can before morning. If you reach the town of Hopewell, seek the advice of a man known as Stench. He’ll give you shelter for a day or two. This is all I can do for you.”
 “I know old Stench,” Cron said. “Thought he’d be dead by now.”
 Vendevorex didn’t answer. He’d done what his conscience demanded and he could risk no more. He crept away silently. He had little time left to find Tulk.
 IT WAS EARLY MORNING when Vendevorex returned to the palace. He was exhausted, having flown a score of miles that night, following Tulk and Cron from above as they paddled downriver in their canoe, making sure they avoided immediate capture. When at dawn they had put the canoe to shore as he’d advised and disappeared under the canopy of the forest, he felt he had done all he could.
 Returning to his chambers, Vendevorex went to Jandra’s room. He sighed when he found she wasn’t there. In truth, it wasn’t a surprise that she’d defied his orders to stay put. He knew where to find her.
 Invisibly, he flew outside the palace walls to a row of wooden shacks that lined the base of the palace. These were the quarters of the human servants who labored within the palace: the cooks and chambermaids, the workmen and washerwomen who dwelled meekly among the dragons. Vendevorex landed on the muddy pathway that wound among the shacks, wrinkling his nose. The shantytown smelled of rotting garbage and excrement. Within the palace an elaborate and ancient system of aqueducts and pipes carried fresh water to all corners of the edifice, and flushed away waste. Here, open, stinking ditches served the same purpose. Filthy children in rags played in the muck, laughing, seemingly unaware of their squalor.
 Perhaps the king was right to regard humans as a lower race than dragons. Vendevorex shook his head to chase away the thought. The humans didn’t live like this by choice. If a man were ever to try to live with the wealth and comfort of a dragon, Albekizan’s tax collectors would simply come and take it away. Humans lived in squalor because this was all Albekizan would allow.
 As he walked unseen past the hovels, he heard at last the familiar sound of Jandra’s voice. He turned a corner to find her talking with Ruth and Mary, two of the palace kitchen maids. Ruth and Mary, by his estimate, were in their mid-twenties, but their hard lives made them seem middle-aged. Fifteen years ago, when Jandra had first come into his life, he’d turned to Ruth and Mary’s mother for advice in raising a human child. Their mother had passed away some years ago from disease, but Ruth and Mary maintained a friendship with Jandra to this day. Jandra would frequently steal away to gossip with them.
 And this morning . . . such gossip.
 “Is it true that Bodiel is dead?” Ruth whispered.
 “I hear that Cron killed him,” Mary said. “He had a bow and arrow hidden in the woods.”
 “All I know is what I saw,” said Jandra. “In the midst of the storm, Bodiel vanished. Albekizan and Shandrazel chased after him. Then Vendevorex rushed me back to my chambers before I could see anything else. He told me to wait for him then disappeared. I tried to get some sleep but couldn’t. I kept hearing shouts all throughout the palace.”
 “They were making quite a ruckus,” said Ruth.
 “Some soldiers came by looking for Vendevorex about an hour ago,” Jandra continued. “I hid from them and overheard that the king wanted Vendevorex to come to the war room. I figured that if Vendevorex is going to be tied up, I had a chance to come see you two.”
 “If Cron did kill Bodiel, it will be horrible for his family,” said Mary. “The king will have them all killed.”
 “But it won’t be their fault,” said Jandra.
 “Do you think that matters to Albekizan? I’ve heard that in villages where they can’t pay the tax, he takes the babies and devours them as their parents watch.”
 “That’s nonsense. The king isn’t . . . isn’t cruel or unjust,” said Jandra, not sounding at all like she believed it.
 “What would you know?” said Ruth, bitterness in her voice. “You live sheltered by the wizard. You don’t know what the world is really like.”
 “Don’t be mean,” said Mary. “It isn’t Jandra’s fault that she’s the wizard’s pet.”
 “I’m not his pet,” Jandra said. “I’m his apprentice.”
 “Either way, he whistles and you come,” said Ruth.
 “If I obeyed him always, I wouldn’t be here,” said Jandra. “I don’t do everything the old goat says.”
 Vendevorex decided he’d heard enough. With a thought he allowed his aura of invisibility to fall away, revealing himself behind Jandra.
 Ruth turned pale. Mary turned a bright shade of pink.
 “What?” said Jandra.
 The two women didn’t speak.
 “What?” Jandra asked. “Is . . . is he. . . ?”
 “Baaaa,” bleated Vendevorex.
 Jandra whirled around. “Ven!”
 “You will return to our chambers at once,” said Vendevorex. “I have an important homework assignment for you. You’re not to leave until you finish it.”
 Jandra swallowed hard and nodded.
 “Don’t be mean to her, please,” said Mary, quietly. “She only came for a little visit.”
 Vendevorex didn’t acknowledge her. He grabbed Jandra by the wrist and dragged her away.
 “This is a dangerous morning to be defying me, Jandra,” he grumbled. “I can confirm one rumor: Bodiel is dead.”
 “Then Cron. . . ?”
 “Not Cron. Bitterwood.”
 “B-but Bitterwood is only a myth, you said. A boogeyman dragons use to frighten their young.”
 “Perhaps there is a man behind the myth after all,” said Vendevorex. “With any luck, Zanzeroth has Bitterwood’s corpse displayed in the war room right now, and that will be the end of this affair.”
 As they reached the edge of the shantytown, Vendevorex released his grasp on Jandra’s arm. She rubbed the area he’d held.
 “Go back to our chambers. Go to the third bookshelf, the biology texts, you know the ones?”
 “I think so. Yes.”
 “There is a book concerning the alchemical properties of sea mollusks. Don’t leave the chambers until you memorize it.”
 “What? Why?”
 “There will be a test,” Vendevorex said.
 “But—”
 “Go!” said Vendevorex. “Time is of the essence.”
 “Aren’t you coming with me?”
 “No,” said Vendevorex. “I’m wanted in the war room. I’ll need a few moments to prepare a dramatic entrance.”
CHAPTER FOUR
* * *
FLIGHT
THE WAR ROOM was the size of a cathedral, the towering roof supported by a forest of white columns. High-arched windows opened onto broad balconies that overlooked the kingdom. A rainbow of tapestries covered the walls, embroidered with scenes from Albekizan’s unparalleled reign. One tapestry portrayed a youthful Albekizan, standing in triumph on the corpse of his father. Nearby was Albekizan in ceremonial gold armor, leading his armies to victory against the cannibal dragons of the once notorious Dismal Isles. It had been the first in a string of triumphs against the smaller kingdoms that had once ringed the land. While the tapestries caught the eye with their bright colors, the most arresting feature of the room was the gleaming marble floor, inlaid with colored stone, precious metals and gems into an elaborate map of the world. Zanzeroth, Metron, and Kanst waited for the king within the vast space.
 Zanzeroth was in a foul mood. He crouched in the middle of the world map, his belly covering the spot on which the palace rested. He studied the map with his remaining eye, finding in its jagged contours something of the king’s soul. For the map, he knew, was a lie. It showed the world as a narrow sliver of land a thousand miles in length, a few hundred miles wide at its thickest part, surrounded by trackless ocean. It showed, to be blunt, all the world that Albekizan had conquered, and not all the world that was. Over the decades Albekizan had supported the myth that there were no lands other than a few stray islands beyond the borders of his kingdom. But Zanzeroth was old enough to remember that, in his youth, he’d learned differently. He’d traveled far in his younger years. There was a kingdom north of the Ghostlands, a vast land of ice populated by dragon and man. Beyond the western mountains Zanzeroth had explored a huge continent: a land of immense rivers and trackless deserts, endless forests and towering mountains. He’d faced genuine monsters in these lands, reptiles large enough to dwarf sun-dragons, just as the true world dwarfed the small sliver of earth dominated by Albekizan.
 If Albekizan didn’t rule a place he deemed it did not exist. For many years Zanzeroth had thought this a harmless quirk of the king’s ego. Now he wondered if the king’s blindness to reality would lead them all to doom.
 Far across the room near a broad balcony, Kanst, a sun-dragon and commander of the king’s armies, spoke with Metron. Zanzeroth listened to their conversation with distant interest. He tilted his head to catch their words. This tiny movement created a change in the map to which his eye was drawn. One of his spiky neck scales, pink and ragged, had fallen out. He could barely move without losing bits of himself these days. He sighed, contemplating the dull scale against the polished floor. He wondered if this was his eventual fate, to simply flake away to dust. The conversation between the general and the High Biologian caught his attention once more as they lowered their voices to whispers.
 “Bodiel was the kingdom’s greatest hope,” Kanst said, his voice hushed—or as hushed as a beast like Kanst could muster. Kanst was an enormous bull of a dragon, heavy and squat. He wore steel armor polished to a mirrored finish that was unblemished by any actual blow from a weapon. Albekizan liked Kanst, which to Zanzeroth spoke ill of the king. Kanst was all bluster and polish. The king had a bad habit of surrounding himself with advisors who were more show than substance. Kanst and Vendevorex were the two best examples.
 Kanst continued his murmurs with the High Biologian. “Shandrazel hasn’t the thirst for blood that’s necessary for victory. What now? Will the king abandon Tanthia for a younger bride in hopes of another son? Or will he willingly turn the kingdom over to someone more capable of running it?”
 “Someone like yourself?” Metron said.
 “I’m not implying—”
 “Then speak not of the matter,” said Metron.
 “It’s only that time is the enemy,” Kanst said. “Even if the king were to father another son, will he remain strong enough twenty years hence to hold the kingdom together?”
 Metron dismissed the notion with a wave of his fore-claw. “You’re young, Kanst, and think age is a barrier. But in twenty years Albekizan will be younger than I am now, and I’m more than able to perform my duties. Indeed, the king will be younger than Zanzeroth twenty years hence, and he’s as sharp and strong as any dragon in the kingdom.”
 Zanzeroth felt Metron’s words like sharp blades stabbing at him. The hunter interrupted, saying, “Age matters, Kanst. Let no one tell you it doesn’t. I’m almost a century old and I feel it. They’ll tell you experience matters, but they lie. Once I would have had the speed to dodge the arrow. I’d trade all my experience for the strength of my youth.”
 “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Kanst said with perhaps a hint of condescension. “You survived when Bodiel did not. If it is truly Bitterwood we face you should consider yourself fortunate.”
 “There is no ‘if,’ Kanst!” Albekizan thundered as the tall iron doors to the war room opened. The king strode into the room followed by Bander, the captain of the guard. A dozen members of the guard followed, their armor and weapons clanking as they marched into the room and took their ceremonial positions along the wall. “We deal with fact: Bitterwood lives!”
 “Of course, Sire,” said Kanst. “I never doubted Bitterwood’s existence. I’ve always felt there was substance behind the shadows.”
 “As Zanzeroth here learned only too well, yes?” Albekizan said with a glance toward the tracker.
 Zanzeroth held his tongue. He was tempted to point out that he’d claimed all along they pursued a man, that it was the king who regarded their prey as some supernatural ghost, but he knew this was an argument he would not win.
 “Sire, I’ve done the research you requested,” Metron said. “I conferred with my fellow biologians and have the answers you seek.”
 “And?”
 “The minor rebellion of the southern provinces two decades ago is the source of the Bitterwood legend. Bitterwood was a leader of the rebellion. He preached a vile philosophy of genocide against all dragons. Even when the rebellion was crushed his radical rantings earned a small, faithful band of followers. The band eluded your troops for many years, but in the end they were chased into the City of Skeletons, where they were slain.”
 “You are telling me that it’s a dead man we faced tonight?” said Albekizan.
 “No, though one popular version of this legend holds that Bitterwood’s vengeful ghost still haunts the kingdom. A rival telling holds that Bitterwood eluded death and continues to fight to this day, alone, no longer trusting the help of other humans.”
 “So you have nothing but legend to give me?”
 Metron shrugged. “Sire, the truth is somewhat mundane, I suspect. All evidence leads me to conclude that Bitterwood died twenty years ago. Only his legend lives on. Now other humans occasionally summon the nerve to slay a dragon—usually in the most dishonorable ways, striking from ambush—and when your troops investigate, Bitterwood is blamed to keep us chasing after a myth.”
 “The man who killed my son was no myth,” said Albekizan. “Bitterwood fletches his arrows with the feather-scales of dragons. We pulled thirteen pieces of evidence of his existence from Bodiel’s body.”
 “Yes, Sire,” Metron said. “However, we should consider that the feather-scales of dragons are hardly a rare commodity. We shed old ones as new ones come in.”
 Metron’s words once more pained Zanzeroth. He was losing old scales without new ones growing to replace them. He stared at the large, black patches of naked hide that covered his once crimson fore-talons.
 “Our servants and field hands no doubt discover fallen feather-scales all the time,” Metron continued. “What if a human familiar with the legend is using it to his advantage to create fear among us? I’ve checked the records and found hundreds of dragon deaths over the past twenty years attributed to Bitterwood. It’s likely that other men have blamed Bitterwood for murders they themselves performed.”
 “No,” Albekizan said. “I am certain that one being, be he man or ghost, is responsible. I’ve seen him with my own eyes.”
 Now it was the king’s words that tortured Zanzeroth as he realized that he would never see anything with his eyes again.
 “Still, I am not blind to the possibility that other humans assist Bitterwood,” Albekizan said. “That’s why I’ve called you here. Together, we will remove the stench of humans from my kingdom forever. I’ve tolerated their kind far too long. They breed like rats. Their dung-encrusted villages spread disease. They create nuisance by leeching off dragons as beggars and thieves. Now their greatest crime of all: They give shelter to Bitterwood. We must eliminate every last safe harbor for the villain. We can only be certain of victory over Bitterwood when all the humans are dead.”
 For a moment no one spoke. Zanzeroth wasn’t quite sure what Albekizan meant. Did he want to kill all the humans in the nearby villages?
 Metron broke the silence by clearing his throat, then asked, “All humans, Sire?”
 “Every last one.”
 “From what area?” he asked.
 “From the world,” answered Albekizan.
 Again, there was a long silence as Kanst looked to Metron, who looked to Zanzeroth, who studied a patch of air near the king with rapt fascination.
 “Respectfully, Sire,” said a voice from the empty air Zanzeroth watched, “you’ve gone quite mad.”
 Albekizan whirled around, searching for the source of the rebellious voice, looking straight past the point where Zanzeroth’s ears fixed the sound.
 “Show yourself at once, wizard!” Albekizan commanded.
 In a spot a yard from the suspicious voice, the air began to spark and swirl. The sparks fell away like a veil to reveal a sky-dragon, his wings pierced with diamond studs, sparkling like stars against his blue scales. Light gleamed from his silver skullcap. His eyes were narrowed into a scowl of disapproval. Vendevorex, Master of the Invisible, had made his grand arrival.
 “Very well, Sire,” Vendevorex said. “You see me. Now hear me. Humans and dragons have existed side by side for all of history. Mankind poses no threat to dragons; indeed, humanity makes our lives more pleasant. If you kill the humans, who will tend to your crops? Who will do the basest of labors? The humans as a race didn’t kill your son. Bitterwood alone is responsible. Turn your resources to finding him. Don’t distract yourself with a costly war against all mankind.”
 “The humans number in the millions,” Albekizan said. “Bitterwood could hide among them for years. But if all die, he dies.”
 “Then consider this,” Vendevorex said. “Your course of action could lead to rebellion among dragons you now count as allies and friends. The earth-dragons won’t be eager to tend the fields. The sky-dragons rely on human labor to keep their colleges running smoothly. Your fellow sun-dragons often keep humans as pets. Do you expect them to sit idly while you slaughter their companions?”
 “I anticipate resistance,” Albekizan said. “But my war against the humans will take place on many fronts. Metron’s battleground will be the minds of dragons.”
 “Sire?” said Metron.
 “In your role as protector of all knowledge, do you not teach that millions of years of evolution have produced the dragon as the highest form of life? We are by rights the masters of the earth. The human religions claim that they were created separate from other species. If they are not part of nature, why should we tolerate these parasites? Your task, Metron, will be to educate all dragons to this fact. Persuade them to the logic of our cause.”
 “Of course, Sire,” Metron said, though Zanzeroth could hear traces of doubt.
 “Metron, I expected more spine from you,” Vendevorex said. Then, addressing Albekizan once more, he said: “Even if all dragons stood with you, which they won’t, the humans themselves will rise against you. They may not be our physical equals, but they are capable of great cunning, and they outnumber dragons ten to one. You rule them now because they expend their aggression in petty tribal squabbles. They bicker and war over not just the meager resources you allow them, but also kill each other in the name of competing mythologies. Far more humans die each year at the hands of fellow humans than are killed by dragons.”
 Albekizan stood silent. It seemed to Zanzeroth that he was actually considering the wizard’s argument.
 Vendevorex expanded on his case. “Humans have the skill and the passion to fight; we are fortunate that they turn their energies against each other rather than on us. If you wage war against them, they will certainly unite. You will face an army of Bitterwoods. How many dragon lives are you willing to throw away in pursuit of your madness?”
 The king didn’t react angrily to this insult, as Zanzeroth expected. Instead, Albekizan said, in a patient tone, “That is why I summoned you, wizard. I’ve tolerated your insolence all these years because I recognize your cleverness. Your task will be to devise the most efficient method of eliminating the humans. You are adept at curing disease. Could you not create a disease as well, one that slays only humans?”
 “No,” said Vendevorex.
 “Then perhaps some poison would serve our purpose, something which could be introduced into their wells.”
 Vendevorex closed his eyes, shook his head, and took a deep breath, a breath that, to Zanzeroth’s ears came from well behind the place where the wizard seemingly stood. Was his lone eye playing tricks?
 “I don’t mean I’m incapable of doing as you ask,” the wizard explained as if speaking to a child. “I won’t do it because I find the idea abhorrent.” The wizard looked around the room. “Kanst, I’m not surprised by your silence. You’ve never displayed the smallest hint of backbone. But Metron, you must know better. And Zanzeroth—you, of all dragons save myself—you have always spoken truth with the king. Will you not stand for the truth now?”
 Zanzeroth nodded. “You’re correct, wizard. Sire, let me be blunt. I don’t believe Bitterwood to be beyond our grasp. You called off the hunt too early. His trail may yet be warm. This genocide you dream of is unnecessary. That said, what do I care if humans are slaughtered? I’ve killed so many for sport, I can hardly object on any moral grounds. If it is to be war, Sire, I stand beside you.”
 “Cowards, the lot of you,” said Vendevorex. “I want no part of this.”
 “I anticipated your answer,” said Albekizan. “Your close companionship with the human girl—Jandie is her name? Jandra? I believe she clouds your judgment. If you will not help voluntarily, consider this: I’ve ordered all humans within the castle be gathered together and slaughtered.” As the king spoke he glanced toward Bander who nodded toward the guards. They drew their swords and crept toward the wizard. Albekizan continued, “I’ve spared your pet, imprisoning her, for now. Assist me and she will live. Defy me and she dies. A simple choice.”
 Vendevorex calmly studied the approaching guards then looked the king squarely in the eyes. “If she’s been so much as scratched you’ll regret it!”
 “Don’t threaten me, wizard,” the king growled. “Bander! Place this fool in chains. A few days in the dungeon will change his mind.”
 “Y-y-yes, Sire,” Bander said. His arms trembled as he lowered his spear toward Vendevorex. “P-place your talons above your head!”
 “Gladly,” the wizard replied, spreading his wings wide. The ruby in his silver skullcap glowed brightly. With a crackle Bander’s spear crumbled to ash. The black particles swirled from the shocked dragon’s talons, flying in a dark stream toward the wizard to encircle him in a shadowy vortex.
 “Kill him!” shouted Albekizan.
 The guards rushed forward. A weighted net was thrown over the black vortex, the wind of its passage causing the miniature tornado to collapse into an expanding cloud. One by one the earth-dragons lunged, tackling the cloud of ash. The sound of steel striking steel, then ripping muscle and cracking bone reverberated through the hall.
 Zanzeroth drew his hunting knife, a yard-long blade that would have been a sword in anyone else’s grasp. He flung it with a grunt, missing the black vortex by a wide gap, the blade flying narrowly beneath the beak of one of the guards to fly out the open doorway before burying itself in the mortar of the stone wall beyond.
 By now, the ash lost its momentum and drifted to the stone floor. It was difficult to make out from the tangle of bloodied limbs and gore exactly what had happened. When the earth-dragons who could stand had finally risen, all that remained on the marble floor was the tattered remains of one of the guards, chopped beyond recognition. Of the wizard, not even a single scale could be found.
 “He’s gone?” said Bander.
 “Surround the palace at once,” Kanst ordered. “Summon the aerial guard. The wizard must not escape.”
 “If he survives, I fear he could prove quite a powerful figurehead for a human resistance,” said Metron.
 Albekizan shot the High Biologian an evil glance. Then he turned his focus on Zanzeroth. “Find him,” he snapped. “Do something more useful than almost killing a guard with an ill-thrown blade.”
 Zanzeroth nodded. “Yes, Sire.” He wandered into the hall and yanked his knife free from the gap between the stones. As he suspected, there was a thin, wet red line along the edge. He held the blade to his nose and sniffed. The wizard’s scent was unmistakable; no other blood would smell of lightning. Perhaps a foot more to the right and this would have been over. Zanzeroth felt confident he could find the escaped wizard in short order, but on a deeper level he felt a certain satisfaction in letting the wizard go, for now. The king had created this mess by placing his trust in such a fool for so long. Let Albekizan deal with the consequences.
 “The wizard won’t have long to cherish his freedom,” Albekizan snarled. “Bander, see to it that the human girl is killed. We’ll not need that traitor’s help. Once you’ve seen to her death, go at once to the dungeon. Bring me Blasphet.”
 “B-B-Blasphet!” Bander said, his turtle-like beak hanging agape.
 Blasphet? thought Zanzeroth, realizing for the first time that the depth of Albekizan’s hatred of Bitterwood might be greater than his own.
 “Blasphet?” said Metron. “Sire, surely—”
 “Silence,” growled Albekizan. “I’ve given my order. Despite his deeds I’ve kept Blasphet alive for a day such as this. No dragon that ever lived has more of a genius for killing. Bring him to me. Bring me the Murder God.”
 ON THE WESTERN SIDE of Albekizan’s palace, a winding maze of chambers led to a star-shaped room that was home to Vendevorex, Master of the Invisible. The room itself was a nearly impenetrable labyrinth of piled books. Lining the walls were dusty shelves filled with handblown bottles of all sizes and shapes, their murky contents gleaming in the light of the small window slits that lined the chamber. Jandra sat at a desk in the middle of the labyrinth, a massive tome cracked open before her, the pages bearing colorful detailed drawings of clams and snails. For a Master of Invisibility, sometimes her mentor could be incredibly transparent. This assignment was obviously meant to keep her out of his way while he investigated Bodiel’s murder.
 The knock on the chamber door came as a relief to Jandra. While normally a devoted student, she welcomed the excuse to take a break from reading about snails. She brushed her long brown hair back from her eyes and went to the door. Vendevorex never had visitors but sometimes while he was away servants would sneak up to talk to Jandra in hopes of acquiring some minor potion or charm. She knew enough of Vendevorex’s art to help most supplicants. The salve she mixed really could heal burns, and while the love potions she provided were only colored water, they gave people confidence and courage, which often brought them the love they sought.
 Unfortunately, when she opened the door she didn’t find a serving girl or a stable hand. Four earth-dragon guards awaited her, one carrying iron manacles.
 “Come,” said the dragon with the manacles.
 “Where?” she asked. “Why?”
 “Don’t question me,” the guard snapped, reaching out to grab her arm, his claws digging into her skin.
 “Ow! All right! I’m coming!” she said. She contemplated turning invisible but couldn’t see how it would help while he held her. Once he released her she would have more options.
 The guard locked the manacles around her wrists. The cold steel clamped her as tightly as the earth-dragon’s scaly grip. They dragged her by her chains into the hall. In the distance she heard a woman scream.
 “What’s going on?” she asked.
 “Silence!” The guard slapped Jandra’s face.
 Jandra’s head spun. The earth-dragon guards were no taller than her, but they possessed incredible strength. Earth-dragons were slow and a bit dimwitted, but still dangerous. It was safest to cooperate. She bit her lip and walked on, now pushed by the pointy end of a spear. Another cry echoed through the hall, a man this time. The guards weren’t merely after her, apparently, but after all the humans in the castle. Was this tied to Bodiel’s disappearance? If so, she could expect only the worst from Albekizan.
 Where was Vendevorex? Why was he allowing this to happen?
 To her surprise the guards led her not to the dungeons, but to another tower. They unlocked the manacles and shoved her into a large, comfortably furnished room, though once the heavy door shut behind her it was as secure as any dungeon cell. She moved toward the room’s single window when she heard the shouts outside. Through iron bars she looked onto a courtyard where perhaps twenty humans stood, lined before an earth-dragon wielding an axe. To her horror, a woman was being pushed down to her knees. An earth-dragon guard roughly slammed the victim’s head against the chopping block. It was Ruth!
 “Stop!” Jandra cried out. Mary, next in line, looked up to the tower.
 “Don’t look!” Mary shouted through tears.
 “No!” Jandra screamed as the axe rose.
 She turned away in helpless anger as the executioner performed his task. The wet thunk sent a chill up her spine. Mary was screaming.
 Jandra slammed her fist into the stone wall and sank to the floor, sobbing. How could even Albekizan order such a thing? What did Ruth and Mary have to do with Bodiel’s death?
 Mary kept screaming for what seemed like an eternity. And then she stopped.
 Jandra buried her face in her knees and bit her lips. This couldn’t be happening.
 There was a gust of wind from the open window, followed by a scraping sound as claws clenched stone.
 “Jandra,” grunted a disembodied voice. “Stand away from the window.”
 Jandra raised her head. “Ven! Where are you?”
 “Uhn. I’m clinging to the wall outside. Not much to hold onto.” The iron bars shifted, rust flaking, as unseen talons grasped them. “It seems I may have made a strategic error in sending you back to our quarters.”
 “What’s going on, Ven?” Jandra said, jumping back up to the window, wiping away her tears. “Those people in the courtyard, they—”
 “Are being executed,” said Vendevorex. “Don’t think about it. You’re in terrible danger; my first priority is your rescue. Stand back.”
 “Why is this happening?” Jandra said, grabbing the iron bars, so cold and immobile. She sought Vendevorex’s claw but couldn’t find it. Apparently, he was no longer holding the bars.
 “There’s no time to answer your questions,” said Vendevorex. “I must steady myself to disintegrate the mortar holding in the stones around the window. The stones will collapse inward. Stand back. Hurry!”
 Jandra let go of the window. She wiped her cheeks again as she stepped toward the middle of the room. “Do it.”
 Dust trickled from beneath the window. With a crack, several large stones broke free and crashed to the floor. The iron bars landed on top with a loud clang.
 “What’s going on in there?” a guard shouted through the door.
 “I—I tripped,” Jandra shouted back. She grabbed a pitcher of water that had been left in the chamber and thrust her hand into it. Concentrating, she worked the water into steam, filling the room with fog.
 “Hurry,” Vendevorex said, climbing through the hole in the wall and turning visible. “I’ll fly you out of here.”
 Jandra dashed to his side. She paused when she spotted the long, open wound on his cheek.
 “You’re bleeding,” she said.
 “It’s not important. I’ll heal it when there’s time. For now, we must fly.”
 “But you haven’t been able to carry me for years,” Jandra said as she heard the guard’s keys rattling at the lock. “Oh, we should have thought this through!”
 “I have,” he said. “Flying with your weight isn’t so much a problem as taking off. I’ll have a forty-foot drop to build sufficient speed to carry you. Hurry!”
 Jandra went to her teacher’s breast and hugged him by the neck as she had done when he carried her in the harness years ago. She clasped her heels around his waist just below his wing-folds. The fog swirled as the door opened.
 Vendevorex leapt. Jandra closed her eyes as they plummeted, the wind whistling past her ears. Then her stomach twisted as their downward momentum changed abruptly to forward motion. Vendevorex grunted with each beat of his wings. She opened her eyes and saw the stone wall of the courtyard mere yards away. In the half instant it took for her eyes to snap shut once more Vendevorex veered upward, clearing the wall by inches. Needle-sharp pains pricked along the back of her scalp as the rough stone snatched away strands of her flowing hair.
 She opened her eyes again. They were flying above the forest. In the distance she could see the gleaming silver ribbon of the river. They soared far higher than the tallest spires of the palace now, and it seemed as if she could see forever. It was odd to be overcome with nostalgia while fleeing for her life, especially given the horrors she only just witnessed, but the sight of the world from on high brought back her earliest childhood memories, soaring high above the world, the wind rushing past, clinging to Vendevorex for warmth and safety.
 “We’ve got a problem,” Vendevorex said, his voice barely audible above the wind. “We’re being pursued.”
 Jandra looked back. A score of sky-dragons were rising from the roof of the castle. It was the elite aerial guard—the swiftest, most agile fliers in Albekizan’s army. Her heart sank.
 “Oh no,” she said. “You’ll never escape carrying me! You . . . you should save yourself.”
 “Don’t even think of letting go,” Vendevorex said. “Our only chance is invisibility. You’ll need to create the illusion. I’m too taxed at the moment to concentrate.”
 “I—I’ll do it,” Jandra said. “I’ve been practicing.”
 “Take care. You’ll find that the wind makes the illusion difficult.”
 Impossible is more like it, Jandra thought. Vendevorex was good enough to turn invisible in the wind and even in rain. He could walk and fly invisibly while Jandra could only maintain the effect if she stood still. She could not reveal her doubts to Ven, however.
 Jandra clasped her mentor’s neck more tightly with her left arm while her right arm reached into the pouch of silvery dust she kept on her belt. The wind snatched most of the dust from her grasp the second she pulled her hand free, carrying it beyond the range of her control. She knitted her brow in concentration, envisioning each individual particle of dust in her palm, feeling it come to life. She released it, and with effort kept enough of the dust close to her to make the light deflection possible. The tiara on her brow grew warm as she extended the control field, bending the flight of the dust to her will, swirling the motes into a sphere large enough to encompass Vendevorex’s wingspan. Suddenly the sunlight dimmed as the particles began to follow the reflective pattern Vendevorex had taught her.
 “Well done,” Vendevorex said, his voice weak. “Maintain control. And please, ever so slightly, relax your arm.”
 “Sorry,” Jandra said, realizing she was choking him. As she thought of this the sunlight brightened once more. She gritted her teeth and snapped the dust back into the pattern.
 “I can’t believe I’m getting this to work,” she said. “I’ve screwed it up every time I’ve ever tried it.”
 “You’ve put in the practice,” Vendevorex said. “All you’ve lacked, perhaps, was the motivation.”
 The pursuing dragons drew closer now, but their heads swayed from side to side, searching. Ven actually slowed his pace, dropping low, skimming over the tree branches. The guards pressed forward, passing above them, traveling in the direction Vendevorex had held the whole time they’d been visible. A lone straggler remained behind them.
 “We’re losing them,” she whispered as Vendevorex banked toward the river.
 “I can’t go much further,” Vendevorex said, the strain evident in his voice. “Once we clear the river I’ll need to land. From there we’ll continue on foot.”
 “Where are we going?” Jandra asked.
 “I don’t know,” Vendevorex answered, sounding hesitant, even lost.
 The wind around Jandra grew suddenly colder. She’d never heard these words from her mentor before, or even this tone. Vendevorex always knew what to do, always had everything plotted and planned and under control.
 Her mind drifted for a moment as she considered the implications. Then, suddenly, she snapped back to attention. The lone member of the aerial guard who’d still been behind them was diving straight toward them, a blue streak, still a hundred yards away, but closing fast. When she’d allowed her mind to wander the invisibility had been disturbed by the rushing wind.
 The guard held an eight-foot long spear in his hind talons. It zoomed toward them quicker than she could think, closing the distance by a dozen yards a second. She tried to will the invisibility back until, with a sudden jerk, the dragon whipped his rear claws forward and released the spear.
 “Ven!” she shouted.
 Vendevorex jerked his neck around just in time. The spear passed through the air where his head would have been if he hadn’t looked back.
 Alas, they were too close to the treetops. Jandra felt leaves and twigs snatching along her clothes until her shoulder collided on the tip of a pine. The tree was limber; it bent against her momentum, bruising her shoulder rather than breaking it. But it was enough to wreck her grip. Suddenly, she was falling. She closed her eyes as she flew toward the thick limbs of a second pine. The branches ripped at her as she skidded along the thick needles, then suddenly she was back out in open air, her limbs flailing. She opened her eyes in time to see the surface of the river rushing up to meet her. She tried to draw a breath of air but was too late. She smashed into the river, sucking water into her lungs.
 Disoriented, she kicked and clawed, trying to make sense of what was up and what was down. To her relief, she broke back through the surface. She coughed out water then drew in great gasps of sweet air. The river wasn’t deep here near the water’s edge. Her feet found traction on the rocky bottom. When she stood the water was barely above her waist.
 She staggered toward the shore, rubbing her eyes, half-blind from the water streaming from her hair. She stumbled when she reached the bank as her waterlogged gown tangled around her feet and she slipped on the slick rocks.
 She crawled further onto the rocky bank, still coughing and spitting out water. Suddenly, the top of her head collided with something hard. She looked ahead and found herself staring at scaly blue legs with knees that bent backward and sinewy talons sporting two-inch, pitch-black claws. A long blue tail twitched behind the legs, catlike.
 “Ven?” she asked, then looked up. It wasn’t Ven. The aerial guard who’d thrown the spear loomed over her, a long knife clutched in his fore-talon.
 Jandra flinched as the guard reached for her.
 Then, from the tree line, a voice: “Stop!”
 It was Vendevorex. He stepped from the trees, looking more frightened than she’d ever seen him. He seemed smaller somehow, diminished in his fear.
 “Please don’t hurt her,” he begged. “We surrender. We won’t resist.”
 The guard turned from Jandra to face the wizard. “Don’t move,” he growled.
 “No sir,” Vendevorex said. “Just please, don’t hurt us.”
 “It’s not me you’ll have to worry about,” the guard said, stepping toward Vendevorex.
 Then suddenly, the guard vanished. The small, frightened image of Vendevorex shimmered then broke apart. From the thin air before her came a muffled cry of pain and the sickening smell of burning flesh.
 Jandra searched the sky. The rest of the aerial guard was nowhere to be seen. She clambered further up the shore and rose to her feet, shivering, chilled by the water and the close call of the fall.
 Vendevorex allowed his circle of invisibility to break apart. He stood ten feet away with the body of the aerial guard at his feet. The guard clawed helplessly at his jaws, emitting small, muffled grunts through his flared nostrils. The skin around his mouth was melted together. Large talon-shaped holes had been burned into his wings; he would never fly again.
 “When your brothers find you and cut your mouth open, I want you to give them a message for me,” Vendevorex growled. His eyes glowed as if lit by an internal sun. “My decision to run should not be interpreted as a sign that I am weak or defenseless. Anyone who attempts pursuit will face a fate much worse than yours. If I didn’t want you to tell your brothers this, I would have killed you already. You live only because you retain this slight usefulness to me.”
 The guard rolled to his back on the rocky bank, still clawing at his immobile mouth. Jandra turned away, feeling sick.
 “Let’s go,” Vendevorex said, moving to her side. “Upriver, toward Richmond. You’ll find it easier to maintain the invisibility while we walk.”
 She nodded, noting the coolness in his voice, the utter lack of remorse for the way he’d just maimed the guard for life. She didn’t look back as she raised a field of invisibility around them. They headed west along the riverbank, watching the skies for further signs of pursuit.
CHAPTER FIVE
* * *
WOUNDS
ZANZEROTH TOOK ADVANTAGE of the chaos in the war room to slip away. Albekizan was shouting orders to Kanst, who was shouting orders to Bander, who shouted orders to the soldiers. Zanzeroth had known the king since he was a mere fledgling. Zanzeroth could remember the sharp, eager young dragon who’d accompanied him on hunts, long ago. Albekizan had been a most cunning stalker of prey in his prime. It pained Zanzeroth to see how age had changed the king into a creature that now confused shouting for action.
 As he found the next drop of the wizard’s blood around the corner, Zanzeroth felt the despair that had gripped him earlier lighten a bit. Even with half his sight, he could still follow wounded prey. Of course the wizard was no challenge, not at the moment. Zanzeroth need not follow a trail to find him. The wizard’s next move may as well have been marked on a map. He would head straight for Jandra.
 But Zanzeroth had bigger prey in mind, and a bigger challenge. What had happened to Bitterwood? Earlier he’d been held back by Albekizan, slowed by the all but useless Gadreel, and even the ox-dogs had led him on a wild goose chase. Zanzeroth had allowed himself, over the years, to become part of the king’s court, to be a member of a crowd. It had been too long since he hunted alone.
 Of course, by now, Bitterwood’s trail would be cold. But was it only coincidence that Cron had led Bodiel straight into Bitterwood’s trap? Could Metron be right about the deeds of Bitterwood being the responsibility of more than one man? It would provide an interesting challenge to hunt down the men who could actually answer these questions.
 METRON WATCHED from the balcony as the aerial guard flew in ever-widening circles in search of Vendevorex. It would be for naught. Ever since Vendevorex appeared in the court all those years ago, dazzling Albekizan with his mystic powers, Metron had known this day would come. Vendevorex had never shown anything but grudging deference to Albekizan. Metron had known all along that Vendevorex, despite his apparent power, was nothing but a fraud. After all, who better to spot a fellow fraud than he?
 Still he wished that Vendevorex had cooperated. As High Biologian, he understood deeply the irony of the king’s plans for genocide. Fraud or no, the wizard didn’t lack compassion or wisdom, and could perhaps have changed what was to come. A kindhearted fraud had to be preferable to an honestly wicked dragon such as Blasphet.
 “Have they found him yet?” Albekizan asked from inside the war room.
 “Sire,” Metron said. “I fear the wizard has escaped.”
 The king’s claws scraped on the marble floor. Metron looked back to see the king’s massive head jutting through the doorway to peer out over the forest. With his neck extended, Albekizan’s face was level with Metron’s. Metron was used to looking up to Albekizan’s presence. To have their eyes on the same level was mildly unnerving. Albekizan possessed the head of the world’s most effective predator; his powerful jaws were large enough to snap through a man’s torso with his sharp, knifelike teeth. Though he wasn’t in danger, a chill still ran down Metron’s spine as he contemplated the imposing natural weaponry of the sun-dragon. No wonder these beasts ruled the world.
 Albekizan studied the horizon with another biological advantage of the sun-dragons: forward-facing eyes with vision sharp enough to put an owl to shame. After a moment of scanning the surrounding skies, the king said, “The wizard will keep running. Invisibility, when you consider it, is the ultimate refuge of a coward. He’ll run back to the Ghostlands, or wherever he came from. He’s no threat.”
 “Yes, Sire,” said Metron.
 “It’s lucky I kept Blasphet alive all these years,” Albekizan said. “He’ll take to the task more willingly, I wager.”
 “Sire, have you considered the dangers of releasing Blasphet? He was jailed not for poisoning humans but for poisoning dragons. Tanthia won’t be pleased to learn that her brother’s murderer walks free once more.”
 The king tilted his head to look upon Metron, as if giving consideration to his words. He looked as if he were about to speak, then stopped.
 Metron, sensing doubt, started to press his argument. “Tanthia has always been—”
 “I will explain the matter to her,” Albekizan said, cutting him off. “She will want Bitterwood dead. She’s blinded by grief at the moment . . . but I know, in the morrow, my queen will thirst for justice. It’s in her royal blood. Blasphet’s dangerous, yes. But so is fire. Properly handled, both can be powerful tools.”
 “He’s here,” Kanst said from inside the war room.
 Metron left the sunwashed balcony and followed Albekizan into the shadowy room. His sight was blocked by Albekizan’s broad, crimson back. Metron moved to the side for a better view. In the center of the world map stood a withered sun-dragon, the scales of his wings so long hidden from light they had lost all color, becoming transparent, revealing the black hide beneath. Blasphet’s eyes, red as sunset, burned as he looked upon the king. He shook his manacled limbs, causing the heavy iron chains to clatter. The earth-dragons who guarded him flinched at the noise.
 Their skittishness was justified. Blasphet had killed thousands of dragons; the true numbers were uncertain as his preferred weapon was poison. Many of his victims died in their sleep or with the symptoms of a wasting fever. The number was further complicated by the fact that, in his prime, Blasphet had founded a cult in which a loyal band of humans worshipped him as a god and carried out assassinations in his name. It had taken years to track down and kill the cult members after Blasphet had been imprisoned.
 “Albekizan,” said Blasphet, the Murder God. His voice was raspy, as if he hadn’t spoken in years. He bowed slightly then gave a spooky, moldy chuckle. “I know why I’m here. The news has reached even the dark hole you keep me in. If you plan to accuse me of Bodiel’s death, I can only express my deepest regrets that you’ve blamed the wrong dragon.”
 Albekizan reared up, his shoulders held back. He puffed out his chest, making himself as physically imposing as possible. He said, in his firmest tone, “Blasphet, if I thought you had harmed my son, only your head would be brought before me now. Your body would be digesting in the bowels of my ox-dogs.”
 Blasphet seemed unimpressed by the king’s bravado. “Tanthia would no doubt be pleased with that turn of events. Is she still unhappy you kept me alive after I killed Terranax?”
 “You were not brought here to discuss Tanthia or her brother.”
 Blasphet shrugged, a movement that made his faded scales rustle like dry leaves. “What, pray tell, am I here to discuss? This seems an odd time for idle chatter. Don’t you have a funeral to attend?”
 “It’s said that since you have resided in the dungeons, no rat has been seen there. In addition, many guards have been lost to a strange wasting sickness. You are responsible, no doubt.”
 “Of course,” Blasphet said, his eyes twinkling. “There is a mold that grows on the stones of my cell that possesses the most intriguing properties. I use whatever test subjects are near in my experiments.”
 “You find no difference between the life of a rat and the life of a dragon?”
 “Mere anatomy. Life is life, no matter how it’s packaged. Every living thing burns with the same flame. It all may be extinguished with equal satisfaction.”
 The king nodded his head, as if Blasphet had just said exactly what he wanted to hear.
 “If it’s life you care to extinguish, and it matters not which form of life, we have much to discuss. I’ve brought you here to offer you freedom, should you accept my challenge.”
 “Challenge?”
 The king drew close to Blasphet, much closer than Metron thought wise, chains or no. Metron grew more alarmed for the safety of the king when he drew his face mere inches from Blasphet and said in a low, even voice, “Look at what you’ve done with your poisons. You’ve ended the lives of a few random dragons, some humans, a rat or two. Does it satisfy you? Or do you long for a greater task? Imagine not the death of an individual. Imagine the death of an entire species. Are even you capable of such a thing? Could even you slay every last human in my kingdom?”
 Blasphet raised a manacled talon to scratch his chin. His lips drew back to reveal his yellow-gray teeth. “All humans? There are millions. The resources required would be enormous.”
 “Everything I have would be at your disposal,” Albekizan said, his voice quieter, almost a seductive whisper. “My treasure, my armies are yours to command. In the matter of the elimination of the humans, you will possess all the powers of a king.”
 “What do I care for the powers of a king?” Blasphet asked. “I was a god, once. Yet even for a god, the task is a daunting challenge.” Blasphet’s eyes ran along the map of the world as if sizing up its scale. “The humans would flee before a direct onslaught. The survivors would take up arms against us if we failed to kill all in one sweep. I’ve worked intimately with humans in the past. They can be most tenacious. The war could last for centuries.”
 “I know this,” said Albekizan. “Which is why I’m consulting with you rather than Kanst.”
 Kanst’s eyes narrowed at the slight.
 “The key would be subtlety.” Blasphet’s voice fell to the same conspiratorial tone as the king’s. “Somehow draw them into a trap, kill them before they ever suspect danger . . .”
 “Ah,” said Albekizan. “I see it in your eyes. This task interests you. Should you refuse me now, this will taunt you, torment you as you rot away in that cell.”
 “Is this offer honest?” Blasphet asked. “You never were one for clever schemes, but I can’t believe you would trust me. What was that I was yelling at my trial? ‘I’ll kill you? I’ll kill you all?’ You remember that don’t you?”
 “I don’t trust you, but I do understand you. If you desired, you could kill me right now. You’ve no doubt hidden several poisons on your body. Something you could spit, perhaps? Or some paste beneath a claw that could kill with the merest scratch?”
 “Of course,” said Blasphet. “It may be that I’ve poisoned you already and it’s only a matter of time before you begin to bleed from every bodily orifice. That would be most satisfying. You, weeping tears of blood.”
 “You haven’t poisoned me,” the king said with a confidence Metron didn’t feel was justified. “You’ll be no threat to me or my court because you dare not risk this opportunity. You’ll be free to murder on a grand scale without fear of punishment, indeed, with the guarantee of praise and respect. You were worshipped as a god, once. Now, you have the opportunity to enter history as the architect of the greatest single feat of the dragons. Your freedom to act will be your shackles.”
 “Perhaps,” Blasphet said. “This does hold . . . promise. You know me better than I thought, it seems. Well played. I accept.”
 “I knew you would,” Albekizan said, stepping back. “When we were growing up there was no dare you would not accept. Your will was thought to be even greater than my own. That’s why it surprised everyone when I bested you in the hunt.”
 “Indeed, brother,” Blasphet replied. “Indeed.”
 ZANZEROTH TOUCHED DOWN on a stony island in the middle of the mud-brown river. It had been too long since he’d spent time here; almost a century ago this spare, stony wasteland had been his only home. He’d not been born to the comfort of a king’s court. Or perhaps he had . . . He’d never known his true parents. He’d been left to fend for himself in the forest as a fledgling, and had survived on his own for a decade, living from the land, a wild thing, the only meat in his belly coming from prey he’d killed with his own claws. When he was ten he’d been captured by Albekizan’s father, Gloreziel, for the crime of poaching in the king’s forest. But rather than killing the young, feral dragon, the king had taken him under his wing and set himself to the task of civilizing the snarling brute Zanzeroth had been at the time.
 The civilizing had taken, but not completely. Zanzeroth still felt most at home making his bed beneath an open sky. While he’d adapted to the nobles’ fashion of hunting and fighting with weapons, he still, while hunting alone, enjoyed the sensation of digging his bare claws into squealing, wriggling prey. And if there were any better pleasure in this world than laying on a warm rock with a full belly and licking drying blood from his talons, he had yet to experience it.
 Having grown up in the king’s court and knowing Albekizan since he before he could even speak, Zanzeroth could claim to be the king’s oldest friend, though friend wasn’t the right word, perhaps. In Albekizan’s world, all other sentient beings were subjects, enemies, or prey. “Highly regarded lackey” was no doubt the most accurate label for Zanzeroth.
 Zanzeroth found the familiar gap in a pile of mossy stone, lowered himself and thrust his head within. Any sane observer would have judged it impossible for the old dragon to squeeze his bulk into such a tiny hole, but Zanzeroth was practiced at the maneuver, knowing when to exhale, and when to push and twist and kick. In seconds he was through the gap and into the hidden, dank cave that was his true home.
 In his youth the cave had felt enormous, a world of its own. Now Zanzeroth recognized that it was smaller than the smallest room in the palace, too small to stand straight in, barely thirty feet from front to back, and half again as wide. The place still had the familiar smell of decay. During the spring melt-off, the island often flooded; he remembered waking to rising water many times.
 Around the room were ledges that always remained inches above the high-water mark. These ledges contained Zanzeroth’s treasures. He cast around the ledges, each item provoking memories. Here were the antlers of the largest buck he’d ever killed. The tusks of an enormous boar he’d killed on a hunt with Gloreziel had been gilded by the king and presented as a trophy. He found his old whip, thirty feet of braided leather. He remembered the summer he’d spent mastering it. In his prime, he could knock flies from the air.
 But what he’d come here for was hidden behind a trio of human skulls. These had been leaders of the southern rebellion twenty years ago. Their tattooed, tanned hides now decorated the king’s own trophy room. Behind their skulls were the trophies of real value: their swords. Still gleaming and razor sharp despite decades in a damp hole, the swords had been made from a mysterious metal that never rusted. He’d kept the blades hidden from the king but did risk showing them once to Vendevorex. The wizard had declared that the blades weren’t magic, but were, in fact, remnants of the same civilization that had built the ghost roads, crafted from something called “stainless steel.” Despite the wizard’s explanation, Zanzeroth always felt there was something supernatural about the swords. A thousand-year-old blade shouldn’t have a mirrored finish. Zanzeroth studied himself in the narrow sliver of silver, his one good eye golden in the dim light seeping through the gaps in the rock above. He examined his torn cheek, his scaly hide stitched together by Gadreel with a horsehair thread. The wound was swollen and black with dried blood. It was going to be an interesting scar.
 His whole body was a mass of interesting scars. Why did this wound haunt him so? He’d had close calls before. Indeed, one of the three ancient blades had once cut a foot-long gash in his belly that provided him with the enthralling opportunity to gaze upon his own intestines. Why did this fresh wound so remind him of his mortality? He was old, true, but still healthy, still in command of his wits. But for how much longer?
 He bundled up the three blades in an old bear hide and tossed them from the cave. On a whim he decided to take the whip as well.
 He slithered back out into the open air. Now, to find Cron. This wasn’t a particular challenge since he’d found Cron’s trail earlier at Bodiel’s murder scene. Following it was as easy as following a hallway. Broken branches, torn leaves, footprints in the mud: all led to a thicket a quarter mile away from where Bodiel had fallen. Zanzeroth found the impression of Cron’s body in the forest debris behind a fallen log. The slave had apparently hidden there for some time before rising again. More interesting than the impression of Cron’s body, however, were the many breadcrumbs and the discarded apple core. Cron did have an accomplice after all. Bitterwood? Zanzeroth searched for a second set of human footprints and instead found the hind-talon marks of a sky-dragon. He bent low to catch the scent, an all too familiar one. Vendevorex. He should have known the wizard had been involved in this. The wizard’s fondness for humans was well known.
 And yet . . . Why would Vendevorex have plotted against Bodiel? Helping Cron survive may have fit within the wizard’s quirks, but working to harm Bodiel seemed too . . . active. There was more to this story than footprints alone were going to tell. Perhaps Cron himself would be more talkative.
 “WAIT HERE,” said Vendevorex, peering through the branches toward the town beyond.
 Jandra stepped forward for a closer look. She was glad they were hidden by the trees and not relying on her maintaining the invisibility shield. It left her free to use the same technique she’d used in the tower to turn the water into mist to gently dry out her clothes and hair, still damp from her plunge into the river.
 They were hidden within a small grove of trees on the outskirts of Richmond, a human town several miles upriver from Albekizan’s palace. Richmond was a thriving place, built beside a long stretch of rapids. A canal running through the town connected the broad, deep river below the town with the swifter, yet still navigable river that wound up into the mountains. A gateway between the ocean and the mountains, Richmond bustled with activity as the wealth of the kingdom flowed through it. Vendevorex and Jandra watched the nearby river docks. A few dozen people could be seen going about their business.
 “Where are you going?” Jandra asked.
 “I think our best course at this point will be to take a boat,” Vendevorex said. “We can save our strength rather than exhausting ourselves on foot.”
 “When you say take a boat, do you mean steal a boat?” Jandra asked.
 Vendevorex turned his long, narrow face to her. His face was back to normal. He’d taken ten minutes to concentrate on the cut to his cheek, and now there was little sign of the wound, only a thin, pale line of blue scales that were fresher than the others.
 “Yes,” he said flatly. “I mean steal.”
 “But—”
 Vendevorex raised his talon to his mouth in a gesture of silence.
 Jandra clenched her jaw at the dismissive signal. She understood, of course, the danger they were in. But it always bothered her the way that dragons treated human property as their own. “People need—”
 “These people are all dead,” Vendevorex said. “You saw the slaughter in the courtyard. It’s only a matter of time before the king’s troops descend on this place. Albekizan means to kill every last human in his kingdom. These people have much greater things to worry about than a missing boat.”
 Jandra could hardly breathe. She had thought that the king was slaughtering only the palace workers in retribution for Bodiel’s death.
 “Did . . . did you say . . .” she could barely think the thought, let alone speak it.
 “Every last human,” said Vendevorex.
 “We have to stop him!” Jandra said. “We have to go back!”
 “We would return to our deaths,” Vendevorex said. “We escaped due to the haste with which I acted. We had the element of surprise. I turn invisible, not invulnerable. You of all people know how many of my magics are based on illusions. In a direct, violent confrontation with Albekizan, I could possibly best him, but then what? If I kill him, we’ll wind up with anarchy, or worse, under the rule of a buffoon such as Kanst. I see no immediate good options.”
 “B-but, you’re his advisor. You can reason with the king, can’t you?”
 “Albekizan’s notion of reason was to lock you in a cell to blackmail me into assisting him. I defied him, Jandra, for your sake. I won’t throw away our lives by returning to the castle.”
 “Then, what? We sit idly by while all of humanity is slaughtered?”
 Vendevorex shook his head slowly. “I . . . I need time to think. Let me secure a boat. There may be allies we can contact. Albekizan’s decision to wipe out the human race will meet with opposition from other sun-dragons, I’m sure of this.”
 “We should at least warn the people of Richmond,” Jandra said. “Give them time to flee.”
 “We’ll do nothing of the sort,” said Vendevorex. “We must be careful to leave no clues of having passed this way. I’m certain Albekizan’s troops are searching for us. Worse still, he may put Zanzeroth on our trail. We can’t be careless.”
 “I can’t believe you,” Jandra said. She was thinking about the cries from the courtyard. She remembered the wet sound the axe made as it fell. Perhaps Vendevorex was content to allow these people to die, but she would have no part of it.
 Without another word, she ran. Vendevorex reached to grab her but she slipped past his grasp and dashed from the trees, heading for the docks.
 “Run!” she shouted. “Run! Albekizan wants to kill you!”
 Instead of running, the men working on the docks merely looked up, bewildered. As she drew closer and her shouts grew more urgent, more people emerged from boats and buildings to see what the commotion was.
 She reached a gray-bearded man who stood coiling rope at one of the nearest boats.
 “Calm down, girl,” the man said. His eyes twinkled with bemusement against this leathery, tanned face. “What’s wrong?”
 “You’re all in terrible danger,” she said. “You need to run. Albekizan plans to kill everyone.”
 The old man chuckled. “Is that right?”
 More men approached.
 “What’s wrong?” a young man shouted as he strolled up.
 “This girl says the king wants to kill us!” the old man said, sounding amused.
 “He’s doing a good job of it,” another man shouted. “Takes half my wages in taxes, he does. That wicked old beast is starving my family.”
 “Let the king try something,” another man shouted, brandishing a large, dangerous-looking hook. “He shows his scaly hide around here, I’ll give him what for.”
 Jandra was out of breath. She bent forward, resting her hands on her knees, and said, “Please. This isn’t a joke. He’s killing people right now in the palace.”
 A tall man appeared on the deck of a large boat twenty yards away.
 “Oi!” he shouted to the assembled men. “Get back to work. We’re behind schedule already.”
 The gray-bearded man shouted back, “Girl here says Albekizan’s killing people. I reckon this means we can take the rest of the day off.”
 The crowd of men laughed.
 Then, as one, the men turned pale and sucked in their breath, their eyes fixed behind Jandra.
 Jandra turned.
 Albekizan dropped from the sky, only a few steps away. As his shadow fell over her she suddenly felt very, very small.
 Albekizan landed, his weight on his hind claws, his enormous wings spread for balance, the tip of his tail swaying like a cat’s with prey in sight. His red scales glistened as if wet from blood. His eyes smoldered with hatred.
 “You mock me?” he roared. “I’ll kill the lot of you!”
 Suddenly, the dock shuddered and banged with the panicked dance of a hundred feet. The men behind Jandra fled, some leaping into the river, others racing for the narrow alleys of Richmond. Inside of thirty seconds she faced Albekizan alone.
 She swallowed.
 Albekizan lowered his serpentine neck, bringing his face close to hers. His head was bigger than a horse’s, the long jaws capable of opening wide enough to close around her torso with a single chomp. His white teeth glistened with saliva. The pale wisps of feathers around the king’s nostrils swayed with each breath. Yet . . . she didn’t feel the breath, though his face was now inches from her own. And the perfumes the sun-dragons soaked themselves in . . . There was no smell.
 “Ven?” she asked.
 “That would be a lucky break for you, yes?” Albekizan said in her mentor’s voice.
 “I can’t believe you’d frighten me like this,” she said.
 “More important, I frightened the townsfolk.” The image of Albekizan fell away in a shower of sparks revealing her master at the center. “You’ve got your wish. They are warned.”
 “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I suppose they are. Let’s steal a boat and get out of here.”
 “An excellent suggestion,” said Vendevorex. “I wish I’d thought of it myself.”
CHAPTER SIX
* * *
SPARKS
TULK AND CRON had barely spoken to one another on their daylong flight along the riverbank. Tulk felt there should be a bond between them; they had been, literally, in the same boat earlier, drifting downriver until the dawn made travel by water too risky.
 Yet Cron barely looked back as he raced through the woods. He showed no willingness to slow his pace or assist Tulk who lacked his companion’s youth and stamina. It was all Tulk could do to keep up.
 At last, Cron paused at the forest’s edge, allowing Tulk to catch up. Tulk looked out at a large, reddish blob in the distance. He had no idea what he was looking at.
 “Where are we?” Tulk asked between gasps for breath.
 “That ship down there,” said Cron. “It’s Stench’s place.”
 Tulk was confused. His eyesight wasn’t great but he certainly wasn’t overlooking the river. They were facing dry land. “What ship?”
 “You really are blind, aren’t you, old man?” Cron said.
 “I see you well enough to knock in your teeth, boy,” said Tulk.
 “That big rusting thing down there . . . It’s a ship. It’s ancient. It’s on land now but centuries ago they say the river flowed through here.”
 “Is it Stench’s place?” Tulk asked. He’d heard of the tavern many times, but having spent most of his life in captivity, had never had the pleasure of drinking an ale there. “I’ve heard that it was made of iron. I never believed the stories.”
 “It’s true,” said Cron. “A priest of Kamon told me it was once a ship that could sail the oceans, built by humans before they angered the gods and fell from grace.”
 Tulk felt as if he’d been slapped.
 Cron, apparently sensing the offense, said, “What?”
 “You spoke the blasphemous name.”
 “Oh,” said Cron. “You’re one of them.”
 “You’re a Kamonite?” Tulk spat after saying the name to remove its evil from his tongue.
 “I’m not saying,” said Cron. “I take it you are a follower of Ragnar that you find such offense in his name?”
 “Kamon is an abomination,” said Tulk, spitting again. “His lies have corrupted thousands. He turns people from the true path and preaches that dragons are divine things, the offspring of angels. He wants us to be inferior and subservient to dragons.”
 “True. And you followers of Ragnar believe that we’re to fight the dragons at every turn,” said Cron. “We see how well that philosophy is working out. Men are inferior and subservient to dragons. The world will be a better place for everyone once we swallow that.”
 “You mock Ragnar’s teachings?” said Tulk. “Speak truthfully. You know Kamon’s—” Tulk abruptly stopped speaking in order to spit, “—heretical philosophies, but of course, so do I. I will not condemn you for mere knowledge. But to practice his teachings is beyond all decency. Are you, or are you not, a follower of that foul prophet?”
 Cron sighed. “I don’t think it’s any of your business. Besides, we have other things on our minds than a discussion of philosophy.”
 “I am duty bound to slay followers of Kamon,” said Tulk, stopping to spit once more. He clenched his fists. He had to know the truth. Traveling further in the company of a Kamonite could risk his very soul. “We travel no further until you answer my question. Ragnar himself would slit my throat if he knew I’d traveled this far in the company of one of the fallen. Do you follow Kamon’s teachings?” He spit once more.
 “If you keep spitting,” Cron said, “you’re going to turn to dust.”
 “I’d sooner be dust than the companion of a heretic.”
 “I don’t see any guards around Stench’s place,” said Cron, turning away from Tulk. “I’m making a run for it.”
 The young man sprinted off. Tulk followed, afraid of being stranded. They dashed across the open ground that led to the red, boxy blob. As Tulk got within a few dozen of it, he could see that Cron had spoken the truth. Stench’s place was shaped like a ship, a hundred feet long, lying on its side. Could such an enormous structure have ever floated on the water? If it had been seaworthy once, it was no longer. Age had rendered most of the ship into a mound of rust. Holes gaped in what had once been solid plates of iron. The rear of the ship had collapsed under its own weight at some point. What had once been a hatch in the deck now served as a door, reachable via rickety wooden stairs.
 “Stench!” Cron cried out as he vanished into the dark reaches of the hold.
 “I’ll be damned,” echoed a reply from the darkness. “Cron! Is it really you?”
 Tulk carefully made his way up the stairs and poked his head into the dark doorway. The first thing he noticed was, unsurprisingly, the stench. Swamp water saturated with the bloated corpses of skunks was the only odor he could compare it to. No wonder dragons steered clear of this place. He’d heard their sensitivity to smell was more developed than that of humans.
 What had once been a hold of the giant ship had been converted into a bar. The room was long and thin; a wooden ladder led down to the floor, which at one time, Tulk assumed, had been a wall. A half dozen patrons sat around, too drunk to move, slumped against the wall on low couches. A wooden plank at the end of the room served as the bar itself. Behind the bar was a metal barrel full of some sort of flaming liquid. The smoke rising from the blue-green fire carried the horrible odor that permeated the place. A bald, withered man stood next to it, smiling a toothless grin.
 “I see you brought a friend,” the old man said. “Tulk, I’m guessing. I heard you both escaped.”
 “Word travels fast,” Cron said. “Is there a price on our heads yet?”
 “Could be,” said the man who Tulk guessed to be Stench.
 Tulk climbed down the ladder. He said to Cron, “If there is a price on our heads, you shouldn’t be reminding people of it.”
 “We’re all friends here,” said Stench. “No one will turn you in. Besides, I’ve been told to treat you well by someone I’d rather not mess with.”
 “Venderex, right?” Cron asked. “The wizard. He saved us. Why’s he doing this?”
 “Can’t say,” said Stench.
 “I’ve heard he has a human companion,” said Tulk. “I thought I saw a girl at the ceremony. I kept trying to make her out. I can’t be sure, though.”
 Cron chuckled. “I noticed you gawking. Next time you’re in the presence of Ragnar, ask him to fix your eyes. That girl stood out at the ceremony. There were more eyes on her than on us, I wager.”
 “You saw her?” Tulk asked. “It’s true? The wizard has a human for a pet?”
 “Raised her like a daughter, I hear,” said Stench.
 “That’s horrible,” said Tulk. “I’d rather be a slave than a pet.”
 “Lucky you wound up in the right line of work, then,” said Stench.
 “I don’t think it would be so bad to be a pet,” said Cron. “And, if humans and dragons are both God’s creation as Kamon teaches—”
 “Again you speak his name!” Tulk said, his voice echoing against the metal walls.
 “Take care,” said Cron. “This is a bad place to be sympathetic to Ragnar. Right, Stench?”
 “Look,” said Stench. “You’re both in a bad place, period. Cron, you know I’m a loyal Kamonite like you. Every man in here is. But none of us have the luxury of squabbling about religion right now. If the king has his armies looking for you, I’ve got to get you both far down the river as soon as possible. You can spend the night here in my hidden room. Tomorrow, I’ll smuggle you downriver in a fishing boat. But when you reach the sea, you’re on your own. Tulk, if you do follow Ragnar, put aside your hatred of Kamonites long enough to get to the ocean. And Cron, can you not provoke him? It’s like you’re trying to pick a fight.”
 “Sorry,” said Cron. “I’m not in the best of moods. I’ve spent all day expecting to be murdered at any second. Knowing that it might be a fellow human that does the deed is a bit much to swallow.”
 Tulk couldn’t believe this cruel twist of fate. Alone in a den of Kamonites. To be faithful to the teachings of Ragnar would mean certain death. How many could he kill before he died, especially since he had no weapon? He gazed at the fire barrel. Perhaps he could somehow . . . then he dropped the thought. He didn’t want to get any closer to that smoke than he already was.
 “In the name of all that’s holy, what are you burning?” Tulk asked, nearly gagging as he thought about the odor.
 “My own special blend of herbs and skunk glands dissolved in hundred proof alcohol. You like it?” said Stench. “There’s pockets of stagnant water all through this place. Without the smoke we’d be sucked dry by mosquitoes. And as a bonus, it keeps dragons away. People get used to the smell. Dragons never do.”
 “No,” said a loud, deep voice from the other side of the wall. “No, I don’t think I could ever get used to this smell.”
 Tulk looked toward the iron wall in the direction of the voice. Then the whole room shook as something slammed against the metal. The noise was deafening. A shower of rust flakes fell, coating Tulk’s skin. Suddenly the room trembled again, as a red, scaly fist larger than Tulk’s head punched through the metal. The fist withdrew to be replaced by dagger-like claws that gripped the edges of the aged iron. The room shuddered as the claws peeled the metal back, popping the rivets free. The wall flew away, tossed over the shoulder of an enormous sun-dragon sporting a bandage covering his right eye.
 “Gentlemen,” said the dragon, “I’ve had a truly bad day. I intend to take it out on you.”
 ZANZEROTH LOOKED at the frightened humans cowering before him. He could barely see them. Even if he’d had both eyes, the smoke stung so badly it was all he could do not to clench them shut. He tossed the bundled swords into the exposed room.
 “Weapons, gentlemen,” said Zanzeroth. “The finest swords this world has ever seen. One of those blades had a taste of me about twenty years ago. I’m giving you the chance to finish its meal.”
 The humans didn’t move. They merely stood, slack-jawed and trembling. Zanzeroth sighed, reached out to unroll the bundle and revealed the swords. Then he took the bear skin that the swords were wrapped in and stepped back from the room to get away from the smoke and to give the men room to maneuver. There were nine people; six of them looked too inebriated to stand. But fate must have had a hand in this, given that he only brought three swords.
 Zanzeroth ripped a strip from the bear’s hide and brought it to his face, blindfolding himself.
 “I assure you, I cannot see,” said Zanzeroth. “And thanks to that horrible smoke, I can’t smell you. You’ll never have a better chance to slay me.”
 “We don’t want to fight,” one of the men said.
 “Then I’ll kill you without you putting up a struggle. Or you can kill me first. I’ll be fighting unarmed. Tooth and claw versus steel. I honestly think you have a chance.”
 “Why are you doing this?” another asked.
 “To find out if I’m wrong,” Zanzeroth said with a slight nod. “To find out if I’m still the dragon I think I am. I’ll silently count to three. Then I will kill you if you choose not to fight.”
 Zanzeroth fell silent and spread his wings. Sightless and without the benefit of smell, he could rely only on his hearing and the sensitivity of his wings to small changes in air pressure. In theory, he should know if one of the men rushed him.
 And in practice, the sound of their footfalls on the iron floor fixed their positions in his mind. He heard the scrape of metal against metal as the men grabbed the weapons. Then, one said, “Kamon teaches obedience to dragons. If one asks us to kill him, who are we to deny that wish?”
 Suddenly, two feet rapidly advanced. A grunt. A rush of wind ruffled the feather-scales of his wings. One of the men—the youngest, Cron, judging by the stride—had leapt from the ledge on which they stood and became level with Zanzeroth’s chest. With his sword extended the arc of his dive would drive the shining steel blade deep into Zanzeroth’s gut.
 It was a bold and powerful attack, if the blade had stood any chance of reaching its target. With a flap of his wings Zanzeroth launched himself a yard into the air and kicked out with his hind claws. His talons sank into his opponent’s torso, snapping bone, puncturing lung. He kicked again to send the corpse flying and readied himself for the next attack.
 Only, as he listened, he heard another blow, of steel striking bone, followed by a gurgle. With a clang a body fell to the iron floor. Then, a movement in the air . . . Another of his foes had leapt . . . but not at him. The unseen man leapt to the side. He heard the man hit ground and collapse. And the third man . . . The third man was responsible for the wet gurgling noise from directly in front of him.
 With a sigh, Zanzeroth removed his blindfold.
 The oldest of the three men lay before him with a sword in his back. Off to the side the slave Tulk was struggling to his feet. Zanzeroth took a moment to look at Cron’s body, slumped on top of the rusting metal. Zanzeroth felt pleased at the amount of damage he’d done to his opponent. He’d given death every chance to take him and survived, even blind and unarmed. It hadn’t been age that had cost him an eye . . . it had been carelessness. He could never regain his youth but he could sharpen his wits. Zanzeroth felt certain that when he met the man who’d taken his eye, even if he was the legendary Bitterwood, their next fight would end differently. And were he to stumble over a certain invisible wizard . . . Well, an invisible foe and a visible one are all the same if your eyes are closed.
 Tulk was now limping off and making quite good speed considering that his ankle was broken. Without bothering to look at the slave, Zanzeroth freed the loop of braided leather from his hip and whipped it to the side, snaring Tulk by his damaged ankle. Tulk shrieked like a wounded rabbit as Zanzeroth pulled him from his feet and dangled him before his eyes.
 “Why did you kill your friend?” he asked.
 “He was no friend!” Tulk shouted. “He was a filthy Kamonite!” Tulk spat, the spittle landing on Zanzeroth’s leg. “His kind shall not be suffered to live!”
 “I see,” said Zanzeroth. “Since you’re in a talkative mood, I want you to tell me what you know about Bitterwood.”
 “Bitterwood?” Tulk asked, plainly bewildered. “Why do you want to hear ghost stories?”
 From the tone, Zanzeroth could tell this wasn’t a bluff. Tulk knew nothing of Bitterwood’s involvement. “If it wasn’t Bitterwood, who killed Bodiel?”
 “I don’t know!” said Tulk. “Neither Cron nor I knew Bodiel was dead until we were told so.”
 “By whom?” Zanzeroth asked, giving the dangling human’s leg a jerk.
 “I didn’t see him!” said Tulk, his voice cracking with pain. “Cron and Stench said it was the king’s wizard. But I never saw him. I only heard a voice in the night.”
 “You are proving to be something of a disappointment,” said Zanzeroth. “Shouting out the answers is robbing me of a good excuse to torture you.”
 “There’s no need for that,” said Tulk, sounding resigned. “You’ve caught me. I’m a slave. Just take me back.”
 “So you can escape again? I don’t think so. And as a slave, may I point out that you disobeyed a direct order to fight me? And killed a man who might have? I don’t think I need to wait for Albekizan’s orders to know your fate.”
 Zanzeroth lifted the human higher. He carried him to the smoking barrel.
 “Please,” said Tulk. “I’ve told you everything I know!”
 “I believe you,” said Zanzeroth. Then he lowered the struggling man headfirst through the flames into the smoky liquid. Tulk splashed and struggled, sending the foul smelling goop everywhere for a moment or two. Zanzeroth grimaced, knowing this wasn’t something he would enjoy licking from his talons.
 Tulk’s struggles grew increasingly feeble. He fell still, then kicked once more. Then once again, before his muscles went slack.
 Finally, Zanzeroth dropped him into the barrel. He stepped back, gathering his prized swords. Some of the horrible fluid had splashed onto one of the blades. If this didn’t corrode the finish, nothing would. Zanzeroth glanced back at the half dozen drunken men who still held their positions, staring at him in terror.
 “Gentlemen,” said Zanzeroth. He tilted his head toward the bar. “Drinks are on me.”
 Then with a leap and a flap, he took to the sky.
 AS NIGHT FELL, the dragons assembled at the edge of the Burning Ground. This ceremonial field was a circle many hundred yards across, the ground now permanently blackened with the soot of many generations of funeral pyres. Earth-dragon guards stood around the edges, their bodies painted in solemn ceremonial hues of gray. They stood as still as statues as the royalty of the kingdom strode past.
 At the center of the dark circle was a tower of pine logs and, atop a platform at the peak, Bodiel rested, surrounded by flowers. The air was rich with the scent of pine.
 This was the first time Albekizan had seen either of his sons since the previous night. He glanced toward the piled logs that bore Bodiel’s corpse. For a brief instant, he thought he saw his beloved son breathe once more. It was only a trick of the light as the warm evening breeze sent a ripple across Bodiel’s feather-scales.
 Shandrazel stood defiantly before Albekizan. The king studied his surviving son. He should have felt pride. Shandrazel had grown into a marvelous specimen. The prince was equal to Albekizan in size; his scales had the richness and luster of rubies, his face bore the sharp, clean lines of his noble heritage. It was only when the king looked into his eyes that he felt his heart sag. Bodiel’s eyes had always been proud. Bodiel’s eyes were windows through which his strength and fire could be seen. Bodiel’s eyes were eyes that watched the world, constantly searching for threat and opportunity. Bodiel had possessed the eyes of a warrior born.
 Shandrazel had none of these qualities. He had the eyes of a dragon who looked primarily within himself. There had always been an introspective, contemplative side to Shandrazel that Albekizan recognized as weakness. Shandrazel was a dragon who valued thought over action.
 “You disappoint me, Shandrazel,” Albekizan said. “It breaks my heart to reward your cowardly performance in the contest. Only countless generations of tradition lead me to say what I will say next. By default, I decree that you have won the contest with Bodiel. As your reward, you are to be banished. Should we ever lay eyes upon one another again, it must be in mortal combat.”
 “If I refuse?” said Shandrazel.
 “You will not refuse,” Albekizan growled.
 Metron, who stood beside the king, said, “It is the way, Shandrazel. It is written in the Book of Theranzathax that the victor of the contest must flee from his father. Return only when you feel strong enough to defeat him. In this way the kingdom will be assured a mightier king.”
 “I didn’t win the contest. I didn’t even chase the human.”
 “When one of the contestants is slain, the other wins. It is written,” said Metron.
 “I know what’s written. I don’t choose to obey the words of someone who died ten centuries ago. There’s no logic behind them. Father, you boast of having conquered the entirety of the world. Where, precisely, am I to flee?”
 “Shandrazel,” Albekizan said, “if you do not flee now, I will slay you where you stand.”
 Shandrazel looked into Albekizan’s eyes. Albekizan steeled himself, letting no hint of regret show in his features. In Shandrazel’s eyes, he could see confusion. Shame welled up in Albekizan’s soul. How could his royal bloodline have produced such a weak, unpromising candidate for the throne?
 “But—” said Shandrazel.
 “Go!” Albekizan cried, lunging forward. If Shandrazel didn’t leave, Albekizan felt sure that he would sink his teeth into his son’s throat, even though it would break all law and tradition.
 Shandrazel stepped back, cast one last glance toward his sobbing mother, then turned and opened his wings to the night sky. In minutes he was only a small dark shadow against the stars. Shooting stars began to slip from the heavens like tears.
 Albekizan walked back to Tanthia’s side.
 “Light the pyre,” Metron said.
 The choir of sky-dragons rose in pitch as the heat of the torch touched the kindling. The fire ate hungrily, rising quickly up the stacked wood to lick at the flowers wreathing Bodiel. The smoke soon took on the acrid aroma of burning scales.
 Metron opened the ancient leather-bound tome he held. He spoke the words written in the Book of Theranzathax without ever glancing down at the text.
 “Asrafel crawled onto a bed of dry branches, and poured oil on his fevered brow, and called for his children.
 “And he spoke, ‘In the winter, we breathe steam, for within we are flame. The fever that burns me is the flame of my own life, and no longer shall my skin stand between the world and myself. As long as this flame burns, I am alive, and as smoke I shall mingle among you. You shall breathe me and I will become part of you, and as I touch your eyes you shall cry, not in sorrow, but in joy, for I am with you still.’
 “As he spoke the oil upon his brow smoldered, and the flame within him burst free, to blaze in the night. His children took up branches from the flame, and forever nourished these torches, using the light of Asrafel to carve the world from darkness.”
 Metron closed the book and approached the bonfire that now howled with life. He placed an unlit torch into the fire and when he pulled it forth it burned with the presence of Bodiel. Metron turned to stand before Tanthia.
 “Take this flame and never let it die. May the love of your son blaze hot and bright.”
 Tanthia moved her mouth as if speaking, but her words couldn’t be heard over the roar of the bonfire. She accepted the torch, holding it tightly in her grasp.
 All the while, Albekizan looked on, watching the sparks rise from the bonfire to mix among the stars. As each tiny red point vanished in the darkness, he experienced the loss of his son once more. He stared again at the bonfire, feeling himself at one with the raging flame. The inferno sizzled and cracked and roared, and the noise was music to Albekizan’s soul. In the religion of flame, heaven comes when all the world is ash.
CHAPTER SEVEN
* * *
SCHEMES
SHANDRAZEL ROSE into the starry night, not believing the turn his life had taken. Behind him the chorus sang as the pyre was lit; it broke his heart that he wasn’t even allowed to mourn his brother.
 The most difficult thing to swallow was how plainly he’d been warned that this moment would come. Since he’d been a fledging, he’d been taught the ceremony of secession. He’d witnessed the drama unfold over the years as one by one his older brothers vanished, banished from the kingdom, or disappearing in shame into the libraries of the biologians. Why had he never accepted that this would be his fate? Why had he been so certain that he, alone, among countless generations of royalty, could break the chains of superstition and introduce a new age of reason?
 By now he was far beyond the river. He was a swift, powerful flyer; miles could pass during a moment lost to thought. It did him no good to fly blind. He needed to pick a destination. There must be some place in the kingdom where he could find shelter.
 He looked to his left, searching the heavens for the pole star, But for some reason the stars were blotted out. He startled as he realized that he was in the company of another sun-dragon, dark and hidden in the night.
 It was Zanzeroth. He raced toward Shandrazel on an intentional collision course. Shandrazel banked hard, pulling up to avoid the old stalker. His speed and strength gave him the edge; Zanzeroth passed beneath him with a yard to spare. Without warning, something snaked through the air with a snap, entangling his leg. Searing pain flashed up his spine as his body whipped to a halt. Suddenly, he was falling, dragged by Zanzeroth’s dead weight as the old dragon folded his wings. Shandrazel stretched to grab as much air as he could to slow their descent. Still they plummeted.
 Then, only a few feet above the treetops, Zanzeroth opened his wings once more, catching his own weight. Shandrazel tried to recover from the sudden change in balance, but it was too late. The branches snatched and dragged at him, yanking him into the canopy. He crashed unceremoniously onto the leafy floor of the forest.
 Shandrazel lay on his belly, stunned, all breath knocked from his body, until sharp claws wrapped themselves in the fringe of scales along his skull and jerked his head back. A cold sliver of steel pressed against his throat.
 “You’re working with the wizard, aren’t you?” hissed Zanzeroth. “You’re up to your eyeballs in this. You could have won the contest fairly . . . Instead you conspired to have your brother killed.”
 “That’s insane,” Shandrazel spat.
 “Is it? Who profits more from your brother’s death?”
 “I wanted no profit! I publicly defied my father and pleaded to have Bodiel appointed king!”
 “A clever cover,” said Zanzeroth. “I confess, I was fooled until I had time to eliminate the false leads. Then I was left with the obvious.”
 Shandrazel had heard enough. He jerked his head backward, slamming into the old dragon’s snout. He raised his fore-claw to catch the wrist that held the blade to his throat and twisted, forcing the weapon away. Zanzeroth was a skilled, experienced fighter, but Shandrazel had youth, speed, and strength to spare. He yanked the stalker free from his back, slamming him to the ground. A tall, narrow pine toppled as Zanzeroth’s hips cracked against it. Shandrazel sprang to his feet, bracing for a new attack.
 “You senile old idiot,” Shandrazel said, his voice crackling with anger. “Your stunt could have killed us both. All over some baseless theory!”
 Zanzeroth’s wings lay limp as blankets on the forest floor. The twitch of his tail revealed him to be conscious, however. The old dragon took a ragged breath, then chuckled.
 “If I’d wanted to kill you, the whip would have gone around your neck rather than your leg,” Zanzeroth said.
 “And if I wanted to kill you,” said Shandrazel, “I’d snap your old neck in two before you ever saw me move.”
 “I believe you could,” said Zanzeroth. “You never lacked ability as a warrior. Only bloodlust. You fight only with your brains, never with your heart.”
 “You didn’t chase me down to critique my fighting techniques,” said Shandrazel.
 “Didn’t I? I honestly believed you planned Bodiel’s murder. But if you had, would I still be alive? You’d have killed me to silence me. I’m disappointed, not for the first time tonight. I guess you might be innocent after all.”
 “You should know I’m no murderer,” said Shandrazel.
 “But I had hope,” said Zanzeroth with a sigh. “Hope that you were a schemer, a deceiver, a cheat, and a killer. Hope that you had what it takes after all.”
 “What it takes?”
 “To come back,” Zanzeroth said. His joints popped as he rolled to his belly, raising himself on all fours, stretching his long neck to limber it. “I hoped you’d do your duty and kill Albekizan.”
 “You’re his oldest friend,” said Shandrazel. “How can you wish such a thing?”
 “What is the future you envision? A world where your father grows increasingly old and feeble until death claims him in his sleep? This is not an honorable way to die. In his decline, the kingdom would crumble. A loving son would sever his jugular while he still enjoys life.”
 “A world where old dragons may die in their sleep doesn’t frighten me,” said Shandrazel.
 Keeping his eyes fixed on Shandrazel, Zanzeroth rose. Shandrazel tensed his muscles as Zanzeroth reached for a pouch slung low on his hip. The hunter’s old, dry hide sounded like rustling paper as he moved. He untied the clasp of the leather bag and produced two round, red things the size of melons. He tossed them toward Shandrazel’s feet.
 They were severed human heads, their bloodless white faces in sharp contrast with their gore-soaked hair and the brown-crusted stumps of their necks.
 “Cron,” said Zanzeroth, “and Tulk.”
 Shandrazel supposed it to be true. The faces were too distorted by death to be recognizable.
 “Did you think you would spare them last night by not hunting?” Zanzeroth asked.
 Shandrazel shrugged. “I hadn’t given their ultimate fates a great deal of thought. But yes, part of me hoped they’d be forgotten in the confusion.”
 Zanzeroth cast his gaze down at the severed heads. He stood taller as if drinking in the sight of them gave him strength. “Do you enjoy looking upon dead men, Shandrazel?”
 “Of course not,” said Shandrazel. “What kind of question is that?”
 “Perhaps not so much a question as a warning. Your father plans to kill all the humans. He will build monuments from their bones. Pyramids of human skulls will rise from the fields. The species will be driven into extinction.”
 “I don’t believe you,” said Shandrazel.
 “The beauty of truth is that belief plays no part in whether it happens or not.”
 “Why would father do this?” said Shandrazel.
 “Is it important?” asked Zanzeroth. “From where I stand, the only thing that’s really important is that no one can stop him. Nothing will save the humans . . . except, perhaps, a new king.”
 “You’ve come here to tempt me, then,” said Shandrazel.
 “Take my words as you wish,” said Zanzeroth, turning away and limping into the shadows. “I will take my leave.”
 SAFELY BEYOND Shandrazel’s sight, Zanzeroth slumped against a tree. His head throbbed from the blow Shandrazel had dealt; his whole body was bruised and numb. He could barely feel his left leg. There was no doubt about it. If Shandrazel grew a spine, he would be a formidable match for his father. Perhaps the prince’s misguided sense of affection toward humans might save them yet.
 Not that Zanzeroth gave a damn about the human race, as a lot. But somewhere among them was the man who stole his eye. With the king’s policy of killing off the whole species, Bitterwood, or the man pretending to be him, might be lost. If the king were to poison the wells of the humans, and his assailant were to die anonymously, just one bloated corpse among millions, Zanzeroth would never find satisfaction. Thus, it was in his best interests to complicate the king’s plans. And if Shandrazel was to be the tool, so be it.
 SHANDRAZEL FLEW through the night and day, past the point of exhaustion. Tradition held that he had twenty-four hours to escape the kingdom. At nightfall, all subjects of the king were duty bound to kill him. His older brothers were all reported to have flown toward the Ghostlands, the cursed, dead cities that littered the northern wastes. There were rumors of powerful magics within the Ghostlands; Shandrazel had himself been tempted by the promise of exploring the unknown. And yet the day found him heading south, deeper into the lands held by Albekizan rather than to the possible safety of the north. He was determined to reach the one place in the kingdom where he knew he would find kindred spirits: the College of Spires.
 Evening was evident in the blood-touched tint of the clouds. His target was finally in sight. From the seemingly endless canopy of emerald trees that blanketed this rolling land, the hundred gleaming copper spires of the college emerged. This was a city built long ago by biologians as a place for the finest minds of the kingdom to gather and study the great mysteries of life. And more so than his father’s castle, this was the place Shandrazel truly thought of as home. He’d been educated here, spending years studying the collections of tomes and scrolls and leather-bound journals housed in the libraries. More importantly, he’d been challenged here; the Biologian Chapelion, Master of the University, had taken him under his wing (though, not literally, given that Shandrazel was twice his size) and mentored him. Through endless hours of arguments, he’d taught Shandrazel the art of discerning truth from fiction. Some called Chapelion the ultimate cynic, a skeptic who believed in nothing. But Shandrazel knew, in fact, that Chapelion was the ultimate romantic—so deeply in love with truth he would never be seduced by convenient or comfortable falsehoods.
 Shandrazel could credit Chapelion for his own stance against the ancient mythologies that shackled the races of dragons. If there was one place on earth that was certain to provide sanctuary, it was here.
 The dense forest canopy gave way to green rolling hills dotted with tall oaks. Sky-dragons on the gravel paths below pointed toward the sky. Some rose to join him, shouting out his name. Soon, he traveled with a score of young sky-dragons. From the nearby spires, bells chimed a welcome.
 Shandrazel spotted a good landing site. He angled his wings to slow himself, drifting gently down toward a white fountain that sat in the center of the college. A trio of marble sun-dragons craned their necks toward the sky from the center of the fountain, water bubbling from their open mouths and spilling into a pool below, green with water lilies. Shandrazel came to rest on the edge of the fountain, his talons grasping the familiar stone. The scent here was well remembered; the lively, humid air of the fountain square brought back recollections of debates stretching through long, warm nights. For the first time in two days, he felt safe. The sky-dragons that shadowed him landed as well, joining a growing crowd. In the moment it took Shandrazel to regain his breath after such a prolonged flight, he was surrounded by a sea of blue faces, all eyes fixed upon him. His name was spoken a hundred times in tones ranging from curious and excited to worried as the crowd speculated on the reason for his presence. From the cacophony of voices speaking his name, his ears found a welcome voice.
 “Shandrazel!” It was Chapelion. The Master Biologian emerged from the crowd, draped in the green silk scarves that denoted his rank among the scholars. “You’ve come back!”
 “An interesting assertion,” said Shandrazel, falling back into the ongoing joke he shared with his former mentor. “I admit there’s anecdotal testimony to support your claim, but do you have any physical evidence?”
 In response, Chapelion punched him in the thigh.
 “Ow,” said Shandrazel.
 “Ow, indeed,” said Chapelion. “Why have you come here? Where is your mind? How can you be so thoughtless?”
 “Thoughtless?”
 “It’s nearly nightfall,” Chapelion said, looking up at the red sky. “In moments, I, and everyone in this crowd will be bound by law to slay you. This is a dangerous gamble you’re taking, Shandrazel.”
 “You, sir, are the dragon who taught me that an unjust law may be disobeyed in good conscious. This is no gamble. I’ve come here to seek sanctuary and your advice.”
 “You’ll receive neither,” said Chapelion.
 “Please,” said Shandrazel. “If you’ll listen to me, I—”
 “No!” snapped Chapelion, his scaly brow furrowing until his eyes were mere slits. “Your presence here dooms us all! We are scholars, not warriors. If Albekizan’s armies come here, there are no walls to protect us, no gates to defend.”
 “He need not learn I’m here,” said Shandrazel. “Is there a dragon among this crowd who would betray me? I know I can count on your loyalty. We citizens of the college are bound with a camaraderie that may endure any test.”
 “You fool!” said Chapelion. “Did I teach you nothing in your years here? You dare speak of camaraderie when your reckless action could mean the death of every student before you. You speak of loyalty yet apparently give no care that Albekizan may torch these hallowed spires and render to ash the accumulated wisdom of three hundred generations. Leave this place!”
 “But, sir . . .” Shandrazel’s voice trailed off as Chapelion turned from him. From the tower the evening bell tolled, marking the arrival of sunset.
 “Kill him,” barked Chapelion as the crowd parted to allow him passage.
 The crowd closed once more in his wake. In mass, the sky-dragons crept toward Shandrazel, their eyes showing fear.
 “Stay back!” Shandrazel shouted, lowering his head and opening his jaws wide to brandish his perfect, knifelike teeth. “I don’t want to hurt anyone!”
 Then from behind, a stone smacked into his shoulder. Shandrazel spun, his talons extended. He was completely encircled. The sky dragons were pulling the larger stones from the gravel walkways. A second stone flew toward him, glancing his wing. He retreated back into the shallow waters of the fountain. More rocks rained down. He was fortunate that the pathways held few stones larger than pebbles. But though the stone missiles caused little physical pain, each blow hammered into Shandrazel’s mind the awful truth. He was alone. There was no shelter here.
 A splash in the fountain behind him signaled the rush of one of the bolder students. Shandrazel whipped his tail in an arc, catching his unseen attacker in the neck. There was a louder splash as the dragon fell. Shandrazel growled then charged to the edge of the fountain, snapping his jaws inches from the nearest student. The crowd roiled as dragons stumbled into one another, trying to avoid Shandrazel. He raked his wings across the crowd front, knocking students from their feet and causing shouts of panic to fill the air.
 A circle expanded around him. Outnumbered a hundred to one, a sun-dragon was still a frightful force. In their wide, frightened eyes, Shandrazel could see every dragon before him wondering if they would be the one snapped in twain by his powerful jaws. Their fear stirred his soul to anger. Was this how a fellow scholar was to be treated?
 Then, like a flood, shame washed away the anger. What was he doing? Was he prepared to fight and kill every last one of these students? If he weren’t, he knew his father would. Chapelion was right, as always. Shandrazel had betrayed these students by coming here.
 “Anyone who tries to follow me is dead,” he growled, then spread his wings and rushed back toward the fountain. He leapt to the rim of the fountain and flapped with all his might, taking to the air, the downbeat of this wings knocking the smaller sky-dragons from their feet. He skimmed over the crowd, rising slowly, climbing with effort among the spires. His wings felt like lead; he’d flown two hundred miles to come here.
 Two hundred miles, to reach the start of a journey to which he saw no end.
 FOG COVERED the moonlit valley as Jandra watched from the window of the log cabin. Vendevorex was asleep; the cooler clime of the mountains they’d taken refuge in these last two weeks seemed to stir an unspeakable weariness in her mentor. In the hours when Vendevorex wasn’t sleeping, he would take mysterious trips down into the valley to conduct business about which he wouldn’t discuss with her.
 Jandra’s world had shrunk to the four wooden walls of the rustic cabin and a circle of a hundred yards around it that she’d been gleaning for firewood. She was bored. She’d gladly devour a book on the anatomy of mollusks if she’d had one handy; she’d even read the acknowledgements and the footnotes.
 She went back to where Vendevorex lay in the corner. He was curled onto a pad of wool blankets with a patchwork quilt draped over him. His chest heaved slightly as he slumbered.
 A small fire still glowed in the fireplace but cast little warmth. An iron pot hung on a hook over the fire; it held the leftovers of a stew of squirrels and some potatoes Vendevorex had smuggled from a farmer’s cellar. They’d been eating the same stew three days now. Jandra couldn’t help but think back to the feast held at the palace the night before the contest. She imagined the tables piled high with roasts and freshly harvested vegetables and crusty breads frosted with white flour. She could still taste the grilled trout she’d consumed that night; for desert she’d had fresh strawberries in syrup.
 She sighed, trying not to think of it. Looking out over the moonlight fog she suddenly felt cold. To fight the chill, Jandra lay down beside Vendevorex, resting her head on his shoulder and pulling the large quilt over her as well. The quilt was musty. It had been in the cabin when they found it; there was no way to tell how old it was. The wool pads beneath her were rough and scratchy.
 Resting next to Vendevorex triggered dim fragments of memory. When she’d been a mere baby he’d cradled her. His musky, reptilian scent made her feel that all was right with the world. She had no memories of her parents before Vendevorex. He’d told her they died in a fire and she alone had survived. She’d asked if she might still have surviving relatives, some distant cousin perhaps, but Vendevorex claimed that his research into the matter was fruitless. Her dead family had been migrants that had come to work Albekizan’s harvest. No one knew where they’d come from. Jandra had no idea what her birth name might be.
 Most of the time, her former identity didn’t matter. Now that they were on the run, homeless and hunted, she wondered about the truth. Did she have remnants of a family out in the far reaches of Albekizan’s kingdom? Was there someone in the world she might yet turn to for help in this awful time?
 Vendevorex was lucky, sleeping as he pleased. Jandra hadn’t slept soundly since they’d left the castle. Hours passed in the darkness as she alternated between dwelling on her worries and drifting through her memories.
 Sometimes, in the weightless, dark void of pre-slumber, she could still smell the smoke of that long ago fire that had taken her family, and still see the blue talons reaching down into her crib to rescue her.
 Then, just as sleep was taking her, Vendevorex stirred, waking her. She could tell from his breathing that he was fully awake. However he set his internal clock, an alarm had been triggered. She sat up and asked, “Is something wrong?”
 “No,” he said, rising and freeing himself from the quilt. He stretched, his broad wings touching the far walls of the cabin. The diamonds that studded his wings glimmered red in the firelight. “I’ll be back in a few hours,” he said.
 “Where are you going?”
 “Gathering,” he said.
 “At this hour? What? Are you going to steal more potatoes?”
 “Perhaps. Or I may go and see about acquiring better quarters. I should say no more,” Vendevorex said, shaking his head. “I don’t want to raise false hope.”
 “Ven, I need hope, false or not,” Jandra said. “Another day here in this cabin and I’ll go crazy. We can’t just wait here while Albekizan is killing the entire human race.”
 “Then I can give you genuine hope,” said Vendevorex. “The slaughter has yet to begin, according to my sources. Albekizan killed the workers of the palace and then stopped. No broad order to kill humans was issued to the kingdom at large. Perhaps his rage has abated. More likely, I fear, he’s merely taking the time to plot a bolder strategy. If my meeting tonight is fruitful, we may soon be in a better position to gather news.”
 “Meeting?” Jandra asked. “Who are you seeing? I want to come.”
 “That would be unwise,” said Vendevorex. “Again, I’ve said too much.”
 “Ven, you wouldn’t have said it unless you really wanted to tell me. It’s out in the open now. What’s going on?”
 Vendevorex moved to the window of the cabin and looked out over the valley. He studied the scene for a moment, lost in thought.
 “Very well,” he said. “Queen Tanthia had a brother who was killed by Albekizan’s brother, Blasphet. His name was Terranax; his wife was Chakthalla. She dwells in a castle about fifty miles from here. She manages these lands for Albekizan; socially, she’s well connected. More importantly, she has an affection toward humans.”
 “She treats them like show dogs, you mean,” said Jandra. “I know her by reputation. She buys and sells humans based on their breeding.”
 “Precisely,” said Vendevorex, sounding pleased that Jandra understood this point. “As you see, she has an economic interest in thwarting Albekizan. More, if what I’ve learned of is true and Blasphet is involved in this dirty work, then she has an emotional stake in stopping the scheme as well. She’s our best hope.”
 “Fine,” said Jandra. She had little use for the sun-dragons who bred and displayed their pet humans; perhaps that was because she was only a mutt in their eyes. As a foundling, she had no noble lineage to boast of. But mutt or no, she was willing to swallow her pride if it meant getting access to an actual bed and to something to eat besides squirrel stew.
 “I’ve long maintained a network of trusted contacts,” Vendevorex continued. “There’s a sky-dragon within Chakthalla’s court named Simonex who I’ve corresponded with through this network. I’m meeting him tonight, to work out the details of an alliance with Chakthalla.”
 “I’m coming with you,” said Jandra.
 “You’ll stay invisible,” said Vendevorex.
 “Of course,” she said. She was surprised he wasn’t arguing against the idea.
 “You won’t make a sound. In fact, breathe as little as you possibly can. We cannot risk spooking Simonex. He is fully aware that speaking with me could land his head on the chopping block should the king learn of it.”
 “You won’t know I’m there,” said Jandra.
 “Let’s go,” said Vendevorex, heading for the door.
 Invisibly, the two of them headed down the winding, root-covered path that led to the river. The damp night air smelled of mushrooms and moss. The ground was slick; slimy rocks lay hidden beneath rotting leaves. Vendevorex held her hand to guide her over the most treacherous ground. She felt guilty that her presence was slowing him. He could simply have flown down the mountain if she hadn’t insisted on coming along.
 At length they reached a large rock by a stream that fed into the river. Vendevorex paused in the open area. Then, he faded into the fog, only to reappear several yards away in the center of the rock. In actuality, he hung back near the edge of the stone, his claw still clutching Jandra’s hand.
 “Started to think you weren’t coming,” said a ragged voice from the fog. Jandra strained her eyes to see a figure emerging from the wispy cotton of the air. Vendevorex flinched.
 “You’re not Simonex,” he said.
 “Simonex?” said the sky-dragon who approached them, still half-veiled by fog. “Oh, you mean this fool?”
 The sky-dragon now stood mere feet from Vendevorex’s doppelganger. He lifted a severed head high, revealing the tortured visage of a sky-dragon, eyes open and dull, the tongue hanging limp from its slack jaw. In her horror Jandra noticed a second detail—the sky-dragon who stood before Vendevorex’s double had only tatters for wings. The membranes that stretched between the extended fingers that formed his wing struts had been slashed, a punishment reserved for sky-dragons convicted of property crimes such as the murder of humans. This irreversible injury crippled the sky-dragons, severing them from their namesake element. It also marked them permanently as outcasts; she’d heard rumors that these tatterwings would retreat to the wilds and band together into thuggish gangs.
 As she recalled this a second sky dragon appeared beside the first, then a third. From the edges of the stone two more appeared. She held her breath as she heard a rattle in the bushes next to her. A tatterwing carrying a long, crude spear crept no more than five feet to her right, crouching as if to spring.
 With a final one stepping out from the other side of the stream, she counted seven tatterwings, all armed. Poor Simonex never stood a chance.
 The lead tatterwing dropped Simonex’s head and rested his fore-talon on the hilt of the sword he had slung to his side. “Before your friend died he told us you work for the king,” the tatterwing said, sounding smug. “Said there’d be quite the ransom for you. In the meantime, those fancy jewels in your wings will make a good down payment.”
 “You’d not live to spend your ransom,” Vendevorex said calmly. “There’s no corner of the earth you will not be hunted if you attempt to harm me.”
 “We’ll take that risk,” the leader said, drawing his blade. The steel edge was jagged, more saw than sword. Suddenly, three large rope nets swirled from the fog, flying over the area. Two nets fell over the spot where Vendevorex’s doppelganger stood. They fell harmlessly to the ground, causing the illusion to flicker and shimmer. The leader drew back, eyes wide as if he’d realized that he was standing before a ghost.
 Alas, the third net was badly thrown. Jandra leapt away as it headed for them. The tatterwing to her right rolled out of the path of the spreading hemp.
 Vendevorex proved to be too slow. The net hit the edge of the circle of invisibility, then wrapped around her mentor. Vendevorex gave a mumbled curse as the illusion fell away, his concentration broken.
 “By the bones!” the tatterwing across the stream exclaimed when Vendevorex’s double vanished. “What’s happening?”
 “It’s the king’s wizard!” the lead tatterwing shouted. He sounded panicked and was swiveling his head, searching the shadows. Suddenly, his eyes focused on the wizard’s netted form. He pointed his jagged blade toward Vendevorex as he cried, “He’s too dangerous to hold hostage! Kill him!”
 The nearest tatterwing rushed forward, his spear held level with Vendevorex’s heart. Invisibly, Jandra dove into his path, tripping him. This ruined her invisibility; she gambled that there would be a moment of surprise in which she might dart back to safety and vanish once more. Unfortunately, the tatterwing fell on her. She fought to get out from under him. She rolled to her back to find a second tatterwing rushing at her with a spear.
 Before the dragon reached her, a loud sizzling sound, like bacon in a skillet, drowned out even the water in the stream. The net that covered Vendevorex flared in a searing flash, disintegrating and freeing him. All the tatterwings reflexively raised their talons to shield their eyes.
 Vendevorex pointed his left wing toward the dragon with the spear that had been charging Jandra. The dragon yelped in shock as his spear crumbled to ash and took a large chunk of the flesh of his talons with it.
 “You murder my associates?” Vendevorex said, his voice trembling with rage. “You threaten me and my companion, attacking us with ropes and pointed sticks? Fools!”
 Vendevorex drew his shoulders back seeming to double in size. “I am Vendevorex! I control the building blocks of matter itself! Know that your actions have brought my judgment upon you!”
 White balls of flame engulfed the tips of both wings. Vendevorex lunged out and touched the flame to the snout of the dragon near Jandra, who stood staring at his damaged talons. Shrieks echoed from the hills as Vendevorex pushed the dragon’s suddenly limp body away. The tatterwing fell to the stone, his face boiling to pink mist, revealing his skull.
 Jandra kicked free of the dragon who had fallen on her as Vendevorex leaned and plunged the flame into the dragon’s spine. This one didn’t even have time to scream before he died.
 Jandra struggled to her feet. She rose to find herself face to face with Vendevorex who said in a firm tone, “None can escape.”
 Jandra understood. A single survivor could reveal their location to the king. And who knew if Simonex had told them about Chakthalla? As Vendevorex turned to face the leader of the tatterwings, Jandra grabbed the fallen spear of the dragon she’d tripped. She set her sights on the tatterwing on the far side of the stream who’d turned to run. Luck was with her; he tripped on a root, hitting the ground hard.
 Jandra had never killed before. She’d never even carried a spear. But there are moments in life when one discovers the most primitive actions are built into the very muscles. She jumped the stream, the spear tucked tightly against her body, both hands gripping with all her might. With her full weight she drove the shaft into the back of the tripped tatterwing, feeling the slips and snaps as the stone tip worked its way through hide and muscle and gristle to the ground beneath.
 The tatterwing thrashed and gasped, its talons scraping the earth, still struggling to rise. The air suddenly smelled of urine. Jandra released the shaft and staggered back, unable to believe what she’d done. She turned to find Vendevorex surrounded by a mound of charred corpses. His foes all died so quickly and quietly. The smoke from his victims wafted across the stream; she braced herself for a horrible scent. Instead, the aroma reminded her of roast venison.
 The weak, wet calls for mercy from her victim lingered for several long moments until Vendevorex caught his breath, crossed the stream, and silenced him.
 Jandra sat down by the stream, her eyes closed, her cheeks wet with tears. She grew sick to her stomach; her hands felt slick with blood, though in truth, there wasn’t a spot on her.
 Vendevorex placed a fore-talon on her shoulder.
 “It had to be done,” he said.
 “I know,” she sobbed, wiping her cheeks. “I know.”
 “I apologize. I failed to train you for a moment such as this,” said Vendevorex. “I’ve sheltered you from the darker side of our arts. I’ve showed you illusion and minor transmutations. As you’ve seen, there are more . . . aggressive skills to be learned. In the morning we’ll begin your lessons.”
 Then he left her and began to dig through the satchel of the fallen leader. She went to the stream and splashed water on her face. It helped; she no longer felt quite so close to losing her dinner. Her body trembled as the adrenaline worked through her. She looked at her hands. Had they really killed someone? Though it happened only a moment before—the corpse of her victim was in the edge of her sight, the spear thrusting up like a young, straight tree—it all felt so distant. Like a memory from years ago, a different life.
 She wiped the tears from her cheeks. She could kill if she needed to. The knowledge gave her a grim strength. It was good to know, in a way. She’d wanted hope earlier in the evening; now, in the least expected fashion, she’d found it.
 Vendevorex rose with a folded sheet of paper in his claw. He opened the paper, agitating the molecules of the air above it to create a soft light by which to read. He nodded his head slowly as he studied the words.
 “It’s from Chakthalla,” he said. “These tatterwings had no idea the treasure they carried. Albekizan would give half his kingdom to know the contents of this letter.”
 ALBEKIZAN STIRRED from his sleep, sensing an alien presence in the room. He opened his eyes to the dim light of the chamber. Among the shadows something rustled like dry leaves. He raised his head for a better view. A shadow moved toward the large table on the far side of the room.
 Then, a scratch, and a spark. A match had been struck. An oil lamp flickered to life revealing the dark-scaled hide of Blasphet.
 “I couldn’t sleep,” Blasphet said, placing a roll of parchment on the table. “I confess, I feel rather giddy. I’ve been contemplating the task you gave me. Quite a thorny problem. I now have a solution.”
 “Blasphet,” Albekizan said, standing, stretching, fighting off the stiffness of interrupted sleep. “It’s late. Why did the guards let you in?”
 “They didn’t. I killed them,” Blasphet said with a shrug. “It was depressingly simple. No challenge at all in killing such a dim-witted lot. Try to replace them with something a little brighter next time.”
 “I assigned all my best guards to cover you,” Albekizan said.
 “Oh dear,” Blasphet said. “I have more bad news for you then. But that can wait. This can’t. Come. Look. Isn’t this the most marvelous thing you’ve ever seen?”
 Albekizan glanced at the parchment. Blasphet raised the lamp to cast a better light. A nearly impenetrable maze of parallel and perpendicular lines covered the surface of the parchment. Albekizan looked closer. Slowly the lines began to make sense. They were roads, buildings, walls, aqueducts, and sewers. It was the map of a grand city.
 “What is this?”
 “This is the ultimate destination of mankind,” said Blasphet. “Their final home. Do you like it?”
 Albekizan rubbed his eyes. His brother was insane; this was a given. Albekizan normally wasn’t surprised or disturbed by Blasphet’s odd tangents and flights of fancy. But this?
 “I asked you to plot the destruction of all mankind and you design a housing project. This is unexpected, even from you.”
 “Yes, well,” said Blasphet. “If the humans expected this it could never work. But I took inspiration in your words. I thought that was a very insightful thing that you said, telling me that freedom would be my shackles.”
 “Hmm,” said Albekizan. “I suppose I did say that.”
 “This is the Free City,” said Blasphet. “It’s the city of humanity’s dreams. What they will never know, until it’s too late, is that it is the city of our dreams as well.” Blasphet ran a claw dreamily along the lines of a major street.
 “If you say so,” said Albekizan.
 “You can’t see it, can you?” Blasphet said. “Let me explain the beauty of this plan.”
 Albekizan said, “Go on.”
 And, come the dawn, Albekizan considered the inky paper stretched out before him to be the loveliest thing under all the sky.
PART TWO
CROWS
For man also knoweth not his time:
as the fishes that are taken in an evil net,
and as the birds that are caught in the snare;
so are the sons of men snared in an evil time,
when it falleth suddenly upon them.
—Ecclesiastes 9:12
PROLOG PART TWO
* * *
SPEAR
1078 D.A. The 47th Year of the Reign of Albekizan
RECANNA PLACED Bant’s breakfast before him; a large, flat golden biscuit covering half the plate beside a scramble of eggs, the yellow flecked with diced green onion. A black-rimmed sliver of orange cheese leaned on the edge of the plate. As Recanna poured him a mug of white, frothy buttermilk, Bant looked around the table to the bright eyes of his two beautiful little girls. They lowered their eyes respectfully as Bant said, “Let us pray.”
“We give thanks, oh Lord, for the bounty before us,” Bant said. “We give thanks for the new day.”
He continued the prayer for some time before concluding, as he always did, with the things he was most personally thankful for: his newborn son, his beautiful daughters and, most of all, for Recanna. His son Adam gurgled and mewed throughout the prayer as if offering his own thanks.
When Bant finished his meal he kissed Recanna’s cheek and then stepped from his cabin into the soft dawn light. He faced a busy day. He needed to complete his chores and prepare for tomorrow’s sermon. He smiled. Knowing how every moment of his day would be spent gave him a warm feeling. He felt very much at home in the world. He found joy in his labors, whether tending to the orchards or aiding his fellow villagers.
The morning light danced through the peach orchard, causing the dew-covered leaves to sparkle with a million tiny jewels. Truly, he dwelled in the new Eden.
He couldn’t know, yet, that today the serpents would arrive.
BY MIDDAY, THE SOUTHERN SUN pressed down on Bant like a giant hand, making the slightest movements laborious. If the rains had been steadier last spring, he might have avoided working in the heat of the day. All the cooler hours of the morning and evening were spent tending the fields. The village couldn’t afford to lose a single plant. This left the middle part of the day to such drudgework as reshingling a roof. Bant hadn’t planned to spend this long on the task; it was only a few wooden shingles that needed replacing after wind damage from the previous week’s thunderstorm. Bant lay his hammer down and wiped the sweat from his eyes. He would welcome a thunderstorm if it came along now, wind damage or no. He glanced toward the distant stream, longing for a dip within its cool waters. A cloud of dust caught his eye; someone was approaching from the northern road.
Bant squinted, shielding his eyes. Three huge lizards—gray in color save for the rust-red scales along their throats and bellies—lumbered along the dirt road. At first glance they appeared low to the ground, but when Bant compared them to the trees they passed he realized the lizards stood taller than horses, and only their great length made them appear squat.
As the great-lizards grew nearer, Bant could make out the riders who looked like men astride the high-backed leather saddles. But they weren’t men; they were earth-dragons. Their scaly skin was the color of moss. Their heads sat broad and low upon their shoulders, their dark eyes set wide apart. A teal fringe of spiky scales jutted from their necks.
Bant climbed down the ladder, moving to meet the dragons as they rode into the town square. He could only vaguely recall the last time the dragons had visited, well over a decade ago. The dragons had then demanded a tenth of that year’s harvest and the older townsmen agreed to provide it, citing an ancient agreement. The town lay in the land of dragons and the Dragon King had the right to take as much as a quarter of the harvest. The elders said dragons were abundant in the north but ventured south to collect taxes only rarely, seldom appearing more than once in a score of years.
Bant wished some of the elders had survived to advise him now. If the dragons wanted a quarter of the harvest this year, it would be difficult. Christdale suffered from a shortage of men. Only male children his age and younger had survived Hezekiah’s initial teachings unmaimed. Now only a dozen able-bodied men could tend the crops, and they had to provide for a community of nearly a hundred. The Lord in his mercy always provided enough but there was seldom any surplus.
The three dragons rode into the center of the village. They dismounted and spoke to one another in a strange, hissing speech. Two carried long spears tipped with metal. The third dragon, the apparent leader, had a scabbard hanging from his belt from which the bejeweled hilt of a sword jutted. From the windows of their houses the villagers watched but none approached, leaving Bant alone with the visitors.
The sword dragon finished conferring with his associates. He faced Bant and said, “I am Mekalov. You are this town’s leader?”
Bant found Mekalov’s speech difficult to follow. The creature’s hard, beak-like mouth didn’t move as it spoke; the noise seemed to emanate from deep within his throat. It didn’t help that the dragon’s breath distracted him. Perhaps the heat played tricks with his eyes, but foul, fishy garlic fumes spilled from Mekalov’s mouth in visible waves.
“Well?” Mekalov demanded. “Answer me!”
“We are led by no one but the Lord,” Bant said.
“Bring this lord to me,” Mekalov said.
“He is already here,” Bant said.
“If you are the lord, then gather your subjects. There is work to be done.”
Bant smiled politely. He knew that Mekalov didn’t understand him. He wondered what Hezekiah would have to say about attempting to tell a dragon about God. Would it be a waste of time? Then, setting aside the theological musings, Bant asked what slowly dawned on him as the important question: “What work?”
“A week from now Albekizan’s tax collectors will arrive. By then you will gather in this square half of this year’s harvest along with half of all livestock in the village.”
“Half?” Bant said. “But . . . but the agreement is for no more than a quarter.”
“Perhaps, in this backwater, you have not heard the good news,” said Mekalov. “Albekizan commemorates the miraculous birth of a new son, Bodiel. This is a celebration tax in his honor.”
“But—”
“Need I remind you that the very ground you stand upon belongs to Albekizan? Anything that grows here belongs to him, and him alone. You live merely as a parasite, feasting upon food that is not your own. We are not taking half your harvest. Instead, Albekizan is allowing you to keep half of his harvest. Be grateful for his generosity.”
“The Good Book tells me give unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s,” Bant said, “but I won’t starve my friends and family. When the collectors arrive we will give them what we can spare.”
“We’re not here to bargain, human. We merely inform you of what will be. You will comply or you will die.”
Bant searched his mind for the proper scripture for guidance. He wanted to follow the will of the Lord, but what was it in this matter? That he yield to authority, obey the dragons, and have faith that all would be well? Or that he oppose the dragons and stand against injustice?
Bant knew that the Lord was on his side no matter what. He drew his shoulders back and said, “We do not fear death. We will not submit to evil.”
“What a curious attitude,” Mekalov said. The earth-dragon drew his sword from his scabbard, the blade singing like the fading peals of a bell. Before Bant could react the blade tip was thrust beneath his chin, stopping just short of his throat.
Mekalov narrowed his eyes. “How about now? Now do you fear death?”
Bant swallowed hard. He whispered, “Yea, though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil.”
“Humans have never been known for brains,” Mekalov said. “But you’re something else, boy. Too stupid to be scared, eh? Think there’s something to be gained by this little display? Continue with this foolishness and this village will burn. Its people will be enslaved, if they’re lucky. You can save them if the next words from your lips are, ‘We will obey. We live to serve Albekizan.’ Go on. Say it.”
Bant’s mouth was suddenly too dry to allow speech. Was this mere vanity that caused him to resist? Pride that goeth before the fall? As his mind whirred another voice shouted, “TOUCH NOT MINE ANOINTED, AND DO MY PROPHETS NO HARM!”
Bant stopped staring down the length of the sword, shifting his gaze toward the church. Hezekiah emerged from the dark, windowless interior. He stood on the steps like a tall pillar. His black robes wrapped about him like shadows.
“Hmmph,” said Mekalov to his fellow dragons. “Another idiot. Let him serve as an example to the lord, here. Kill him!”
A spear-wielding dragon charged toward the church. Hezekiah stood, unflinching. With a grunt the dragon guided his weapon to its target, planting the spearhead in the center of the prophet’s belly, driving it deeply into him until the point lifted Hezekiah’s robes from his back. Hezekiah remained standing, looking stern.
“HE WHO LIVES BY THE SWORD,” Hezekiah said, without a trace of weakness in his voice, “SHALL DIE BY THE SWORD!”
Hezekiah placed his hands upon the shaft that pierced him and began to push it deeper until it reached the midpoint. Then he reached behind him and grabbed the spear and pulled it free. He held the spear before him, examining its gleaming point. Not a drop of blood stained its surface. The dragon before him staggered backward, his beak dropping open in shock.
“AN EYE FOR AN EYE!” Hezekiah shouted as he hurled the spear at his attacker. The spear struck the dragon with a crack like thunder. The dragon’s body toppled backward, as his head, eyes wide with surprise, fell to the ground between his twitching legs.
Bant shifted his gaze back to the sword at his throat. It hovered unsupported in the air a brief second before falling to his feet. Mekalov tripped twice in his haste to reach his scaly steed but at last reached the saddle and dug his claws into the beast’s sides. He pulled the lizard’s reigns to turn it back in the direction they had come and set off in pursuit of the other spear-dragon whose steed already thundered down the road in a trail of dust. The third lizard steed—its reptilian brain oblivious to its master’s death—stood contentedly by the village well munching on clover.
“Hezekiah!” Bant shouted, running to the preacher’s side. “Are you all right?”
“Of course,” the prophet said, smoothing his robes.
“But-but-but how?”
“The Lord provides.”
Bant nodded as the land around him began to blur.
“Why do you weep, Bant Bitterwood?”
“I . . . I didn’t know what to do,” he sobbed. “They could have killed Recanna, Adam, everyone. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to say.”
“Did you do as the Lord guided?”
Bant wondered. Had the Lord guided him? Or had his pride? Hezekiah might be able to endure such a serious wound through faith alone, but Bant knew his faith did not equal the preacher’s. For when he had stood in the valley of the shadow of death, when the sword had been at his throat, he had feared evil. He dared not reveal this to Hezekiah.
“Yes,” he said, wiping away his tears. “I did as the Lord guided.”
“Good. For the Lord provides guidance for me as well. Before the winter comes I must leave this place. The seed of the Lord has brought forth a plentiful harvest in this town. Now we are needed elsewhere to sow other fields.”
“We?” Bant sniffled.
“Yes,” Hezekiah said. “You are ready for the next phase of your training. You will travel for a time as a missionary, Bant Bitterwood.”
“But,” said Bant, “Recanna . . . the harvest . . .”
“Recanna will stay to care for your children. The harvest will be complete before we are ready to leave. For all else, we will trust to the Lord. Return to your labors, Bant Bitterwood.”
“Yes,” Bant said, as Hezekiah walked back up the church steps and disappeared into the shadows beyond the open door.
But Bant didn’t return to his labors, not for a long time. Instead he looked at the dead dragon before him. The head gazed up at his, the eyes still wide with surprise. Flies already gathered around the red pool that grew around the dragon’s corpse.
He couldn’t help but think of the last time he’d seen this ground drenched in blood, that long ago night when he’d first kissed Recanna. The sight of blood had satisfied him. Blood had been a promise, then. Blood could carry justice, and blood could give hope. Blood had washed the land of its old ways and brought about a new world. Now the blood carried a different promise.
As the red liquid crept toward his worn leather boots, Bant took a step back. The sun shone strongly yet a chill ran up his spine. Something awful was coming. He couldn’t define it, he didn’t know when it would come, or how, but it was there, in the future, revealed by the dark rivulets before him. He shuddered as the cracked, dusty earth drank the cursed blood.
CHAPTER EIGHT
* * *
ZEEKY
 1100 D.A. The 69th Year of the Reign of Albekizan
“TOUCH NOTHING,” Zanzeroth said.
 Though angered by his master’s assumption that he would disturb the scene, Gadreel held his tongue. He had grown used to Zanzeroth’s mood by now. For months Bitterwood had eluded them, though not by much. Zanzeroth’s instincts led him again and again to Bitterwood’s trail, but always the trail was lost when it returned to the river. Gadreel doubted they would ever catch him.
 Perhaps this time would be different. Even Gadreel could see the leaves were relatively fresh, no more than a week old. The hunter tugged at the pile of wilting branches. He lifted the branches one by one, holding each to his eye, searching for any clues it might hold before tossing it aside. He repeated the task until at last the hidden boat was uncovered completely.
 “Step carefully,” Zanzeroth said. “We need to flip this over gently.”
 Gadreel grabbed the end of the flat-bottomed boat and helped Zanzeroth to lift it, taking care not to disturb the ground around or beneath it. They set the boat aside. As they moved it the odor of charred wood caught his nostrils. Gadreel saw that their care had been merited for beneath lay the remains of a campfire.
 Zanzeroth knelt next to the ash-filled ring of rocks. He lowered his scarred snout close to the ground and sniffed. The master hunter then examined the site pebble by pebble, and by following Zanzeroth’s eye, Gadreel began to see the nearly invisible scuffs and scratches that made Zanzeroth frown in contemplation. Zanzeroth continued to crawl over the arcane runes, piecing together syllable by syllable the story they told.
 “It’s not Bitterwood,” he said, rising at last, stretching his limbs. His joints popped as he limbered them, unleashing a flurry of pale scales. “A human’s been here, but the boot prints are too small.”
 “Then we’re wasting our time,” Gadreel said.
 “What does time matter to a slave?” Zanzeroth said.
 Gadreel wanted to answer Zanzeroth’s insult with the strongly worded speech he had recited in his mind again and again. But he didn’t. Zanzeroth had treated him abusively ever since he had climbed from the tunnel carrying Bitterwood’s cloak. Words wouldn’t turn aside the hunter’s anger. Only Bitterwood’s death would bring peace to the hunter, and relief to Gadreel.
 “I merely meant,” Gadreel said, keeping his voice low, “that it is a shame that this lead has been unrewarding.”
 “Unrewarding? I think not,” Zanzeroth said. “Following this trail will prove most satisfying.”
 “Why?”
 “How is it that even with two eyes you are so blind?” The hunter used a fore-claw to circle a small footprint in the dirt.
 “I see the footprint, Master,” Gadreel said, looking closer. “From the size I assume it is the footprint of a child or a woman.”
 “But don’t you see this as well?” Zanzeroth’s claws pointed to the faint outline of a feather beneath the sandy dirt. He pulled the feather free of its grave and held it to the light, revealing it as the pale blue wing-scale of a sky-dragon.
 “A sky-dragon and a human female traveling together,” Zanzeroth said. “Surely this tells you whose trail we’ve found.”
 “Why?” asked Gadreel. “Many dragons have human slaves. It’s not uncommon to find human and dragon footprints on the same site.”
 “Even though you weren’t present, surely you must have heard rumors. Albekizan wanted the matter kept secret, but how can you not have heard about Vendevorex?”
 “He’s the king’s wizard,” Gadreel said. “It’s common knowledge that he’s taken ill. He’s been too sick to leave his bed for months.”
 Zanzeroth’s one good eye rolled up in its socket. “I wondered what kind of fool would be taken in by that lie.”
 “Lie?”
 “Vendevorex turned traitor the day after Bodiel’s death. He disobeyed the king’s orders and fled with his pet human in tow. Now Albekizan wants him dead. He’s not as big a prize as Bitterwood, but he’s worth following. Besides, I have a theory that Bitterwood and the wizard may be connected somehow.”
 “But,” said Gadreel, “if Albekizan wants Vendevorex dead, why the lie? Why not just announce a price on the wizard’s head?”
 “Because soon Albekizan will start his master plan against the humans and the wizard’s loyalty to humans is legendary. It’s best to have everyone think Vendevorex is ill rather than free and hidden somewhere in the kingdom.”
 “Albekizan fears the humans might turn to Vendevorex for assistance?” asked Gadreel.
 “It’s possible,” said Zanzeroth. “Even if the wizard never turns up again he’s still likely to be a hero to humans. One thing I’ve learned is that humans would rather spread a rumor than breed. You’ve seen what they’ve done with Bitterwood. They think he’s everywhere at once, ready to leap from the woods to save them at any moment, even though none of them have ever seen him. They think he’s a ghost or a god. If they would build such a legend around a mere man, imagine what they would do with a dragon wizard. But that’s not the real reason Albekizan wants to keep the wizard’s treason quiet.”
 “Then, why?”
 Zanzeroth shook his head as if disgusted to once again be explaining the obvious. “Albekizan has built his empire at the expense of many a former friend. More than a few sun-dragons would shelter Vendevorex, given the chance, and use him as a weapon in an open rebellion. In fact . . . we can’t be far from Chakthalla’s castle.”
 “Three miles,” Gadreel answered. He’d spotted the graceful towers and colorful windows of Chakthalla’s palace during his reconnaissance flight of the area. Chakthalla was the widow of Tanthia’s brother Terranax. She managed this mountainous corner of Albekizan’s kingdom.
 “She lost her mate to Blasphet,” Zanzeroth said. “I wonder if she’s learned that the Murder God is now among the king’s closest advisors?”
 “Perhaps we should pay her a visit?” Gadreel said.
 “Aye,” said Zanzeroth. “But first we should pay a visit to Kanst. His troops are camping near the village of Winding Rock in preparation for the round-up of humans after the harvest to take them to Blasphet’s city. I imagine Kanst might enjoy a visit with Chakthalla as well.”
 ZANZEROTH LED GADREEL to the east toward Kanst’s camp. Evening was coming on. The sun behind them cast their long shadows onto the earth. Below, a small band of humans trudged along a dirt path by the edge of a field. They looked up, their eyes wide and frightened, as the dragons’ shadows fell over them. Zanzeroth always loved the effect of the light at this time of day. The black outline of his shadow possessed a grand, ominous life of its own.
 Half a mile away from Kanst’s camp, the shrieks of an injured earth-dragon reached Zanzeroth’s ears. Gadreel’s flight slowed when he, too, noticed the sound.
 “By the bones,” Gadreel said, sounding worried. “What’s that noise?”
 “I warned Kanst that the slop he feeds the troops would eventually kill someone,” Zanzeroth said.
 As they raced ever closer to the camp, the source of the agonized cry became obvious. An earth-dragon was running through the camp, enveloped in bright white flames. The charred outlines of his body revealed his headlong rush straight through the walls of tents. A trail of crisp, smoldering footprints led straight as an arrow shot back toward Kant’s personal tent.
 As Zanzeroth landed a few yards from the action, the earth-dragon at last fell as the tendons of his legs turned to ash. The ground around him began to boil. All the dragons in the camp fled the horrible flames, save one. A youthful sky-dragon, bearing the wing-ribbons that marked him a member of the aerial guard, rushed toward the fallen earth-dragon and tossed a thick woolen blanket over him to smother the fire. He jumped back when the plan failed; the blanket erupted into a bright blaze.
 The air took on the stench of burning sheep.
 “Bring water,” the sky-dragon shouted, though no other soldier remained to hear him.
 “Too late for that,” Zanzeroth said, walking toward the fallen dragon. He stepped around the wisps of smoke that wafted toward him. “Take care not to breathe the fumes,” he said. “A large enough dose will kill you.”
 “What could possibly burn like that?” Gadreel asked, staring as the dragon’s body sank into the bubbling ground.
 “It’s called the Vengeance of the Ancestors,” said Zanzeroth, “and it confirms Vendevorex is near.”
 As he spoke, the giant armored form of General Kanst appeared over the tent tops. He moved toward them in slow, clanking steps. Despite the clatter of his movements, he’d apparently heard Zanzeroth’s comments for he said, “It confirms nothing of the sort.”
 “Only the wizard can create this flame,” Zanzeroth said. “I’ve seen it before. So have you, though I assume your memory isn’t what it once was. Have care. This magic flame burns everything.”
 “Everything but iron,” Kanst said, unclasping his massive breastplate. He dropped the heavy oval of steel over the burning pit, capping the flames. He dropped to all fours and began to slap out the fiery footprints with his iron gauntlets. “It’s one reason I’ve spent the last decade and a half lumbering around in this armor.”
 The young member of the aerial guard found an iron shield lying on the ground and began beating out the flames elsewhere.
 Kanst rose and said to Zanzeroth, “I see I have at least one soldier worth his gruel.” Then, to the sky-dragon, “You, son. What’s your name?”
 “Pertalon, sir,” the dragon answered without stopping his work.
 “Pertalon, I like your face. I’m giving you a promotion.”
 “Sir,” Pertalon said, standing straight. By now the flames were all extinguished.
 “Come with me. You too, hunter. You’ll be interested in this.”
 Kanst led them back along the charred footprints. They arrived at the largest tent in the camp, a palace built from gray canvas that covered almost an acre, Kanst’s personal home away from home. The wall they approached was neatly marked with the charred outline of an earth-dragon.
 Leading them inside, Kanst said, “It was roughly fifteen years ago that the wizard first demonstrated the effects of the Vengeance of the Ancestors. On quiet nights I can still hear the screams of the family inside that house. I wasn’t a general back then, only a soldier.”
 “We all knew you were destined for greatness,” Zanzeroth said. “You were a cousin of the king after all.”
 “No matter my heritage, I knew power when I saw it,” Kanst said. “The Vengeance of the Ancestors was naked, unquenchable power. The wizard controlled it. And ever since that night, so have I.”
 Kanst took them to a row of a dozen cauldrons: huge, black, cast iron affairs used to cook stews for armies. “That dead fool must have thought I was hiding supper in these things,” Kanst said. He lifted the iron lid a crack. White light as bright as the midday sun filled the room.
 “I snuck back to the cabin later that night and found a few tendrils of the flame still flickering among the ruins. I placed them in an iron pot and carefully fed them. The wizard had said that below a critical mass the flame dies out. For fifteen years I’ve maintained that critical mass, feeding the fire with whatever fuel I had at hand. It really does burn anything—hard, dense fuels do especially well—stones, bricks and, from time to time, the remains of a particularly thick-skulled and disloyal soldier.”
 “Albekizan knows of this?” Zanzeroth asked.
 “Of course. It’s why he elevated me to general. But I’m certain that the wizard never knew. Aside from the king, the only dragons to know about the flames are the rare and trusted few I’ve selected to help me maintain the stock.”
 He glanced toward Pertalon. “You rushed into danger while everyone else fled. You followed my lead to squelch the flame without waiting for my orders or asking a single question. Now your job will be to help keep this fire alive.”
 “Sir,” said Pertalon. “It will be an honor.”
 IT WAS A DARK, CLOUDY NIGHT in Winding Rock. The windows of the score or so wooden houses that composed the village proper glowed with candlelight. A lone figure slipped along the streets; a small blonde-haired girl, clutching a bundle of blankets tightly against her chest. She dashed behind the largest house on the street, pausing to press her ear against the back door.
 “Okay, Poocher,” Zeeky whispered as she carefully slipped her knife through the crack in the back door, lifting the latch. “You need to be really quiet.”
 She looked down at the piglet snuggled warmly in the wool blanket. Poocher looked back, his dark eyes full of understanding. Zeeky was only nine, she felt very grown up to have a small thing like Poocher so dependant on her.
 Zeeky slowly cracked the door open. The kitchen should be empty; she had watched the last of the help leave just after dark. Only Barnstack himself was still inside, but everyone knew the mayor was half-deaf. Even though the light still burned in the front room, Zeeky couldn’t wait any longer for him to turn in. The night grew colder by the minute and her stomach was a hard knot. She didn’t mind so much that she hadn’t eaten since yesterday, but poor little Poocher had to be starving.
 Barnstack’s kitchen was the size of her father’s house. The warm space smelled of corned beef, onions, and sauerkraut. Pots and pans hung from the ceiling, gleaming in the faint light that seeped around the door leading to the front room. Zeeky tiptoed inside, easing the door shut behind her.
 Cradling Poocher, she crept toward the pantry. The silence was suddenly disturbed by a series of bangs. She looked around, terrified that she had knocked something over. But the noise came from the other room. Someone was knocking at the front door with a force that sounded like hammer blows. She held her breath as she listened to the silence that followed. Then the sound erupted again followed by the creaking of floorboards as the mayor limped to the door.
 “You shouldn’t knock so hard,” Barnstack hissed loudly though he probably thought he was whispering. “Do you want the whole town to know?”
 “I’d been knocking for five minutes. Answer your door more promptly in the future,” replied a deep, smooth voice.
 “I came as soon as . . . oh, never mind. Come in before someone sees you.”
 “We are alone?”
 “What?” Barnstack shouted.
 “Are we alone?” the strange voice said forcefully.
 “Yes, yes. I sent the help home hours ago.”
 Zeeky tried to peek through the gap between the doorframe and the door to the front room, but she couldn’t see with whom Barnstack spoke. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t match the deep voice with any of the village men.
 Barnstack said, “Heavens, the night’s turned cold. Would you like some tea?”
 “It would be rude to refuse,” the stranger answered.
 Zeeky gasped as Barnstack came into view, shuffling toward the kitchen. She hurried for the pantry. When she opened the pantry door she saw a row of cured hams hanging from the ceiling. She closed the door before Poocher could notice and looked around for another hiding place. As light poured into the kitchen from the opening door, she crawled beneath a large table and climbed into the seat of one of the chairs, curling into a tight ball. With her left hand she scratched Poocher beneath his chin to make sure he’d keep calm.
 From her vantage point, she watched the elderly man walk slowly toward the stove. She looked at the doorway to the front room. Her eyes grew wide. The visitor’s legs were green, scaly, and thickly muscled. A broad, pointed tail hung behind the legs, reaching to within inches of the floor. The tail swayed as the stranger followed Barnstack into the kitchen.
 Barnstack stirred the coals in the fireplace as he hung the teapot on the metal hook within. He tossed a slender wedge of wood onto the coals. The smoke reached Zeeky’s nose; she prayed Poocher wouldn’t sneeze.
 “There,” Barnstack said as the flame took life. “It will only take a few minutes.”
 “Your hospitality is appreciated,” the visitor said. “I hope this means you are receptive to our offer.”
 “What?”
 “Our offer,” he repeated, louder this time. “I hope you intend to accept it?”
 “It’s generous,” Barnstack said.
 “Yes.”
 “Too good to be true, almost.”
 “It may seem that way at first. But think about it. All of Albekizan’s wealth flows from the labor provided by your village and countless other villages like it. Is it any wonder he would choose to repay you?”
 “Everything good comes with a price,” Barnstack said.
 “Consider your past labor as advance payment.”
 “But if everyone accepts this offer, who will plant the crops next year? Who will harvest them? If everyone goes to this Pre-City . . .”
 “Free City.”
 “What?”
 “Free City.” The visitor said the words in a warm tone, as if he were talking about someplace wonderful. “It’s called Free City, not Pre-City.”
 “Oh,” Barnstack said, sounding confused. “I thought it was called Pre-City because they were still building it. They only started it a few weeks ago, yes?”
 “True. It’s a testament to the king’s leadership that he’s devoted enough money and labor to the Free City that it is already open to humans. Free City awaits those lucky few who will live the rest of their lives in peace and plenty.”
 “Lucky few? You said it was for everyone.”
 “Everyone in this village, yes. Of course, it couldn’t be for everyone everywhere; as you say, who would do the work? No, Free City is a reward to those villages that have served Albekizan faithfully and completely over the years of his reign. Your village is among the chosen. We are especially pleased by the teachings of your spiritual leader, Kamon. His vision of harmony between man and dragon is most enlightened.”
 The hair rose on the back of Zeeky’s neck as Barnstack pulled the chair across from her from under the table. Poocher started to wiggle but Zeeky held him tighter and rubbed his belly, calming him. Barnstack sagged into the chair.
 “Forgive me for sitting. My knees ache when the weather turns cooler. You insist we meet so late. Yes. Yes that was my other question, Dekron. The secrecy. You want me to move all the people of my village from their homes into this Free City. You say it’s for their good. Yet you insist that we meet in secrecy.”
 “The very fact that you ask that question answers it,” Dekron said. “Humans distrust dragons. I want to persuade you before we approach the others. Many of them will no doubt speak against us. I must know that you will stand with me and won’t be swayed by their objections.”
 Barnstack sighed loudly. “I’m an old man. I have good land and a comfortable home. Leaving for a city so far away, a place I’ve never—”
 “Barnstack, may I remind you, you have no land,” Dekron interrupted. “You humans may divvy up its usage however you please, but the land belongs to Albekizan. This house, this kitchen, the chair you sit it, belong to him. You are his guest. If your host offers you the use of more spacious quarters, it is impolite to refuse, just as it would be impolite of me to refuse your tea.”
 “But—”
 “Albekizan has allowed you to farm his land for generations. The years of his rule have been marked by peace and prosperity. Now he offers further largesse.”
 Barnstack paused a moment, contemplating the dragon’s words. “I suppose it’s as you say. I promise to talk to my people. Perhaps the young will want to go. But I want to stay.”
 “I understand,” Dekron said, walking to the table. “Perhaps this will change your mind.”
 A sudden metallic clatter rained upon the table. A gold coin rolled from the table’s edge and bounced against Dekron’s clawed foot. He leaned down, reaching for the coin, his beaked, tortoise-like profile suddenly visible to Zeeky. He then tilted his head toward the fire as the kettle whistled. He rose, taking the coin with him.
 “There must be a hundred coins here,” Barnstack said.
 “More than enough to start a new life anywhere, even at your age,” Dekron said as he moved to the fireplace, his claws clicking against the wooden tiles. “In Free City your housing, food, and clothing will be provided at no cost. The gold can be used for luxuries befitting a man of your authority.”
 Poocher’s snout twitched as Dekron carried the aromatic kettle to the table. Zeeky sniffed deeply; the steam smelled of spiced apples and sassafras.
 “Very well,” Barnstack said. “When we finish with the harvest, I will ready the town to move.”
 “Then it is settled?”
 “Yes,” Barnstack said with a grunt as he rose from his chair. “Come, let us return to the front room. The chairs there are easier on my back. You’ll still have some tea, won’t you?”
 “Of course, friend.”
 Barnstack left the room carrying the kettle and a pair of cups. Dekron followed. Zeeky let out her breath in relief. Dekron suddenly turned toward the table. Zeeky held her breath again as Dekron walked toward her. He reached the table, and with his clawed hand he scooped the coins back into the leather pouch. He then turned and walked into the front room, closing the door behind him.
 Zeeky crawled from beneath the table and stood on shaky legs. She saw a basket of fruit sitting on the counter near the cutting board. She grabbed it and silently slipped out into the night.
 “Poocher,” she said. “We sure picked a good time to run away. Free City or not, I don’t trust nobody green.”
 Poocher snorted and shook his head in agreement.
 DEKRON PULLED HIS CLOAK close about him as he hurried along the dark streets of the town. He checked his pocket again for the agreement Barnstack had signed, wondering at the ways of kings. Only Albekizan would want a soldier who couldn’t read to obtain the mark of a man who couldn’t write on a document that would never be honored.
 Barnstack had been right about one thing; the night had turned cold. He turned from the road, going deep into the woods, his eyes searching the darkness for a good spot to rest. He wished he weren’t so far from the rest of Kanst’s army. He would have to sleep on the ground tonight. He’d rather spend the night in a warm tent heated by a proper fire. He could almost smell the smoke.
 He stopped to sniff the air. He did smell smoke. Was it from the village? The wind was from the wrong direction.
 He followed the scent, moving cautiously through the darkness. His attempt at stealth, however, was foiled by his surroundings. The leaves crunched beneath his heavy feet with each step.
 He came into a small clearing and found a circle of stone, within which smoldered the dim remnants of a fire.
 He knelt down and grabbed a stick, stirring the coals. Feeble golden flames flickered to life.
 Dekron looked around. He could see no sign of whoever had built the fire. He listened, but the night made no sound now that he’d stopped moving.
 No sense in letting the fire go to waste. He tossed in the stick he used to stir the fire, then gathered some pine needles and tossed them on as well. As they flared up he searched the area for more sticks and branches. In a moment, the fire was burning properly again. He held his claws toward the blaze, warming them.
 Now that the fire had taken the chill from his stiff claws, it was time to take care of the rest of his body. He dug into the pocket of his cloak and found a small ceramic flask that was stopped with a cork. He popped the cork to unleash the powerful, musk-sharp stench of goom, a powerful alcohol distilled from wild swamp cabbage and seasoned with cayenne. He tilted his head back and gulped down the eye-watering brew. The vapors gave his whole head a hot, buzzy feel.
 Then, there was a whistling sound, and his right arm went numb. The flask tumbled from his suddenly useless claws, toppling to his chest. The goom spilled all over his torso. The burning sensation wasn’t unpleasant. He looked down, his eyes struggling to understand what he saw in the dim flicker of the fire. He found a stick jutting from his arm: a long, straight stick, decorated at the top with red feathers.
 Dekron sniffed. Beneath the goom and the rising smoke, he detected a hint of fresh blood. He noticed the flask resting against his thigh. He reached for it, wondering if there was any goom left.
 Another whistle.
 Now there was a stick in his chest. He touched it with his left claw, stroking the red feathers, wondering if this was some sort of goom fantasy that made him imagine that he had sticks growing from him. Where the stick met his chest, air leaked with a bubbling hiss. It reminded him of the noise of Barnstack’s kettle.
 He realized he was suddenly very tired. He fell onto his back. Spots danced before his eyes. It would be good to sleep. High in a nearby tree, the silhouette of a cloaked man crept among the branches.
CHAPTER NINE
* * *
PET
MURALS COVERED the high ceilings of the grand dining hall. The scene displayed the true history of the world, according to dragons, as huge reptiles from a vanished age crawled from the swamps, took flight, and carved the world from untamed forests. In the shadows of the trees tiny humans looked on in awe of the ancestral dragons. There were other creation myths, of course, including legends of the world being born in the aftermath of a war between angels and dragons, but the biologians had persuaded most dragons to accept the non-mystical version of their origins.
 No one had ever seen an ancestral dragon, of course. They’d lived long ago. But their bones were abundant in the rocks of the earth. Their black, polished skeletons decorated the halls of biologians, with the choicest relics finding their homes in the castles of sun-dragons. A stone skull as long as Jandra was tall hung on the wall at the head of the dining hall, its empty eyes glaring out over the room.
 Beneath this stone skull, at the head of the dinner table heaped high with roasts and breads and fruits, sat the sun-dragon Chakthalla. Jandra thought that Chakthalla could pass as Tanthia’s double; the same poise and dignity possessed by the queen was reflected in Chakthalla’s noble features. Each scale of her face seemed crafted from rubies, carved in precise symmetry by a master jeweler. Her scales glimmered as they reflected the candlelight of the chandeliers. Chakthalla was the product of fine breeding, a dragon whom, long before her birth, had been sculpted by her bloodlines to possess a regal bearing.
 Jandra wondered whether, perhaps, one reason why Chakthalla and Tanthia looked so similar to each other in her mind was because of the simple fact that she rarely was in the presence of female dragons. Dragon society was heavily patriarchal. Unlike most birds or reptiles, the winged dragons gave birth to live infants, and mortality during birth was high. It wasn’t unusual to encounter male dragons over a century old. Encountering a female over thirty was a rarity. This imbalance in the longevity of sexes allowed males to control nearly all the wealth of the kingdom. Only the occasional widowed female sun-dragon might hold a position of authority as Chakthalla did. And, at least sun-dragons formed families, where males and females lived together. With sky-dragons like Vendevorex, the segregation of sexes was total, with the males and females living in completely different towns, and mating being a carefully choreographed affair based completely on compatible genetics. For sky-dragons, mating was a purely biological activity, and concepts such as romance, love, or even family were pointless constructs invented by more muddled thinkers.
 Seated next to Chakthalla was a human male, perhaps five years older than Jandra. Like his owner, the man was the product of excellent breeding. He was handsome to a fault with long blond hair and chiseled features. His bronzed skin glowed; his broad smile revealed teeth white as porcelain. He was dressed in silk, his clothing cut to show off his tight, well-muscled physique. Jandra hadn’t been properly introduced to him yet—she’d only heard Chakthalla refer to him as “Pet.”
 “Pet,” Chakthalla said. “Show Vendevorex your little trick. The one with the apple.”
 “Yes, Mother,” Pet answered, smiling as he stood in his seat and stepped onto the table.
 Pet somersaulted gracefully across the dishes, darting his hand out as he passed over the fruit dish. He landed on his feet, now holding an apple and a napkin in one hand and a silver knife in the other. He threw the knife and apple straight into the air and in rapid motion tied the napkin around his face. He knotted the impromptu blindfold in time to snatch the falling knife and apple.
 The items didn’t remain in his grasp for even a second. The apple left his hand, then the knife, and soon both floated in a constant arc above his head, his hands merely tapping them as they reached the bottom of the circle.
 Jandra watched the performance, impressed by Pet’s skill, yet vaguely disturbed by the scene. She had been relieved to learn that Chakthalla would allow her to eat at the dinner table with Vendevorex. Some dragons allowed humans at dinner tables only on platters as the main course. Chakthalla’s liberal attitude toward human companions was obviously shaped by her love of Pet. That bothered Jandra as she watched Pet perform like a tamed bear. She wondered how many hours of practice he’d put into the act solely to please Chakthalla.
 Pet sliced the apple in half midair and then sent the pieces up in the air to be quartered. With a flick of his wrists, two of the quarters went flying, one landing in the center of Chakthalla’s plate, the other landing slightly to the side of Vendevorex’s. Pet caught the third quarter in his mouth as he pulled his blindfold free with a flourish and bowed. Jandra lost track of where the final quarter of the apple landed.
 “Very good, Pet,” said Chakthalla.
 Pet bit a chunk from his apple, swallowed, then said, “Oh, but Mother, I have been remiss. It seems not everyone was served.”
 Pet back-flipped from the table landing next to Jandra. He stood with such grace that Jandra suddenly felt clumsy merely sitting still. Now that he stood close to her she noted the breathtaking jade color of his eyes.
 “It wouldn’t do to have this lovely lady go without her share,” Pet said, taking Jandra’s hand. His long slender fingers were softer than her own; his nails were trimmed in perfect arcs. Pet turned her palm upward, revealing the last quarter of the apple in the center of it. He closed her fingers around it, then leaned and kissed the back of her hand with his warm pink lips.
 “How sweet,” Chakthalla said. “I think Pet likes your little Jandy.”
 “Jandra,” Vendevorex corrected.
 Pet returned to his seat next to Chakthalla. The regal dragon reached out her bejeweled talon to stroke his long blond hair. He rolled his eyes with pleasure. Jandra felt slightly ill.
 She was bothered that Pet called Chakthalla “Mother.” Though she never addressed him as such, she sometimes thought of Vendevorex as a father. He had raised her for as long as she could remember. Since her true parents had died when she was only an infant, Vendevorex was the closest thing to a parent she would ever have.
 But what place did she occupy in Vendevorex’s heart? Vendevorex never discussed emotion. He treated her kindly and was often smotheringly protective, but it wasn’t quite the same as affection. Did he think of her as his daughter? His apprentice? Or merely his pet?
 Vendevorex asked, “Have you received any word, my lady, from your friends?”
 “Not as yet. Be patient. These are delicate matters we inquire about.”
 “Of course,” Vendevorex said.
 “I’m sure things will turn in our favor,” Chakthalla said. “Albekizan has made many enemies over the years. If what you say is true and Albekizan does plan to kill all humans, we shall not want for allies. Thinning out the village rabble is one thing, but there are many others who feel as strongly about their darlings as I do about Pet. You, of course, understand the bond between a dragon and her best friend.”
 “Of course,” Vendevorex said.
 “My messengers will mention your name in their queries,” Chakthalla said, a tone of pride in her voice. “Vendevorex is a name that carries a great deal of weight.”
 “And a great deal of liability. I am sure, my lady, that you use extreme caution as you speak my name. If Albekizan learns I am here, it will endanger your life and destroy our plans.”
 “I assure you, I know who to trust,” Chakthalla said.
 As Jandra looked away from Chakthalla, she saw that Pet had his gaze fixed squarely upon her. She looked down at her plate and stirred the spiced potatoes with her fork. She had little experience dealing with human males, but she had a strong suspicion of what Pet’s stare meant. Many dragons who kept humans as pets bred them. Pet certainly looked like a thoroughbred. Jandra felt relieved that she didn’t have a pedigree. No sense in giving Chakthalla ideas, especially since she wasn’t sure what Vendevorex would say to such a proposal.
 AFTER DINNER, VENDEVOREX walked the halls of Chakthalla’s palace, lost in thought. Jandra followed close behind but he was barely aware of her. He was thinking of the solid stone walls of Albekizan’s abode. The king’s home was built for defense with high, solid walls, slits for windows, and guard towers in all directions. Chakthalla’s home was a much more open space. The elegant ceilings were roofed with wooden arches which would fall beneath the first catapult assault. Huge, decorative windows filled with tinted glass panes lined the upper halves of the rooms. When war came, the glass would fall like deadly rain. Chakthalla’s home was built for beauty, not for war.
 “How much longer will we have to stay here, Ven?” Jandra asked.
 Vendevorex’s brow furrowed at the question. He faced her and said, “For weeks, you’ve only expressed impatience at the slow crawl of the negotiations that brought us here. Don’t tell me you are in a hurry to leave.”
 “I’m not,” she said. “But it’s been almost two months since Albekizan decided to wipe out the human race. I want to tackle our problems head on, take action.”
 “Action and problems will seek us out. It’s foolish to invite them before their time.”
 “You’ve been training me to fight,” Jandra said. She tightened her jaw and threw back her shoulders, looking as fierce as her five-foot tall, slender frame could manage. “I’m tired of sitting around waiting on all this letter-writing and spy games.”
 “The history of the world is shaped as much by the exchange of letters as it is by the waging of war,” Vendevorex said.
 “But there will be war, won’t there? Someone has to stand up to Albekizan.”
 Vendevorex paused, contemplating her words. He found it difficult to believe Jandra was so hungry for war. He suspected she might have another motivation for wanting to know how long they would stay here.
 “You seemed ill at ease tonight at dinner,” Vendevorex said.
 Jandra shrugged. “Something about this place disturbs me.”
 Vendevorex nodded. “I was thinking the same thing. But I need a safe place to gather my thoughts. We can count on Chakthalla’s loyalty. She despises Albekizan.”
 “I don’t trust her,” said Jandra. “It sounds like she’s bragging to her friends that she’s sheltering you.”
 “We can only have faith that her words will reach the right ears.”
 “I think you trust her too far,” Jandra said.
 Vendevorex analyzed the edge in Jandra’s voice. Annoyance? Jealousy? He wished he were better at understanding her moods. He knew that humans experienced a stage of development in the years following puberty characterized by unpredictable emotional swings. He tried not to think about it. There were more important worries.
 “Well?” Jandra asked.
 “What? Do I trust her too far? Obviously, I don’t believe so. That could prove suicidal. There are many, many secrets I keep from her‌—‌and from everyone.”
 “Even me?”
 “Even you,” Vendevorex said. He thought again of the ultimate secret he kept from her, then chased it quickly from his mind. She would never learn the truth of her origins. “But I see no reason to keep you in the dark,” he said. “My decision to come here was one made in weakness. I doubt that our paths will intermingle with Chakthalla’s for long.”
 “What do you mean?”
 “Now that I’ve spent time in Chakthalla’s company, I see that turning to her was a futile hope. Chakthalla is planning a rebellion the way she would plan a holiday picnic. It’s something she’ll invite a few close friends to for an afternoon’s diversion. None who stand with her have the wits to know what they are up against, or the strength of will to make their rebellion work.”
 “But you stand with them,” Jandra said. “You have the wits and the will.”
 “No,” Vendevorex said, shaking his head. “The situation has spun beyond my control. For too many years I’ve watched Albekizan in his ruthless quest for power. Indeed, I’ve helped him gain that power. I’ve killed for our king, Jandra. I’ve used my abilities to eliminate the very dragons who would now have the greatest chance of success against Albekizan.”
 “You couldn’t know this day would come,” Jandra said. “You did what you thought was best at the time. You told me it was good for the dragons to be united under a strong king.”
 “So I believed. It was certainly to my advantage.”
 “How so?”
 Vendevorex contemplated his answer. There were still many, many things he didn’t wish to reveal.
 “No one in this kingdom knows of my past. I arrived seventeen years ago, a stranger to all. I used my status as an outsider to cultivate an air of mystery. I eventually made my way into Albekizan’s court. I was given respect, power, wealth: all things that had eluded me in my former homeland. As Albekizan’s power increased, so did mine. I always spoke freely with him, told him whenever I felt he grew too ruthless or cruel. This appeased my conscience. But I never made any move to stop him, nor did I ever refuse a share of the bounty of his conquests.”
 Jandra looked confused. “Your former homeland . . . Where was it?” she asked. “How could it lie outside of Albekizan’s kingdom?”
 “Ah, to be as innocent as you are now.” Vendevorex placed his fore-talon on Jandra’s shoulder. “Let’s just say the world was once a much larger place.”
 “What do you mean?”
 “Albekizan controls only a small sliver of this world, isolated geographically by mountains to the west and an ocean to the east. But beyond the mountains there are other lands. I was born in one of these faraway kingdoms. Sky-dragons there form families in much the way that sun-dragons do here. I was the youngest of seven brothers. I had little chance of ever inheriting land or power, and less chance of taking it forcefully. So I left, seeking my fortunes in the frontier beyond. It was the beginning of a journey that is now rather difficult to explain.”
 “I can’t believe it,” Jandra said. “A whole world beyond the mountains? Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
 “It never seemed important. I have good reasons for not discussing my homeland. But now, it seems, I have even better reasons to return to it.”
 “Return?”
 Vendevorex nodded. “Until now, I hadn’t made up my mind as to the best course of action. I clung to the hope that it would be possible to fight Albekizan. My consultations with Chakthalla show this to be folly. Our best hope lies on the other side of the mountains.”
 “The best hope to stop Albekizan? You think we can find allies there? Your family, maybe?”
 Vendevorex shook his head. “We must think of ourselves now. If we stay here we will throw our lives away for a lost cause.”
 “But if we run, who will fight for the humans?” Jandra asked, her voice rising.
 Vendevorex recognized her emotions stirring again. He tried to calm her with reason. “The humans must fight for themselves. United, they may succeed. A war of attrition favors them due to their superior numbers. In the end, humans may simply outbreed their way to victory.”
 Jandra grew pale. Vendevorex tried to interpret her eyes. Was she reassured by his words? No, there were tears forming. He’d disappointed her instead of reassuring her. He sighed. Why did she have to make things so difficult?
 “Don’t you care about the millions who will die?” she asked softly.
 “Jandra, you’re too young to understand,” he said firmly, hoping to end this discussion. “I’m not heartless. I’ve given up all my power and prestige. I won’t assist Albekizan in genocide. But I also won’t risk my life in such a lopsided cause.”
 “You aren’t willing to die for humans.”
 “It’s not—”
 “You aren’t willing to die for me?”
 “Don’t put words in my mouth. I’ve raised you for many years now. You mean a great deal to me.”
 “I mean a great deal . . . that’s all?” Jandra said, her voice trembling. “Is it true then? I’m nothing more than a pet to you?”
 Vendevorex hadn’t expected this response. “What?”
 “I’m not blind or deaf. Chakthalla acts as if I’m your pet and you say nothing to make her think differently.”
 He shrugged. “It’s simple courtesy not to hurt the feelings of our hostess.”
 “But you think nothing of hurting my feelings, do you?” Jandra said through clenched teeth.
 “I admit,” Vendevorex said, on the verge of exasperation, “that I often have trouble comprehending the logic of your feelings.”
 Jandra sucked in her breath, looking for all the world like she was getting ready to shout. Then she turned and walked away, fists clenched. He hoped she would walk off her anger. Vendevorex felt a good deal of relief that this confrontation was behind them. When conditions were more favorable he would make things up to her.
 ZEEKY COULD SEE the castle against the sunset. She’d been this close to the castle only once, last year when her father had taken food to the next village. He had told her the castle belonged to a dragon and that Zeeky should never go near the place. But Zeeky had wanted so badly to visit.
 The castle was lovely. On foggy mornings its graceful spires seemed to float in the sky. She often saw dragons in flight, their shadows falling over her as they passed above. Some of her friends were frightened by the shadows. She was always thrilled. She wanted more than anything in the world to touch the skin of a dragon; she imagined it to be soft and smooth, like snakeskin. She once dreamed that she was a dragon perched on the castle wall, looking over the valley.
 Now she was finally going inside the castle walls. It was the only place she could think of to hide Poocher where her father would never follow. She wasn’t sure what dragons ate—horses, maybe—but she knew without a doubt what her father ate, and from the moment she’d laid eyes on Poocher she’d known she couldn’t let it happen.
 It was well into night when she reached the small village that lay just outside the castle walls. The full moon dominated the sky, pierced by the dark silhouette of the castle’s tallest tower. Zeeky’s excitement at being so near the castle was somewhat muted by her exhaustion. Poocher snored softly in her arms and she felt as if she could simply lie down on the ground where she stood and drift away.
 But that would be stupid. The villagers would find her and return her to her father, and then what would happen to Poocher? No, she would have to find shelter. Fortunately, she could make out the dim shapes of farm buildings across some nearby fields. She slipped through a wooden fence and made her way toward a barn. A dog barked angrily, the sound growing rapidly nearer. The large hound materialized from the darkness.
 “Shhh,” whispered Zeeky, pressing a finger to her lips. “You’ll wake everybody up.”
 The dog stopped barking and approached her, sniffing. Zeeky scratched the old hound behind its ears.
 “That’s a good boy,” she said. She had always gotten along better with animals than people. Animals listened to her. People spoke at her.
 The dog walked with her to the barn. She noticed a chunk of bloody fur in the dirt in front of the door.
 “Poor thing,” she whispered, guessing that the dog had caught up with a rabbit earlier. The dog picked up its meal and wandered off toward the farmhouse.
 She slipped into the barn, pausing to let her eyes adjust. The moonlight outside was like daylight compared to the gloom of the barn. She stepped forward carefully, holding a hand before her, until at last she touched the ladder that led to the loft. She climbed slowly. Poocher was awake now and if he began to squirm she didn’t want to drop him from the ladder.
 As her head reached the top of the loft an arm thrust down from the darkness, grabbing her by the collar. She screamed but was instantly muffled by the large, rough hand that clamped over her mouth. She clasped Poocher with both arms as her assailant lifted her the rest of the way into the loft.
 “Stop squirming,” said a deep, gravelly voice. “I’m going to let go of your mouth so you can answer a few questions. I’m not going to hurt you so don’t scream, understand?”
 Zeeky nodded. The man’s hand left her mouth. He still held her by the collar from behind so that she couldn’t turn to face him.
 “Did you have a good dinner tonight?” he asked. “I smelled fried chicken up at the house. Can you get me some?”
 Zeeky didn’t know how to answer.
 “C’mon. Talk. You got nothing to be afraid of.”
 “I . . . didn’t have dinner tonight.”
 “Oh?” the man said, sounding curious. “Why not? You being punished?”
 “I can’t tell.”
 “What did you do?”
 “I didn’t do nothing. I didn’t eat dinner here ’cause I don’t live here.”
 “Then what are you doing in this barn?”
 “What are you doing in here?” Zeeky replied.
 “Trying to get some sleep without some nosy kid butting in.”
 “I’m not nosy. I didn’t know you were up here. I’m just looking for a place to spend the night.”
 “You a runaway?”
 “No. I’m . . . I’m an orphan.”
 “Huh,” the man said. “Well, me too. So I guess you got as much right to pass the night here as I do.”
 The man let go of her collar and Zeeky spun around. She found a skinny old man with gray, thinning hair and tattered clothing. Spread on the straw beside him was a large gray cloak which held a longbow, a quiver of arrows, and a large knife in a leather sheath. The old man smiled, showing two teeth missing from the bottom.
 “I see you brought a pig, kid. Good thinking. Kind of a runt, though. But split between just the two of us—”
 Zeeky squinched her eyes and said in the sternest voice she could muster, “Poocher’s not for eating. He’s my friend.”
 “Oh.” The man shrugged. “Whatever. Not much meat on him anyway. Guess we’re stuck with potatoes,” her loftmate said, holding out a large spud. “Want one?”
 “Thank you,” Zeeky said, taking the potato. “What’s your name? Mine’s Zeeky.”
 “Zeeky? Never met anyone named Zeeky.”
 “Well, now you have.”
 “You got some sass in you, kid. I like that.”
 “What’s your name?”
 “If you knew that, I’d have to kill you,” the man said.
 “Why? Are you a bad guy?”
 “Could be,” he answered. “I stole these potatoes.”
 “I stole fruit last night. Stealing food ain’t always bad.”
 “The way I was raised, it is.”
 Zeeky shrugged. “Then we both must be bad guys.”
 He nodded. “Brother outlaws.”
 “But I’m a girl.”
 “Okay, brother and sister outlaws.”
 “You gonna tell me your name?”
 The old man started to say something, then stopped. He smirked, then asked, “Can you keep a secret?”
 “Sure.”
 “Okay. Then keep this one real good,” the stranger said, leaning close to her. His breath smelled of rotting teeth as he whispered, “I’m Bitterwood.”
 “No,” Zeeky said.
 “No?” The old man leaned back away from her. “I thought sure I was.”
 Zeeky rolled her eyes. She hated when adults treated her like she didn’t know anything. “Bitterwood’s this hero, okay? He lives in a big castle and he rides around on this white horse and has a shiny sword and a fancy hat with feathers in it. He fights dragons who are mean to nice people.”
 “Oh,” the man said. He scratched his head, looking confused. “So . . . I’m not Bitterwood?”
 “No, silly.”
 “Huh,” he said. “Then I’m at a bit of a disadvantage. I must have forgot my name. Why don’t you just call me . . . Hey You.”
 “Hey You?”
 “Hey, for short. Mr. You if you’re feeling formal.”
 “Okay, You.”
 “That’s Mr. You to you,” he said.
 “You’re silly,” Zeeky said. “I like you.”
 Mr. You’s lips bent slightly upward into an expression not quite a smile. “Thank you,” he said. “Not many people like me.”
 “Maybe if you didn’t scare little girls in barns, people would think you were nicer,” she said.
 “Could be,” he said. “I don’t normally try to scare anyone. It just happens.”
 “Maybe you need somebody to hang out with you and give you advice on not scaring people.”
 “Like a little girl?” Hey You said. Then, his partial smile faded. He nodded as he said, softly, “You might be onto something. People did like me more when I had a little girl. I had two of them, actually, a long time ago.”
 “Did something happen to them?”
 He looked down into the straw and mumbled, “Yes.” Then he took a deep breath and said, “Enough chit chat. If you want, you can stretch out on my cloak and I’ll sleep on one of them straw bales. We gotta get up before dawn if we want to avoid being caught.”
 “Okay.” Zeeky didn’t need much convincing. She stretched out on his cloak, which was soft and smelled of smoke, and within less than a minute was drifting to sleep, dreaming of dragon castles, barely hearing the dog frantically barking in the distance.
 JANDRA STEPPED from her sandals so that she would be able to climb more easily. The window had been built to allow a sun-dragon to stand comfortably at it and look out. She could just barely reach the bottom edge of the window if she jumped. She was used to navigating furniture and rooms scaled for beings twice her height. One advantage of the lifestyle was that it had made her a good jumper and a great climber. She pulled herself into the window, the highest in the castle, and looked out over the surrounding farmland. The moonlight bleached the night of all color, but still she could see the rectangular patchwork of farms, the wide river beyond and, far in the distance, the long ridge of mountains that bordered the rich valley.
 The houses below looked idyllic. She wondered what it would have been like to have been raised in a normal house rather than a castle tower. She knew that Ruth or Mary would have thought she was crazy. They would have given anything for a taste of her life of privilege and comfort. But tonight she would rather be in one of those small farmhouses than here in the abode of dragons.
 Sitting in the window, the cool night air playing against her hair, she remembered her last flight with Vendevorex. It seemed so natural to soar above the earth. She dreamed of flying almost every night. It wasn’t fair that humans were forever earthbound. If she could fly on her own she would never touch ground.
 “A lovely night, fair Jandra. Made all the lovelier by your presence.”
 Jandra looked back. Pet was behind her, standing on the stairs that entered the tower chamber. He still wore his dinner finery: black pants and boots, a green silk shirt that matched his eyes with a necklace of gold and emeralds. She missed her old wardrobe, all the elaborate headdresses and gowns, now forever lost, she supposed. Having fled with only the clothes on her back, Vendevorex had used his abilities to create a simple cotton blouse and skirt for her. They were nicely crafted and fit her well, but compared to Pet, she may as well have been dressed in burlap rags.
 “You look sad,” Pet said. “Is something bothering you?”
 “It’s nothing,” she said. She noted the ease with which he’d read the emotions on her face. Why couldn’t Vendevorex be as tuned to her feelings as this stranger? “I just felt like looking at the moon.”
 “So I’m not intruding?” Pet asked.
 “This is your home,” she said, turning her face away. “I suppose you can go wherever you want.”
 “You look as if you wish to be alone,” Pet said. “I wouldn’t want to be where I’m not wanted. If you want me to go away, I will.”
 “Thank you,” Jandra said.
 “But before I go,” Pet said, “I want you to know I understand.”
 “Understand what?”
 “Your sorrow. Your loneliness,” he said in his soothing, lyrical voice. “Sometimes, when we feel the greatest need to be alone, it’s the moment we should most welcome the company of others.”
 Jandra supposed he meant the words to come across as wise. But they struck her instead as unsolicited advice. She got enough of that from Vendevorex. “You presume much, Pet.”
 “Do I? In your eyes, I caught a glimpse of the turmoil in your soul. You’re all alone. I know your master doesn’t understand. He can’t.”
 Jandra frowned. “Vendevorex isn’t my master. He’s my . . . teacher.”
 “But he’s not human. He’ll never be sensitive to your needs.”
 Jandra shifted in the window, turning her full back to him. “I thought you said you would leave.”
 “You haven’t actually asked me to leave. I believe I know why.”
 “Oh?”
 “You look out into the moonlight and it haunts you. You’re a human living among dragons. You will never be recognized as an equal to the dragons, but neither will you ever be at home among mankind.”
 Jandra didn’t want to let him know how right he was. She remained silent, staring into the night. Her gaze fixed on the farthest fields, her eyes drawn to movement, a large mass creeping along the river. A herd of cattle, perhaps. Did cattle come out at night? She turned away from the view to study Pet once more. His eyes continued to look right through her. Was she really so transparent?
 She didn’t want to discuss her feelings with him, so she changed the subject. “Is Pet your real name?”
 “No. My true name is Petar Gondwell. But Chakthalla prefers to call me Pet.”
 “Why do you let her?”
 “Why not? It makes her happy.”
 “But don’t you want your own identity? Don’t you want what makes you happy?”
 “Making Chakthalla happy makes me happy.”
 Jandra felt a little ill hearing this, thinking of how she enjoyed pleasing Vendevorex when she did well with her lessons.
 “You don’t like my being Chakthalla’s pet,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone. “It makes you question your servitude to Vendevorex.”
 He is perceptive, thought Jandra.
 “You dislike the idea that people are owned by dragons,” Pet ventured. “You want your freedom.”
 “I have my freedom,” Jandra said. “Vendevorex doesn’t own me. He’s just . . . my mentor. My parents died when their house burned down. He’s raised me but he doesn’t own me.”
 “Ah. If you are free then you can leave his service at anytime.”
 “I suppose. But . . .”
 “But?”
 “I don’t know where I would go.”
 “Ah.” Pet nodded. “That is a problem, isn’t it? He has you bound by ignorance of the world. This shackles you far more effectively than iron.”
 Jandra thought about Vendevorex’s revelation of lands beyond the kingdom. Had he kept her in the dark to limit her possibilities? Who knew what lay beyond the mountains? Perhaps there were places where humans ruled dragons. That would certainly explain his reluctance to discuss them.
 “I won’t say that Vendevorex has me in shackles,” she said. “But it bothers me the way he’s always keeping quiet about his plans. He just announces our next move and expects me to follow. He never consults me.”
 “It’s the way of dragons,” said Pet. “They can never consider humans as equals. Asking a human for advice is as absurd to them as us asking a dog what the weather will be like.”
 Jandra nodded. “I must admit, you surprise me. You seemed so subservient to Chakthalla. I just assumed you let her do all your thinking for you.”
 “I make her think she does all my thinking for me. In truth, I’m the sole master of my fate, fair Jandra. Humans are dealt a very bad hand. In the villages, men struggle to survive. Some become comfortable but none may become wealthy. The only humans to gain a semblance of power are the prophets that seem to grow like mushrooms after floods and plagues. But what do prophets do with their prestige? Wage war against the non-believers in the next village who are following their own prophet. In the end, there is little profit in prophecy.”
 “No,” she said. “I suppose not.”
 “But to live among dragons is a far different fate,” Pet said. “As a favorite of a dragon I am showered with jewels. I sleep on sheets of silk; I drink from cups of gold. All Chakthalla asks in exchange are a few tricks and a sympathetic ear.”
 “It sounds attractive when you put it that way,” Jandra said. “But still, to be a pet . . . Have you no pride?”
 “I take pride in a job well done,” Pet said with a slight bow. “I’m an actor, a singer, an acrobat, a poet, a master of diverse arts and talents. I think of Chakthalla as my patron rather than my keeper.”
 “But Chakthalla owns you,” Jandra said. “You don’t have freedom.”
 He shrugged. “A vastly overrated commodity. Do I want the freedom to be poor? Do I want the freedom to tear my food from the hard earth, to struggle daily to endure? No. This way is better. As Petar I could pursue nothing but daily toil. As Pet I can pursue the finer things in life. Beautiful women such as yourself, for instance, are found only in the courts of dragons.”
 “Please,” Jandra said, rolling her eyes. “I’m not beautiful.”
 “Oh dear. He doesn’t tell you, does he?”
 “Doesn’t tell me what?”
 “Vendevorex never tells you how lovely you are.”
 Jandra lowered her head. “No. He doesn’t.”
 “Dragons know nothing of human hearts. The loveliest woman never sees her own beauty with her eyes until she sees it with her heart.”
 Jandra sat quietly, contemplating his words. Beautiful? Pet was beautiful. Bodiel had been beautiful. She was just plain. Wasn’t she? She felt slightly dizzy at the possibility.
 “I think,” she said, “I should go back to my chambers.”
 “Why?” Pet asked.
 “I’m tired,” she said though she wasn’t. She was nervous for reasons she didn’t quite understand, but she couldn’t tell him that. “It’s been a long day.”
 “Vendevorex will expect you to sleep in his quarters?” Pet asked.
 “I suppose,” she said. “I normally do.”
 “Do you always do what he wants you to do?”
 “I don’t sleep there because he wants me to. I sleep there because we’re on the run. Where else am I to sleep?”
 “My chambers. I have the most wonderful bed. The moment your body touches it, I guarantee you will be in ecstasy.”
 “Oh,” she said. “I, um . . .”
 “There are many areas in which a person may be shackled by a lack of knowledge,” Pet said slyly. “I have a key. I can teach you many things. Open doors to worlds you haven’t even dreamed of.”
 Pet’s gaze met hers and held it for a long moment. She found his stare most unsettling.
 “I should . . . should go now,” she said. Yet her body didn’t seem to agree. It remained frozen on the window ledge, her lips parted, her eyes fixed on his deep emerald eyes. With effort, she turned away, looking back over the fields. The moving mass she had seen in the distance was much closer now, practically at the castle walls. It no longer looked like a herd of cattle. What was going on? Then she noticed a score of lights in the sky, moving more erratically than stars. She focused upon them and could see the dark shapes of sky-dragons above. They swooped closer and she saw that the lights came from small iron pots dangling from chains.
 “Oh no,” she said.
 She spun around and jumped from the window. She landed, to her surprise, in Pet’s arms. He lowered her to her feet, his face only inches from her own. Then, without warning, he lowered his lips to hers. She’d never been kissed before. She stood there, stunned, all but paralyzed with the shock of it. He smelled wonderful. Pet wrapped his arms around her. She noticed how well her body fit against his. Could this really be happening?
 A voice in the back of her head kept yelling that she had more important things to attend to at the moment, and at last she listened to this voice. She summoned the strength to push Pet away.
 “There isn’t time for this! I’ve got to get to Vendevorex!” she said.
 “That’s your fear speaking, fair one,” he said, his voice a gentle coo. “It’s not the voice of your heart.”
 “No! You don’t understand!”
 Pet grabbed her by the arms and kissed her again. She struggled but his strength was far greater that hers. This time it wasn’t even mildly pleasant. She beat at his back with her clenched fists.
 At last he broke the kiss, pushing her away, but not letting go of her arms, “I apologize. Your beauty has caused me to lose all caution. I’ve pushed you too far, too fast. You’re scared. You’re young, confused by the stirrings in your body, confused by the burning in your soul.”
 “It’s not my soul I’m worried about!” she snapped, but her words were drowned by the beating of wings. Light bright as day flashed through the window. A burning cauldron crashed against the far wall then clattered as it bounced around the room, throwing flames in all directions.
CHAPTER TEN
* * *
WAR
THE FLAMES SPREAD across the far wall as the iron pot rolled to rest. A river of flames spilled down the steps, cutting off their exit. The stone stairs hissed and popped as the flames ate at them.
 “Don’t breathe the smoke!” Jandra shouted, grabbing Pet’s arm and pulling away from the flames. “It’s poisonous!”
 “It’s burning the rocks in the walls!” Pet yelped.
 “It’s called the Vengeance of the Ancestors,” Jandra said, letting go of Pet. She studied her surroundings. “It burns rock, wood, even water. Everything but iron.” The only way out was the window. She leapt up to grab the ledge then scrambled quickly up the rough stone. Once perched in the window she leaned down and extended a hand to Pet.
 “How do you know about this?” Pet asked, taking her hand.
 “Vendevorex invented it,” Jandra said as she helped Pet climb onto the ledge next to her. “At least the wind is blowing in our favor. We’ll be safe from the smoke in here. You know this castle better than me. Isn’t there another window below us? Maybe twenty feet?”
 “Y-yes,” he said, not taking his eyes from the flames.
 Jandra studied the flames as well, trying to guess how much time they had. The Vengeance burned thoroughly but it burned slowly when dense materials like stone were its fuel. Even though it had splashed over half of the room, it would take a long time to spread to this wall. Unfortunately, the Vengeance had ignited the wooden roof beams that now burned with conventional flames. The breeze from the open window that kept the worst of the smoke away also fueled the fire that devoured the beams. The thick wooden shafts supported the tall, thin metal spires that topped the towers. It wouldn’t take long before it all collapsed on top of them.
 Outside the window Jandra could see other fires burning across the castle. The dark shapes of sky-dragons swooped and glided among the rising smoke. She looked down. To her relief, no flames were directly below them.
 “Take off your shirt, Pet,” she said.
 The panicked look vanished from Pet’s face. He raised an eyebrow as he asked, “If we’re going to die, you want to die in a passionate embrace?” He gave a confident grin as he began unlacing his shirt. His fingers flew with well-practiced speed.
 “You really have a one track mind, don’t you?” Jandra said. “Silk is very strong. It will make a good rope.”
 “My shirt isn’t long enough to reach the lower window,” Pet said, sounding a bit disappointed.
 “It will be,” Jandra said, taking the shirt from him the instant he pulled it over his head.
 She dipped her fingers into the small pouch of silver dust she carried on her belt. She carefully closed her right hand around the sleeve of his shirt then closed her eyes, so as not to be distracted by the flame. With her left hand she pulled the small tuft of silk she had left showing and began to pull it from her hand. Instead of the shirtsleeve, a silk cord as thick as her pinky emerged from her grasp. Pulling more rapidly, she soon ran the entire shirt through her right hand, leaving her with thirty feet of coiled silken rope.
 “Good trick,” said Pet, nodding appreciatively.
 “It’s not a trick,” Jandra said. “What you did with the apple . . . that was a trick. This is something much more complex. I’ve been studying with Vendevorex all my life. He’s teaching me how to reconfigure the basic building blocks of matter.” Jandra stood up on the wide windowsill. She reached up, tying the rope around the roof beam that extended outside the tower. She dropped the rope. The end dangled just below the lower window.
 “Okay,” she said, “Let’s—”
 She was cut short by a horrendous creaking. She looked into the room and saw that Vengeance had climbed the far wall and cut into the copper plates that formed the roof. She yelled, “Don’t breathe!”
 But it was too late. A large copper plate twisted free and fell into the room amidst the Vengeance of the Ancestors, sending large billows of smoke toward them. Jandra tried to inhale one last breath of clean air in the instant before it reached them. Instead, her lungs filled with the awful smell of phosphorous and sulfur. Her lungs felt full of needles as she began to cough uncontrollably. Dark spots danced before her eyes as her strength failed. She was vaguely aware of her feet slipping from the ledge as she tumbled backward into the night air.
 “WHAT’S HAPPENING?” Zeeky mumbled as Poocher’s squeals awakened her.
 “Sorry to disturb you,” Hey You said as he lifted her in his arms and set her onto the straw. “I need my cloak. There’s work to be done.”
 “What’s that noise?” Zeeky asked, hearing guttural shouts in the distance, and the faint clangs of metal against metal.
 “War. The dragons fight the dragons.”
 “Why?” she asked, sitting up.
 “That’s of no concern to me. Whatever cause dragons are prepared to die for tonight, I feel obligated to help them along. The family in the farmhouse should be awake by now. I’m going to leave you with them.”
 “No!” Zeeky protested. “They’ll take me back!”
 “Back where?”
 “Oh. Ah,” Zeeky muttered, hugging her knees as she looked at the floor. “To the orphanage?”
 “You can always run away again,” Hey You said as he fastened the sheathed knife to his boot. “Running away’s easy.”
 “Why can’t I go with you?”
 “I’m going someplace little girls shouldn’t go.”
 “Where?”
 “To hell, eventually,” Hey You said. While he tied his cloak around his neck he stared at her straight in the eyes and asked, “You coming voluntarily?”
 “What’s ‘voluntarily’ mean?”
 “Fine,” he said, scooping her up under one arm and lifting his bow with the other.
 Zeeky screamed as Hey You jumped from the loft. But the ground was closer than she guessed and when they hit, Hey You curled into a ball around Zeeky and rolled forward once, then sprang to his feet. It happened so fast Zeeky didn’t even get dizzy. She could hear Poocher squealing frantically above them.
 “Wait!” she yelled. “I’ll go! I’ll go! But I have to take Poocher!”
 “Forget the pig,” Hey You said as he carried her from the dark barn into the starlit night.
 “No! He’s my friend!”
 Hey You stopped and muttered several words Zeeky had never heard before. He put her down and darted back into the barn. He leapt to the ladder leading to the loft, bounding up the rungs quicker than she could blink. Poocher squealed more emphatically as Hey You again leapt from the loft, this time curling into a ball around Poocher as he landed, then rolled to his feet. Now that she wasn’t part of the jump, Zeeky thought it looked fun.
 Hey You grabbed her by the hand and ran across the yard. Lights glowed from inside the farmhouse. Zeeky could see flames at the dragon’s castle, with the tallest spire engulfed completely in a pillar of fire, blazing like the world’s largest candle.
 Hey You pounded on the farmer’s door. “Open up!” he shouted. “It’s a fellow human who summons you.”
 The door opened quickly and Hey You dragged Zeeky into the house, into the presence of a frightened looking family. The farmer and his wife looked young, much younger than Zeeky’s own parents. Zeeky was relieved to see that they had a girl, a little smaller than Zeeky. Her own family was all boys except for her mother.
 “I need you to watch after my daughter for a short time,” Hey You said. “We’re travelers, far from home, and I know no one who can watch her.”
 “But . . .” the farmer said.
 “Where are you going?” the wife asked.
 “To battle,” Hey You said.
 “To attack the castle, or to defend it?” the farmer asked.
 “To attack the dragons,” Hey You answered. “Will you watch her or not? Time is short.”
 “Of course,” the wife said.
 “But . . .” the farmer said.
 “Of course,” the wife said more firmly.
 The farmer shrugged and said, “Of course.”
 “Good. She comes with a pig,” Hey You said, handing Poocher to the farmer. “Don’t eat it.”
 “Um,” said the farmer.
 Zeeky tugged Hey You’s pant leg. He looked down into her eyes. She said, “Promise you’ll come back?”
 Perhaps it was only a trick of the dim light, but it seemed to her that Hey You’s face turned ghostly pale. He stared at her for a long moment before whispering, “I promise.”
 Then, he turned to the farmer and his wife and said, more firmly, “Thank you both for your kindness.”
 Before another word could be spoken he stepped backward through the door and vanished into the night.
 JANDRA WOKE UP. The ground lay far beneath her, swirling, spinning, swimming in colors. A heavy weight pressed against her stomach and she remembered she was falling. She closed her eyes, bracing for impact.
 But the wind wasn’t rushing against her face. The seconds it should take her to reach the ground were dragging by. She opened her eyes again, blinking to clear her vision. The rope swayed above her, or rather, beneath her, since her head was pointed earthward. The lower window crept ever closer. Looking down and then up, she found herself face to face with Pet’s butt. His feet were pressed against the wall for balance. She was slung over his shoulder. He grunted with each inch as he lowered them, hand-over-hand, down the rope.
 “You awake?” Pet asked, his voice strained.
 “How’d you know?” she said, coughing as the remnants of smoke in her lungs raked her throat.
 “You aren’t limp anymore.”
 “You caught me when I fell out the window?” she asked. She could vaguely recall his strong hand wrapping around her wrist at the last second.
 “I’m a sucker for a damsel in distress,” he said.
 Pet’s feet reached the top edge of the lower window.
 “Almost there,” Jandra said.
 Pet stepped down, feeling for his next foothold, but his foot slipped into the open window. They lurched sideways, slamming into the wall. Pet cursed as he struggled to maintain his grip on the thin, slick rope.
 Suddenly, they lurched down even further, another three feet, placing them well past the top edge of the window. Jandra watched as comets of flaming oak and copper rained past them, exploding on the distant ground below.
 “The beam’s shifting!” Pet yelled. “It’s going to break!” His toes touched the lower edge of the window but his body angled out into space. Jandra knew he couldn’t pull himself into the window with her weight on him. She tried to rise, reaching her hand up behind her to grab the rope.
 “Don’t struggle!” Pet said. “I’m losing my grip!”
 Jandra’s hand found the rope and she pulled herself up, taking her weight from his shoulder. Pet lost his toehold on the ledge and they swayed away from the window, the rope twisting. As it swung back in Jandra let go, her momentum taking her onto the ledge. She waved her arms for balance then quickly turned. Pet had swung back out. As he swung once more toward the window, Jandra grabbed him by his belt.
 “Let go!” she said, pulling backward as he started to sway away.
 Pet released the rope and they both tumbled from the ledge, falling backward into the tower. They landed on a soft cotton cushion, big enough for a sun-dragon to curl up on comfortably. Shadows and light danced around the chamber as flaming debris fell past the window.
 Jandra lay trapped beneath Pet’s muscular body, looking into his face which was framed by a mane of golden hair. His bare chest pressed firmly against her breasts. His lips were inches from her own. She stared into Pet’s deep, emerald eyes, seeing the powerful emotion that stirred within them.
 “What the hell is going on?” Pet shouted, his voice cracking with fear.
 “The castle is under attack,” she said.
 “Yes! I know! We were almost killed!”
 “Calm down. Panic won’t help.”
 “I don’t see how it’s hurting anything!”
 “You’re hurting me,” she said. Her breath was still painful and his weight on her wasn’t helping. “Get off.”
 “Oh,” he said, looking as if he just now realized he was on top of her. “Right. Sure.” He rolled off, sitting up, looking dazed. “This just isn’t how I planned to spend the evening at all,” he whined.
 She sat up, bracing her back against the wall.
 “As soon as I catch my breath, we’ll go,” she said.
 “Where?” Pet said, shaking his head. “It looked like the whole castle was on fire. Why is this happening?”
 “Albekizan must know we’re here,” Jandra said, taking a deep breath and then coughing again. “We need to find Vendevorex. Fight by his side to defend this castle.”
 “Fight?” Pet said, twisting a long strand of his golden mane around his fingers. “I don’t know anything about fighting!”
 “Would you calm down?”
 At that moment the rope hanging outside the window slackened and the flaming roof beam roared past the window. Glowing embers showered the room. Thin white twigs of smoke rose from several spots on the cushion.
 “We’re going to die!” Pet screamed.
 “If we stay here, probably,” Jandra said, struggling back to her feet. “Come on.” Jandra grabbed Pet’s hand, helping him rise. She pulled him toward the hallway. “Vendevorex will know what to do.”
 Halfway down the hallway she heard a crash behind them. The crash kept rumbling for an absurdly long time. Smoke and dust rolled through the corridor as the hot wind at her back pushed her to move faster. She suspected the whole tower had finally collapsed, but she didn’t dare look back. She pushed ahead, ignoring the needles in her chest, dragging Pet along.
 The further they went, the more her breath returned. Soon, she broke into a run with Pet still in tow. Racing through the halls of the castle, Jandra heard the sounds of battle all around. She hadn’t been in Chakthalla’s palace long enough to get a feel for what kind of army she commanded. She’d seen perhaps a hundred earth-dragon guards but nothing like the force outside the castle walls. And Chakthalla’s earth-dragons had seemed to exist primarily as dolls to be costumed in elaborate uniforms. She’d seen very few of the rough, ill-tempered brutes that populated Albekizan’s ground forces.
 Still, Albekizan’s army was outside the walls. This battle wasn’t over yet. Vendevorex could even the odds, she was certain. The Vengeance of the Ancestors the attackers used must have come from a supply Vendevorex had created. He could extinguish it with a wave of his claw. Better, he could turn it against the attackers.
 They ran through the long, tall passageways to Vendevorex’s room. Luckily, this section of the castle was silent; the battle was being waged far from this area. But when Jandra pushed open the door to his chambers her heart sank. Empty. Vendevorex was nowhere to be seen. Of course, she thought, he would already be at Chakthalla’s side.
 “Jandra!” Vendevorex said, his voice coming from thin air.
 “A ghost!” Pet cried, jumping at the sound.
 “Calm down,” Jandra said. “He’s only invisible.”
 “Calm down! Of course!” Pet began to chew his immaculately trimmed nails. “I see invisible dragons every day!”
 “My apologies,” Vendevorex said, shimmering into view as the air around him erupted in sparks. “I didn’t mean to frighten you, Pet.”
 “Don’t worry about him,” Jandra said. “We’ve got a bigger problem. The attackers are using the Vengeance! You’ve got to put it out.”
 “That would be unwise,” Vendevorex said.
 “What?” She couldn’t believe she’d heard him right.
 “The castle is woefully under-defended,” Vendevorex said with a calm, observational tone that one might expect if he were discussing the weather. “It will fall to Albekizan’s forces no matter what we do. Better he gain possession of ruins than another base from which to command his forces.”
 “I can’t believe this,” Jandra said. “You’re conceding defeat before we’ve even started fighting?”
 Vendevorex sighed. He placed his claw on her shoulder and looked her in the eyes and explained, as if to a child, “We aren’t going to fight. We’re going to run. I fled the castle of Albekizan because I cared for your safety. It would be foolish now to endanger your life fighting a battle we cannot win.”
 Jandra pushed his claw away. She poked his scaly chest with her finger as she said, “This isn’t like running from Albekizan. He wanted to kill you! Chakthalla wants to help you!”
 “You must see that her desires are not supported by her resources,” Vendevorex said.
 Jandra felt like slapping him.
 “For what it’s worth, sir,” Pet interrupted, “I have a box of jewels in my room that could be of great assistance in a relocation, if you’ll take me with you, please.”
 “What?” Jandra said, cutting him a withering look. “You’re going to run, too? This is your home!”
 Pet nodded. He looked sheepish as he said, “Please don’t think ill of me. I’m a good person . . . I really am. But your master is making a lot of sense.”
 “If you were a good person, you’d stay and fight!”
 “Think about this,” Pet said. “If Chakthalla wins this battle, what then? The king will send a bigger army. We won’t stand a chance. Your master is right. Please listen to him.”
 “Stop calling him my master,” Jandra snapped. “My relationship with Ven is nothing like what’s between you and Chakthalla. Tell him, Ven.”
 “I don’t possess enough information to assess the state of Pet and Chakthalla’s relationship,” Vendevorex said. “In all candor, this isn’t the best time to discuss this.”
 “So you truly don’t care for Chakthalla?” Jandra asked Pet. “When you look at her all lovey-eyed and call her Mother, that’s only an act?”
 Pet shrugged. “I’m a good actor. I know who butters my bread. Unfortunately, Chakthalla’s not going to have any butter left once this place burns down.”
 “Well argued,” Vendevorex said. “It sounds cold but it’s simple truth. Chakthalla is doomed. We doom ourselves by remaining.”
 “You’re both cowards!” Jandra shouted. “You’re looking out for your own skins and not thinking twice about the ones who will die. They’re dying because of you, Ven! They’re dying from the weapon that you created. The king wouldn’t be attacking if it weren’t for you stirring up the possibility of rebellion.”
 “Jandra,” Vendevorex said, lowering his voice. “We will not discuss this now. Gather your belongings.”
 “What about me?” Pet asked.
 “Retrieve your jewels,” Vendevorex said. “You may accompany us from the premises under the shield of invisibility.”
 “Fine,” Jandra said. “You’ve got a new pet, Ven. You won’t be needing me. I’ve got more important things to do.”
 Jandra turned and raced toward Chakthalla’s chambers, blinking away the tears that blurred her vision. Vendevorex shouted her name, calling her back, but she had no reason to listen to another word he said.
 JANDRA FOUND CHAKTHALLA in the throne room, a cathedral-like hall that jutted perpendicularly from the main castle. The stained-glass windows along the tops of the side walls danced with the lights of the flames outside, casting colorful shadows around the room, painting the white marble floors with scenes of ruby dragons floating in amethyst skies above emerald fields.
 Chakthalla’s throne was a giant, gilded pedestal, draped with blood-red satin. Chakthalla slumped on her throne, her head lowered to the floor, her eyes fixed on the doorway in which Jandra stood. Her expression was blank as if she were numb with shock. Her ruby wings draped to each side, spreading onto the floor like carpet. Her fore-claws clutched her breast as if she were feeling her breaking heart. The flickering light gave the illusion that her feathery scales ruffled in a breeze. At her side was a huge spear, twenty feet long, the sort only sun-dragons such as herself could wield.
 “My lady,” Jandra said, hurrying forward. “I’ve come to help defend your castle.”
 Chakthalla followed Jandra with her eyes as she advanced but she did not speak.
 “Chakthalla? If you’ll tell me what to do to help, I’ll do it. My skills aren’t as great as Vendevorex’s, but I can turn invisible, and transmute simple materials, and—” Jandra stopped short as she reached the throne.
 Chakthalla continued to stare at her but now Jandra could see the dark blood seeping down her chin.
 Jandra’s eyes moved to the dragon’s bejeweled talons. The fine red scales glistened with moisture. Wet red spots dripped to the marble floor.
 Chakthalla dropped her claws to her sides. The enormous gash in her breast was revealed. Her eyes closed as her body convulsed, sliding clumsily from the pedestal and sprawling at Jandra’s feet.
 A long metal blade protruded from Chakthalla’s back, gleaming in the firelight. Suddenly, a claw so deeply green it looked black rose from behind the pedestal. Long nails dug into the satin. Then the assassin leapt to the top of the throne, crouching upon it. It was an earth-dragon, one of the Black Silences, a unit in the dragon army bred for espionage and assassination. Some mutation had rendered this subspecies of the earth-dragons a deeper hue than their brethren, and had gifted them with unnatural speed. The dragon’s scales were so dark they sucked in the light around him. His eyes burned like dim coals as they studied Jandra. Then his gaze shifted toward the blade in Chakthalla’s back.
 “Why not try for the sword?” the assassin hissed. “You might make it.”
 Jandra turned to run, reaching for the dust in her pouch so that she could become invisible. She tossed the dust into the air too late. The dragon tackled her squarely in the back and she fell forward. The assassin was no taller than herself but he was solid. His weight crushed all breath from her as he pressed her to the cold, hard marble.
 Still pinning her down with his mass, the dragon wrapped his left claw into her hair and pulled her head backward. Her mouth opened in a silent, breathless cry of pain. The sharp nails of his right claw flashed before her eyes.
 “Chakthalla was too important to play with,” the assassin whispered, his beak next to her ear. “Now that my work is done, I think I deserve a moment to revel in your screams.”
 He drew his claw along her cheek, his nails dragging along her skin with just the proper force to not cut her. Jandra felt the sharp claws caressing her cheek, her chin, and her throat. The slightest extra pressure would open her veins.
 Fortunately, there were still traces of silver dust on her fingers. The combat training Vendevorex had subjected her to would prove useful after all. She grabbed the dragon’s wrist and concentrated. With the same talent she’d used to turn Pet’s shirt into a rope, she began to reshape her assailant’s hide and bones. His wrist melted beneath her fingertips . . . too slowly. He shrieked in pain. Then, with a slashing motion, he yanked his injured claw up and out.
 For half a second Jandra felt nothing. She tried to breath and wound up swallowing blood. She coughed, spitting a fine spray of crimson on the marble before her. It was only then that she understood her throat had been slit.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
* * *
FLESH
“YOU’LL DIE FOR THAT,” the Black Silence snarled. Jandra heard a blade being drawn from its sheath. It sounded very far away, far beyond the heartbeat that pounded in her own ears. She pressed her hand to her throat. Air bubbled from the gash beneath her bloody fingers as she coughed.
 Jandra tried to concentrate. There was still a chance to use the dust lingering on her fingers to reshape the flesh of her own throat, to knit the wound. But her mind was locked up, frozen.
 The weight on her back shifted as the Black Silence pulled her head back further. The blood gushed between her fingers more freely. She peered up to see the tip of a dagger high overhead. When it fell it would plunge into her throat. She closed her eyes, anticipating the blow.
 Three seconds later and the dagger failed to fall. A rain of fine particles fell against her face. Suddenly the claw that pulled her hair went slack. Her face hit the marble with a tooth-jarring thump. She opened her eyes as a hilt bounced on the marble floor before her, its blade only a shard of crumbling rust. Fine red flakes continued to drift to the floor. The weight on her back vanished as the Black Silence let loose a pained gasp.
 The assassin gurgled, then squealed. The smell of burning flesh tainted the air.
 Hands fell upon her shoulders—a man’s hands—rolling her over until her head lay in his lap. She looked up into Pet’s concerned face.
 “It’s going to be okay,” he said, pressing his fingers to her throat, pinching the torn flesh closed. “Ven says to keep calm and he’ll help you.”
 She gasped for breath. She sucked blood into her lungs . . . but air as well. How bad was her wound? Where was Ven? The room was spinning slowly. She cast her gaze about the room but couldn’t find him. Her assailant’s screams came from a patch of air before her. His voice faded in a series of brief, weak sobs. No one could be seen in the hall except for Pet and herself. Then she spotted the smoke hanging in the air, the bottom edge of the cloud cut into an almost perfect arc. The assassin’s voice rattled into silence.
 The upper half of the earth-dragon’s body appeared suddenly as it slumped to the floor, the charred flesh of the face flaking away in the outline of a three-fingered hand, revealing the skull beneath. Without warning the dragon’s legs appeared, and Vendevorex also, standing at the slain assassin’s feet. Smoke rose from the fore-talons of the now visible mage, and his eyes were narrowed in a look of grim determination.
 He crouched beside Pet and said, “Move.”
 Pet moved his hands away from Jandra’s throat. Vendevorex’s claws touched her, exploring the wound. She arched her back in agony as his nails probed beneath her skin.
 “Don’t struggle,” he said. “I’m going to knit your trachea closed. The wound didn’t reach the jugular. In five minutes this will only be a bad memory.”
 Jandra nodded. For once she appreciated Vendevorex’s cool, emotionless approach. He was looking at her wound as mere matter to be rearranged. If he was frightened or worried by the task, it didn’t show in his impassive expression.
 He worked in silence for several long moments. The distant sound of battle grew louder but Vendevorex’s eyes never strayed from the task. Pet continued to cradle Jandra’s head in his lap and didn’t let go of her hand. Her eyes met his. She saw all the emotion that was missing from Ven’s face . . . The worry, yes, but also the hope.
 Jandra realized, suddenly, that her breathing was easier. There was no blood in her mouth anymore. She swallowed and found no pain.
 “Perhaps now you can see the logic of my position,” Vendevorex said, wiping the remaining blood away from her throat. It felt as if his fingers were stroking smooth, unbroken skin. “Chakthalla is dead. Staying here provides the possibility of defeat without the slimmest hope of victory. Will you come with me now?”
 “Okay,” she whispered. Her throat tingled, the way an arm that has been laid on too long will tingle when the pressure is released.
 “Good,” said Vendevorex.
 “Great,” said Pet, breaking into a smile. “Let’s get going. I just have one small thing I need to do.”
 Pet helped Jandra to her feet before going to Chakthalla’s body and kneeling before it. Pet lowered his head as he took her limp claws. Jandra was moved by his sorrow until she saw him pull the golden rings from Chakthalla’s talons and then rudely let her limbs drop back to the floor.
 He stuffed the rings into his pocket as he stood. “I’m ready,” he said without a trace of remorse in his voice.
 Jandra turned to Vendevorex. “This is the wrong place and the wrong time to say this,” she said.
 “Then don’t say it,” said Vendevorex.
 “I have to,” she said. “I don’t know what you feel for me. I don’t know if you think of me as your daughter, your apprentice, your slave, or your pet. It doesn’t matter. I love you, Ven. You’re like a father to me.”
 “How touching,” a deep voice said from the doorway.
 Jandra turned to see a huge spear flashing through the air as fast and straight as a ray of light. It dug into Vendevorex’s side, sending him to his knees. Vendevorex gave a pained cry as he grabbed the spear with both hands, struggling with its weight.
 In the doorway stood Zanzeroth the hunter and his slave Gadreel, both of whom Jandra recognized from Albekizan’s court.
 “Gadreel, take care of the humans,” Zanzeroth said, drawing a long blade from a leather sheath strapped to his waist. “The wizard’s mine.”
 VENDEVOREX SUMMONED a shield of invisibility to swirl around him—not that it mattered while the spear jutted from his side. The long shaft lay beyond the edge of his shield, betraying his position. The pain made it impossible to concentrate but he couldn’t give up now. He’d just saved Jandra’s life. If he didn’t pull his wits together, that would all be a waste. She’d die just as surely as he would.
 He squeezed the shaft with his claws, twisting it slightly, purposefully increasing the pain, to focus the agony from a cloud that fogged his mind into a tight beam that pierced his center. His mind clear, he set to work, reaching into the very forces that bound the wood together, loosening them. The spear shaft glowed brightly, then vanished with a sizzle in a spray of bubbling light.
 Vendevorex rolled forward as Zanzeroth landed where he’d been when the shaft hit. Zanzeroth carried a long, curved knife in one claw and a whip in the other. Vendevorex could tell by the way the hunter held his head that his circle of invisibility was working perfectly. Zanzeroth couldn’t see him.
 But a pool of blood marked the spot where Vendevorex had been, and a line of red drops marked the path he’d fled. Zanzeroth whirled his whip in a half circle behind his head then flicked it. The leather raced around Vendevorex’s neck before he even knew what had happened. With a savage yank Zanzeroth jerked Vendevorex forward, out of his field of invisibility. Vendevorex fell to the marble before Zanzeroth’s feet. Zanzeroth loomed above him, nearly twice his size, and Vendevorex could only flail helplessly as the hunter placed his clawed foot onto the back of his neck, pinning him.
 “This need not be painful, wizard,” Zanzeroth said. “Albekizan wants your head. You can keep everything else.”
 JANDRA SCURRIED BACKWARD. She grabbed the assassin’s sword from Chakthalla’s back with a wet slurp as Gadreel flew toward her. Gadreel was a sky-dragon like Vendevorex, slightly taller than a man with a wingspan twice his height. She was outmatched physically, but if she could hold out for even a minute to get out of his line of sight and turn invisible, she stood a chance.
 She ducked and Gadreel’s claws raced by inches above her. She heard him flap his wings up to land before he hit the back wall of the chamber. She threw a handful of dust into the air, turning invisible just as he spun around to attack again. Now she could strike him by surprise. With luck she’d kill him before he ever knew what hit him. The sword was heavier than she had guessed, however, and her hands were drenched with slick sweat and her own blood, making it hard to hold. Her breath came in loud, ragged gasps that she feared would betray her position. Her throat was okay now, but it felt as if half her ribs were broken from the assassin’s tackle.
 Gadreel drew his own sword and inched forward, slicing the air before him savagely. Jandra crept to the side to strike at his back as he passed.
 To the surprise of both of them, Pet let loose with a bloodcurdling cry and charged Gadreel while carrying Chakthalla’s huge spear. Jandra was impressed; not many humans could wield such a huge weapon. Alas, due to the weight of the spear, Pet didn’t wield it well. His charge was slow and clumsy. Gadreel turned away from Jandra to face the attack.
 VENDEVOREX GROWLED, his rage rising with the humiliation of being under his former ally’s talon. He raised his fore-talon to grasp Zanzeroth’s ankle. Flames burst from around his claws.
 Zanzeroth cursed and jumped backward, freeing Vendevorex. The old dragon beat at the flaming scales on his ankle, extinguishing them.
 “You dare?” Vendevorex snarled, rising to full height, ignoring the pain that pierced him. “You face the Master of the Invisible! I control matter itself!” He spread his wings and crafted the simple illusion that made him double in size. “Have you forgotten who you are dealing with?” he shouted. “I am Vendevorex!”
 “I am unimpressed,” said Zanzeroth. With a flick and a flash, his long silver knife sliced through the air.
 Vendevorex choked as the knife sank squarely into his shoulder, paralyzing his right wing. He pulled the knife free with his left claw and staggered backward. Before he could blink Zanzeroth stood before him, raking his claws savagely across Vendevorex’s eyes. The old dragon then twirled, slamming Vendevorex’s belly with his heavy tail. Vendevorex began to fall, all strength gone, when Zanzeroth spun back around and grabbed him by the throat. The old sun-dragon lifted Vendevorex as if he were weightless, holding him in the air as steady as a gallows.
 “You scare the king,” Zanzeroth said, taking the knife Vendevorex still held in his feeble grasp. “But I’ve studied you for years. You’re one-tenth magic and nine-tenths bluff. You need time to think to do your tricks. Right now I’m guessing all you’ll be thinking about is this!”
 Zanzeroth sank his knife to the hilt into Vendevorex’s belly.
 “And this!” he shouted, pulling the knife free and driving it home again.
 “And this!” The knife once more plunged into Vendevorex’s gut.
 “And this!”
 “And this!”
 The hunter’s voice seemed to fade, washed away by the roar within Vendevorex’s ears. Zanzeroth’s leering face vanished behind a growing dark veil. Vendevorex could no longer feel his body. Only some slender thread of intellect remained, coolly observing the scene. He felt as if he were outside himself, watching the sad, limp doll dangling in the giant dragon’s grasp. He stared with grim fascination as blood and feces and urine showered onto the marble around Zanzeroth’s feet. Then, as the world around him went black, leaving him alone in a vast, formless void, he set to work.
 PET CRIED OUT savagely as he charged with the huge, heavy spear of his former mistress. Gadreel pivoted at the last second, dodging the tip, then knocked the shaft aside. Pet tripped forward as the spear flew from his hands. His momentum took him straight toward Gadreel who raised his sword to strike.
 “No!” Jandra shouted, leaping onto Gadreel’s back and thrusting her own sword with all her strength. The blade tore into the dragon’s wing near the junction with his ribs. Gadreel cried out in pain, bringing his sword down against Pet, but poorly aimed. The flat of the blade whacked the side of Pet’s head, making the steel blade peal like a bell. Pet’s eyes rolled toward the ceiling as he fell to the floor.
 Jandra braced her feet and pushed forward, pressing her weight against her sword. The blade struck something hard within the dragon, then lurched sideways, tearing from the skin. Jandra fell against Gadreel and as she slammed into him, the sword twisted from her wet hands.
 The dragon turned, grabbing Jandra by the arm, digging his nails deep into her muscles. He flung her around, releasing her. She slammed against the heavy throne pedestal, then fell atop Chakthalla’s body. She looked up at the spinning world. She could see Zanzeroth tearing viciously at Vendevorex’s belly. Pet lay helpless on his back, knocked senseless. Gadreel advanced toward her, his sword held ready to strike. Yet he moved cautiously and his eyes watched her warily.
 There was no one to help her. Her head throbbed, keeping her from concentrating enough to turn invisible. She wondered briefly where Chakthalla’s guards were. Surely some still lived; there could be a last-second rescue.
 Almost as if wishing it made it happen, four earth-dragons rushed through the doors of the throne room, spears lowered for attack. These dragons weren’t bedecked in the fine uniforms that Chakthalla forced upon her guards. They must have been awakened by the noise of the battle, and rushed into combat in their half-naked, savage state. Hope stirred within Jandra as she saw the bloodlust in their eyes.
 “Sir?” one of them asked.
 “Everything’s under control here,” Zanzeroth answered, releasing his grasp on the wizard’s throat. Vendevorex sagged lifelessly to the floor.
 Jandra’s heart sank. The dragons were soldiers of the king.
 With Vendevorex dead, she didn’t know what she had left to live for. She watched as Zanzeroth lifted one of Vendevorex’s wings, limp as cloth, and used it to wipe his gore-soaked knife clean.
 Jandra couldn’t find the will to raise her arms to defend herself as Gadreel stalked carefully forward atop Chakthalla’s body. She gazed into his golden eyes and found no hint of mercy there. Beyond Gadreel she saw one of the stained-glass windows that ran along the room’s upper half. The pane portrayed a scene of a dragon battling a small group of humans. All around the great beast the humans’ torn bodies lay scattered. A lone survivor knelt before the dragon, his arms raised, begging to live. The look in the stained-glass dragon’s eyes and the gape of its long, open jaws over the man’s head showed there would be no mercy.
 A shadow flickered behind the glass, darkening the scene. It looked almost like the form of a man. Just as Gadreel prepared to strike, the window shattered.
 Gadreel looked over his shoulder. Zanzeroth glanced up at the noise. Shards of colorful glass fell to the floor like a broken rainbow. The dark form of a cloaked man stood in the window, outlined by the flames of the castle wall beyond.
 “You!” Zanzeroth shouted.
 The figure pushed aside his cloak and raised his bow as the soldiers drew back their spears. A shaft whistled through the air in a red streak. The closest earth-dragon fell, an arrow jutting from the orb of his right eye. Before his body hit the floor a second arrow flew home to the heart of the next dragon. With a speed Jandra’s eyes could barely follow, the human nocked a fourth arrow as his third arrow sliced into another soldier’s throat. The final earth-dragon spun, preparing to run, when the arrow pierced his kidney.
 The human then turned his attention toward Zanzeroth who flapped his wings, trying to get airborne. The hall—huge by human standards—was too small for the sun-dragon to build up sufficient speed. Arrows sank into his shoulders, his back, and his wings as he cried in pain and frustration. Then, in a wound that made Jandra shudder, an arrow sank into Zanzeroth’s nostril, the tip of the arrowhead suddenly visible in the roof of the dragon’s gaping mouth.
 Zanzeroth roared with pain. “Thith cannot happen!” the sun-dragon shouted with an almost comical lisp as he crashed to the floor. “I am the hunter! You are the prey!”
 “You can track me through hell,” the man answered, taking aim for Zanzeroth’s heart.
 Unfortunately, the hall was more than large enough for a dragon of Gadreel’s size to take wing. The dragon slave turned from Jandra and leapt into the air. Despite his injuries, Gadreel strained to beat his wings, climbing toward the window.
 “Not this time!” Gadreel cried.
 The human turned toward the voice. With fluid grace he sank two arrows into Gadreel’s chest. If the dragon felt any pain Jandra couldn’t tell. Gadreel continued to climb higher in the air before folding his wings to his side to dive forward, letting his momentum carry him into his foe. Jandra saw the human drop his bow and reach for the knife strapped to his boot. Gadreel struck the man in the center of his thighs and both toppled through the window into the courtyard beyond. A handful of blue feathers drifted in the window as a few arrows that had knocked free from the man’s quiver clattered to the throne room floor. In seconds, this was the only evidence of their passing.
 No longer able to see the combatants, Jandra sat up, holding her head to fight her dizziness. Pet was on his hands and knees. As he groped around, trying to steady himself, his hands fell upon one of the stranger’s arrows. He lifted it, studying the red feathers of the fletching, looking bewildered, half-awake. Zanzeroth was on his feet now, moving toward the broad oak doors of the far end of the room, limping away as quickly as he could manage.
 Vendevorex lay as still as a corpse. Jandra rushed to his side, praying her eyes deceived her. Blood pooled around the wizard in a circle the size of his wingspan. Her feet slipped in the warm fluid as she sank to her knees. She lifted Vendevorex’s head into her lap. Where Zanzeroth’s claws had torn his cheek into a series of ragged flaps, she could see the teeth at the back of his jaw exposed. She cradled his head as if it were an infant. Vendevorex was the only family she had ever known, the only life she had ever had. She knew, in her heart, that other humans had meant nothing to Vendevorex. He’d defied the king only for her. She was as responsible for his death as Zanzeroth. She felt sick; chills racked her body. She worried she was about to vomit. She let loose a long, low wail of anguish as tears burst from her eyes, running down her cheeks like acid.
 “D-don’t . . . c-cry,” Vendevorex whispered.
 Jandra couldn’t believe her ears. She wiped her tears, trying to clear her vision. Vendevorex had opened his eyes, ever so slightly.
 “I might . . . m-make . . . it,” he said, his voice quavering. Blood bubbled at the corner of his mouth. “Th-this is no more difficult . . than healing your wound.” His eyes closed as he whispered, “It’s o-only a question of s-scale.”
 “He’s still alive?” a man asked.
 It wasn’t Pet’s voice.
 Jandra looked over her shoulder to see the man who had attacked the dragons standing once again in the window. His arms and chest were soaked with blood, but from the way he stood, she could tell it wasn’t his own.
 The man crouched down in the window. Still holding onto the ledge, he shifted forward and dropped to a hanging position. He dangled for a second, then let go, falling the rest of the distance and rolling backward as he hit the floor. His momentum carried him back to his feet. He cast a disdainful glance at Pet as he walked across the room.
 Jandra quickly but carefully moved Vendevorex’s head from her lap, placing it gently on the floor. She stood to face the man who strode toward her.
 “You can’t have him,” she growled, clenching her jaw. She dipped her fingers into the dust pouch. “I’ll kill you if you try.”
 The man stopped, a deeply etched frown showing on his weathered face. His eyes studied her own. Then he smirked, ever so slightly, as if amused by Jandra’s threats.
 “You know who I am,” he said.
 “Yes,” Jandra answered, raising her fists, using the dust to create the illusion of flames around them. “You’re the Death of All Dragons. The Ghost Who Kills. You’re Bitterwood.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
* * *
BAIT
ZANZEROTH LIMPED into the courtyard, seeking refuge in a niche in the high stone wall. He paused, glaring into the shadows behind him, watching for the slightest movement that would indicate pursuit. He snapped the arrow that pierced his shoulder, leaving the head still buried inside. He then grabbed the arrow that jutted from his nose and thrust it deeper until the entire arrowhead was in his mouth. He snapped the shaft then worked the arrowhead free with his tongue, spitting it out. That had certainly been unpleasant.
 Reaching around, he grasped an arrow in his back. It had hit bone and wasn’t buried deep. Zanzeroth freed it with a grunt. He studied the arrow, fletched in red feather-scales. Bodiel’s, perhaps? Would his own feathers one day guide the flight that brought another dragon low?
 “No,” he growled softly.
 The flames flickering behind his enemy had painted the picture of a devil, but Bitterwood was only a man. He used a man’s weapons and would have a man’s weaknesses. All that was needed was to attack the man’s heart.
 His path to victory now clear, Zanzeroth gathered his will to climb a long row of steps leading up the castle walls. He kicked aside the body of a fallen guard. From the finery, he could tell this was one of Chakthalla’s defenders. From atop the wall he surveyed the fighting below. The castle’s forces still fought here and there, though the battle was plainly lost. Zanzeroth spotted Kanst in a nearby field, shouting orders to his troops. Zanzeroth leapt into the night sky, the cool air rushing across his body, soothing the pain that cut through him with each downward thrust of his wings.
 He landed less than gracefully, his legs buckling on impact. He slid forward across the muddy ground, grinding dirt into his open wounds. The world swirled into a bright shower of red stars. Zanzeroth willed them away. He couldn’t pass out until he told Kanst what he’d learned.
 Earth-dragons rushed to his side, helping Zanzeroth to rise. Kanst ran forward, shouting for the battle medics to follow.
 “By the bones,” Kanst said. “What happened to you? Was it Vendevorex who wounded you so?”
 “You insult me,” Zanzeroth said, pausing to spit blood. “The wizard is dead. I gutted him easily.”
 “Then who. . . ?”
 Zanzeroth lifted the crimson shaft of the arrow before Kanst’s eyes. “Look at the feathers. Tell me.”
 Kanst froze as he saw the arrow. “Bitterwood?” he whispered.
 “He’s within the castle,” said Zanzeroth. “He took me by surprise. You can see by the wounds in my back he fought less than honorably.”
 “All the soldiers will be sent against him,” Kanst said. “He won’t escape.”
 “He can, if brute force is your strategy.” Zanzeroth spat again. It was hard to talk with blood filling his mouth with every movement of his tongue. “Bitterwood moves more swiftly than any human I’ve ever seen. He’s unbound by any of our notions of honor or pride. He strikes from the shadows. Cowardly, yes, but effective. Chakthalla’s castle is a maze of flame and smoke. Send your soldiers in there and he’ll slay them at his pleasure.”
 Kanst nodded, looking consternated. “I trust your judgment. Still, I see no option but to give the order. Albekizan will have my head if I don’t.”
 “Albekizan can rot,” Zanzeroth said. “Bitterwood is my quarry. He’s made a tremendous error in showing himself tonight.”
 Kanst eyed Zanzeroth’s wounds then shook his head. “I won’t allow you to go back inside. You’re in no condition to hunt.”
 “A hunter who knows only the art of stalking prey will starve,” Zanzeroth said. “There are times when a snare is the proper tool. Do as I tell you and we’ll capture the so-called ghost by sunrise.”
 JANDRA SEARCHED Bitterwood’s dark eyes, looking for the slightest hint of mercy. She found none.
 “Witch or no, you can’t stop this,” Bitterwood said, staring at the flames around her fingers. He raised his bow and placed an arrow against the string.
 Jandra started to protest that she wasn’t a witch, but decided it might be to her advantage to let him think that she was. Jandra placed herself in the path of the arrow to shield Vendevorex. She said, “You’ll have to kill me before you can kill him. With my dying breath, I’ll place a curse on you so powerful your great-grandchildren will mourn the day you crossed me.”
 “Thou shall not suffer a witch to live. Exodus 22:18,” Bitterwood said.
 Jandra had no idea what he was talking about. Was this the babbling of a madman?
 Bitterwood stared at her, his face betraying no emotion. Jandra expected his fingers to let the arrow fly at any second. But the seconds dragged by, each longer than hours, and at last he lowered the bow.
 “Witch or not, I’ve never shot a woman. A human woman, at least,” he said. “Still, I’d kill you to kill the dragon you shelter, if it wasn’t a waste of an arrow.” Bitterwood gave Vendevorex a dismissive glance. “With those wounds he’ll never see the dawn. If he does . . . you can’t stand in my way all the time.”
 “Why would you kill him?” Jandra said, letting the illusion around her fingers fade away. “What great wrong has he done to you?”
 “He’s a dragon,” Bitterwood said, shrugging. “He breathes. Crime enough, I think.”
 “He’s more than a dragon! He has a name. Vendevorex. He has a long life behind him, filled with joys and sorrows. He deserves to live as much as you.”
 Bitterwood said nothing.
 Jandra continued, “I thought I had lost him forever only moments ago. It nearly killed me. Now I have hope he will live. It’s like getting my own life back. Vendevorex is my family and my friend. You say you won’t raise your hand against me, but if you kill him, you murder me. I love him more than anything else in the world”
 “You . . . love him?” Bitterwood asked, sounding utterly disgusted.
 “Yes. Like a father. I never knew my real family. He’s raised me for as long as I can remember. I probably wouldn’t be alive today if he hadn’t taken me in.”
 Bitterwood frowned. Jandra searched for the faintest hint of understanding in his eyes.
 “You must know how it feels,” she said, “to care for someone. Someone whose life you would fight for. Someone you would beg for. So please. Please, if you have the faintest trace of kindness within you, spare him. Spare me.”
 Bitterwood grimaced, then turned away. He raised the back of his hand to her and said, “This conversation is pointless. You delude yourself into thinking he’ll survive. He’s got more blood on the floor than he does in his veins. But if he does pull through, what the hell. I’ll leave him alone. Maybe one day he’ll be the last dragon on earth.”
 A silence followed his words. From the outer chamber Jandra heard the curses and clashes of battle. Chakthalla’s few remaining guards must have rallied there. But they couldn’t hold out for long. Even if Pet helped her move Vendevorex, where could they run? The only doors from the room led toward the battle or out to Chakthalla’s private garden, a walled area with no exit save for flying.
 The sounds of metal striking metal, of dragons crying their final cries, grew ever closer. Pet sat where Gadreel had dropped him, still looking dazed. Bitterwood busied himself cutting arrows free from the bodies of the earth-dragons he had slain. Jandra could see his quiver held only a few remaining shafts.
 “Been a busy night,” Bitterwood said as he yanked an arrow free and studied the tip for damage. “Looks like I’ll run out of arrows before I run out of dragons.”
 Then, from the distance, a new sound could be heard over the clash of swords. The faint wail of a trumpet was echoed by another, less distant horn, and another followed this.
 “What’s that?” Pet asked.
 “Curious,” said Bitterwood. “That’s the signal for retreat. The king’s army is breaking off the attack.” Indeed, the noise in the outer chamber nearly ceased as the invaders fell back. The handful of guards left alive chased after them.
 “But . . . they were winning!” Jandra said.
 “Maybe they don’t know that,” Bitterwood said. “I killed dozens of the king’s soldiers. It’s a mess out there. Smoke everywhere. If that big sun-dragon I shot up made it outside before he died, he might have panicked the forces.”
 Jandra wondered how long it would be before the assault resumed. Would she have time to help Vendevorex? She needed help and she had few choices in allies.
 “Bitterwood,” she said. “All you want to do is kill dragons.”
 “Yes.”
 “Well, all the dragons outside want to kill Vendevorex. I think we should make a deal.”
 “I’m listening,” Bitterwood said.
 ZEEKY STIRRED AS A HAND vigorously shook her arm. Sleep was slow to release its hold on her. The sheets were warm and soft, and it had been too many days since she had slept in her bed. Then she remembered this wasn’t her bed.
 She opened her eyes. Merria, the little girl, was shaking her. The worn, wearied look in her eyes made Zeeky think she hadn’t slept at all. How late was it? The room was still dark.
 “They’re here,” Merria whispered.
 “Who?”
 “Dragons.”
 Zeeky sat upright. Poocher rested at the foot of the bed, waking with a snort as she moved. From beyond the bedroom door she could hear Hodan, Merria’s father. She had difficulty making out all of his words through the wooden door but he was plainly arguing.
 His words were met with the rough tones of the voice of a dragon, shouting, “Silence. You’ll come now.”
 Hodan raised his voice again. There was a loud clap and his voice fell silent. Clatters and bangs, like furniture overturning, echoed throughout the room. Alanda, Merria’s mother, screamed.
 “C’mon,” Zeeky said, grabbing Merria by her arm. “We have to run.”
 “No!” Merria said, struggling to get loose. “I want my mommy!”
 Footsteps pounded toward the door. Zeeky let go of Merria who jumped from the bed and ran toward the door. Zeeky swept Poocher into her arms and searched the darkened window next to her bed for the latch to the shutters.
 She pushed the window open as lamplight spilled into the room from the opening door. Her legs were tangled up in the sheets so she leaned from the window and dropped Poocher the few feet to the ground. She then toppled forward, letting herself fall, kicking her legs free of the sheets. Just as the tangled cloth released her, the sharp-nailed claws of an earth-dragon closed around her ankle. Poocher squealed loudly as Zeeky was lifted away from him, back into the farmhouse.
 “Run, Poocher!” she yelled as her attacker dragged her across the bed, then through the bedroom into the common room. The table was toppled to its side and not a single chair remained upright. She kicked her free leg wildly, striking her attacker’s arms.
 The dragon who carried her showed no pain, and when he spoke he merely sounded amused. “This one shows a little more spirit.”
 “Good,” a voice from outside the door of the farmhouse answered. “Bait’s better if it’s wiggling.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
* * *
ARROWS
“NO,” BITTERWOOD ANSWERED, barely giving her proposal a second’s thought.
 “But we can help you with your fight if you help us,” Jandra said.
 “I’ve already agreed to spare his life. You can’t seriously expect me to help save it.”
 “Fine,” Jandra said, seething with frustration. “Go. We’ll do this on our own.”
 She noticed from the corner of her eye that Pet had finally cleared his head enough to stand and walk toward them. “You’ll help me, won’t you, Pet?” she said.
 “Um, Mr. Bitterwood?” Pet asked, ignoring Jandra.
 “What?”
 “Can I go with you? At least until we can get away from the castle and to a decent-sized town somewhere?”
 “No,” Bitterwood said.
 “Please? I can pay you with gold and jewels and . . .”
 Bitterwood raised his hand to silence Pet. “Look at you. You’re no villager. Everything about you screams that you’re a dragon’s companion. If you enjoy their company, seek help from them.”
 “But—”
 “Enough,” said Bitterwood. “There’s work to be done. The dragons within the castle are weakened and disoriented. I give you fair warning—when the dragons outside the walls strike again, they will find all the defenders dead.”
 “You’re condemning us to death!” Pet cried.
 Bitterwood turned and walked into the outer chamber. As he disappeared into the shadows, he said, “You feasted at the table of dragons; you slept on soft beds beneath their roof. It’s fitting that you rot among their corpses.”
 “You bastard!” Pet yelled into the dark hallway. “I hope the dragons kill you! I hope they rip the arms from your sockets!”
 “Shut up,” Jandra said.
 “Did you hear his tone? That sanctimonious bastard thinks he’s too important to help us. If I see him again I’ll knock his teeth out.”
 “I said shut up!” Jandra gave Pet her nastiest glare. “I’ve had all I can take of you. A minute ago you were willing to abandon Ven and me to save your skin. You’re a coward, Pet. Talking big just makes you look smaller.”
 “Don’t talk to me that way!” Pet said.
 “What are you going to do?” Jandra planted her hands on her hips. “Knock my teeth out?”
 Pet threw up his hands. “You’re the most infuriating woman I’ve ever met! Women normally fall all over themselves to see me smile at them. You’re talking to me like I’m common trash.”
 “Oh, I think you’re very uncommon trash. Now why don’t you just run along and find one of those women who like you so much? I need to figure out how to save Vendevorex.”
 Pet started to say something and then stopped. After a pause he said, “It’s so quiet outside. Even the roar of the flames has lessened.”
 “The Vengeance doesn’t burn forever. If the air is still, its own smoke eventually smothers it.”
 “I’m sorry,” Pet said.
 “That it doesn’t burn forever?”
 Pet shook his head. “I’m sorry I yelled at you. I lost my head. You’re right. This situation hasn’t brought out the best in me. But I’m calm now. I want to stay and help you.”
 Jandra rolled her eyes. “You’re just too scared to try to make it out of the castle alone.”
 “I’m not a coward.”
 “Then go.” Jandra pointed toward the door.
 “No.” Pet crossed his arms. “A minute ago you said you needed my help to save Vendevorex. Just tell me what to do.”
 “Fine,” Jandra said. No matter how much she loathed him at the moment, Pet was the only other person in the room. She had to take whatever help she could get. “We need to find a place to hide him.”
 “How can we move him without injuring him further?”
 “I don’t know,” Jandra said, looking at Vendevorex. He seemed to be sleeping restfully. His wounds had scabbed over and he no longer lost blood, but Jandra feared that moving him might injure him. “I’ve seen him heal himself before. He closed a cut on his cheek within minutes, but this. . . ? I don’t know how he’s doing this. Our only hope is that it will take hours for him to heal and not days.”
 “I’m not sure I see what the problem is,” Pet said. “You can turn us invisible, right?”
 “If they bring ox-dogs, invisibility won’t help,” she answered, kneeling next to Vendevorex. She placed her fingers lightly on his brow. He was hot as a hearth. “Just sitting here talking won’t help anything either. Is there an armory in the castle?”
 “Of course,” Pet said.
 “Then we should go while the battle has paused,” she said as she stood up and wiped her hands on her dress. “The right weapons might make all the difference.”
 “We’ve still got that sword,” Pet said. “And I bet the hallways are full of stuff.”
 “Swords aren’t going to help. Neither of us is a match fighting a dragon hand-to-hand. But Bitterwood does well with a bow. If we were armed the same, firing from a position of invisibility, we’d stand a chance.”
 “I don’t know,” Pet said. “Have you ever fired a bow? They aren’t as easy as they look. I practiced with them for a while, trying a trick where I could shoot an apple from the head of a volunteer.”
 “Oh,” Jandra said, perking up. “So you know how to use one?”
 Pet lowered his head, shaking it slowly. “I never had a second volunteer.”
 “Dragons are bigger targets than apples.”
 “True enough,” Pet nodded. “I don’t have a better idea. Let’s do it. The armory isn’t far. If we move invisibly, we can cut straight across the castle walls. We can make it there and back in five minutes.”
 PET HELD JANDRA’S HAND, guiding her across the main wall. She told him they couldn’t be seen but he wasn’t so sure. He could still see them. But he could see himself earlier as well, when Vendevorex had cloaked them with invisibility, and that time they had passed crowds of dragons without reaction.
 This trip, they met no dragons who could have reacted to their presence. Their path was strewn with dead bodies, both of the attackers and defenders of the castle. Most had died engaged in combat with one another, but here and there arrows stuck from the bodies. Pet noted that most of the dragons Bitterwood had killed were shot from behind. For a supposed hero, Bitterwood wasn’t interested in taking chances. He was looking out for his own skin. Yet when Pet displayed the same concern for his own safety, he was labeled a coward.
 The night had grown exceptionally dark. The moon had crawled from the sky hours ago. Soon it would be dawn. From outside the walls he could hear the distant shouts of dragons and the crying of children, human children. He peered over the wall as they moved but all he could make out of the surrounding village was dim shadows. Had the invaders turned their attack against the village? He hoped not. He knew quite a few of the village women; indeed, there were many fair-haired children of the village he suspected were his own. He hoped they would be all right. If he had Bitterwood’s skill in combat, he’d be out there now, saving the villagers. But he was no fighter. He was an acrobat, an artist, and actor. If there were some way to save the villagers by putting on a costume and reciting a dramatic monologue, he’d be the right man for the job.
 They descended from the wall through the tower, moving toward the armory. They paused as they approached the door. From inside came torchlight and the scuffles of something moving around.
 “Go ahead,” Jandra whispered. “They can’t see us. See who it is.”
 He crept carefully forward peeking into the door. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw it was a human moving inside.
 But as he exhaled the man reacted, spinning around toward the noise. It was Bitterwood and he fired an arrow toward the doorway before Pet could even blink. The arrow whizzed over his shoulder, barely missing his ear.
 “Hey!” Pet shouted.
 “Wait! It’s only us!” Jandra shouted, and the air before Pet sparked and swirled.
 Bitterwood’s eyes grew wide. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?” he said. “You take a foolish gamble creeping up on me.”
 “Don’t you bother to look where you’re shooting?” Pet said.
 “I don’t always have that luxury,” Bitterwood said. “I’ve saved my life many times over by firing blindly.” Bitterwood shook his head , then leaned against the wall for support. “You should be grateful it’s been such a long night. Were I not so tired . . . Were I ten years younger . . . I wouldn’t have missed.”
 “It doesn’t look like you miss often,” Jandra said. “It looks like you’ve killed all the dragons . . . on our side. Now that you’ve killed our defenders, would it be asking too much to kill some of the dragons attacking the castle?”
 “There won’t be time,” Bitterwood said. “It will be morning soon. I strike at night.”
 “Easier to hide when it’s dark, isn’t it, ‘hero?’” Pet said.
 “Yes,” Bitterwood said. “Precisely.” He then returned to the work he’d been doing when they’d interrupted. The armory was in shambles, ransacked by the invaders, but some weapons remained. Bitterwood was gathering what arrows he could find from the clutter. Pet wondered if he should mention the arrows that had fallen from Bitterwood’s own quiver that still lay beneath the window in Chakthalla’s throne room.
 “The legends say you only use arrows you make yourself,” Jandra said.
 “Some legends also say I can fly,” Bitterwood said. “Fletching my arrows with dragon scales gives my attacks a greater psychological impact. Still, an arrow guided by a goose feather can do the job just as well.”
 “Leave some arrows for us,” Pet said, finding a longbow leaning against the wall. “Lucky they didn’t take this. This is a good bow.”
 “Not that lucky. Dragons are mediocre with bows, at best,” Bitterwood said. “The red and blue ones prefer to fight when flying, using a long spear held with their hind claws. The green ones sometimes use bows but they can’t hit the broadside of a barn. They’re only effective in mass attacks, not in attacking an individual target. I don’t think an earth-dragon can focus on distant objects as well as we can.” He handed Pet a handful of arrows. “If you have the guts to fight a dragon, a bow’s a good choice. Pick your target and don’t panic, and you can kill them before they ever get close.”
 “I have the guts, old man,” Pet said.
 “I doubt it,” Bitterwood said. “But I guess you’ll find out.”
 Bitterwood placed the rest of the arrows he’d gathered into his quiver and walked past Pet and Jandra with no further word.
 “Bastard,” Pet snarled as the archer vanished around the corner.
 “I noticed he escaped with his teeth,” Jandra said.
 Pet shrugged. “He’s an old guy a foot shorter than me. It wouldn’t be fair to fight him.”
 “Not fair to you, maybe.”
 “Would you stop taunting me? I’m not a—”
 “We’d better get back,” Jandra said, cutting him off. “It can’t be long before morning.”
 Almost as if it had heard her words, a cock began to crow in the distance.
 After Jandra again made them invisible, Pet led her back up the tower to cross the wall leading to the throne room. The sky had brightened in the east since they had passed by minutes before. In the fields below he could see the enemy army, gathered together in a huge circle, and within the circle stood the villagers.
 “What are they doing?” he asked, stopping to study the scene.
 “I don’t know,” Jandra said. “But it doesn’t look as if they’re getting ready to attack. Maybe Vendevorex will have time to heal.”
 In the middle of the circle, Pet could see three flat-bedded wagons, drawn together to make a large platform. A huge sun-dragon stood on the platform with metal armor gleaming on his chest.
 “Damn,” said Jandra. “That’s Kanst. He answers directly to Albekizan.”
 “What’s he up to? Why has he gathered the villagers?”
 “Who knows?” Jandra said. “Let’s get back.”
 “Not yet,” Pet said. “I want to find out what’s going on. I know many of these people.” Although from this distance, he couldn’t recognize anyone.
 “There’s not time for this,” Jandra said, tugging his arm. “Vendevorex has been alone too long already.”
 Pet held his ground. “This is something important. I can feel it.”
 “Maybe Kanst is just going to lay down the law for the locals. Tell them they have new bosses now.”
 Pet was annoyed by Jandra’s dismissive tone. “What will it take to make you take me seriously for once? I want to watch this. We need to know what the enemy is up to if we want to get out of here alive, right?”
 Jandra grimaced. “Okay. Fine. Stay here. I’m going back.”
 “I won’t be invisible if you leave.”
 “Nobody’s left to bother you.” Jandra waved her hands toward the corpse of a fallen guard. “Stay low on the wall. They can’t see you from down there. Don’t be such a crybaby.”
 “Arg!” Pet cried in frustration. Then, worried that he’d been loud enough to be heard below, he hunched lower to the wall and whispered, “Will you stop that? What is it going to take to make you stop thinking I’m a coward? I attacked a dragon with a spear three times too big for me to use properly. I’ve stuck by your side to help you save your master when I could have just ran. What does it take to impress you? Do I have to go down there and fight them all by myself?”
 “Aw. Have I hurt your feelings?” Jandra asked.
 “Yes!” Pet hissed. “I don’t think I deserve this constant ridicule.”
 “Okay,” she said. “I’ll try to space it out more.”
 Pet threw his hands in the air. “Fine!” he said. “I’ll stay here alone. Get back to your master.”
 “I told you not to call him my master,” said Jandra. “I’m his apprentice, not his slave.”
 “There are some chains you don’t even know you’re wearing.”
 Before Jandra could respond, a booming voice from below shouted out a name.
 “Bitterwood!”
 The word echoed through the stone walls. Pet could make out a large, armored sun-dragon standing on a platform, using a wooden cone to amplify his voice.
 “That’s Kanst,” whispered Jandra. “He’s Albekizan’s—”
 Kanst’s shouts drowned her out. “We know you are defending the castle, Bitterwood! These villagers are special to you, I think. Maybe you have family among them. You’ve tried to save them by picking us off one by one. A good strategy, if you had the time.”
 Kanst motioned with his claw and an earth-dragon dragged a young boy onto the platform, his arms and legs bound, his screams nearly drowning out the words that followed.
 “Time is up, Bitterwood.”
 The green dragon held the boy up by his blond hair, his toes just off the platform. Kanst drew his sword, slowly, ceremoniously, from the scabbard. The deliberateness of the action only added to the shock of what followed. Savagely, the sword flashed through the air in a silver arc. The body toppled sideways. The earth-dragon held the boy’s head toward the castle walls.
 The villagers erupted in noise, men cursing, women weeping, children crying. The dragons that surrounded them rushed in, shouting for them to be silent, enforcing their orders with blows from the blunt ends of their spears.
 After order was beaten into the crowd, Kanst continued: “That boy can be the last to die today, Bitterwood. You can save the rest by coming forward now. We give you a quarter hour to show yourself. Then they die, minute by minute, one by one. The children first, as they may be your own blood. Then the women, as one of them may be your mate. Then the men, brothers, perhaps, or fathers. Should they by chance, all be strangers, so be it. Perhaps you’ll have the stomach for the slaughter being carried out in your honor.”
 Kanst looked toward the castle walls and waited as the body of the boy was carried away and a little girl was selected from the crowd.
 BITTERWOOD DIDN’T LOOK BACK. He couldn’t. He heard the words but he wouldn’t feel them, couldn’t feel them unless he looked. The fight would continue on another battlefield. No matter what the cost.
 His path carried him toward a barn where he hoped to find a good horse. All the dragons would be in the fields by the castle. Their stunt only assisted him in his escape by focusing their forces to control the crowd.
 As Bitterwood reached the door, he heard a snuffling noise. Looking to his side he saw a piglet, free from the other animals, looking at him with big black eyes.
 Bitterwood knew this pig.
 “Damn,” he sighed.
 He remembered his promise to Zeeky. He remembered the promises he’d broken in the past. If he abandoned her, it would haunt him, but he was already haunted. What was one more ghost?
 He sat down on a bale of hay, his body leaden. He’d never felt so tired in all his life.
 “I’m sorry,” he whispered to the ghosts.
 “HE HAS TO!” Jandra said as she raced for the throne room.
 “He won’t,” Pet answered as he chased her.
 Jandra rushed through the doors, expecting to find the scene just as she left it. But something was missing. Vendevorex was gone.
 “Vendevorex!” she yelled.
 “I—I am here,” he answered weakly. The air glittered, revealing him. He lay near where he’d fallen but was now propped against the wall. Many of his wounds had closed but fresh blood seeped from the larger wounds that remained. “Do you have . . . any water? I tried . . . to condense some from the air. Didn’t have . . . the s-strength.”
 “Pet! Where can I find water?”
 “There’s a fountain in the garden,” he said. “Follow me.”
 He led her through the side door that led to the walled garden. The water sparkled in the morning light making Jandra aware of her own thirst. She could drink directly from the fountain but what of Vendevorex?
 “What can we put water in?” she asked.
 “Hold on. I’ll find something,” Pet said, going back into the throne room. Jandra knelt by the fountain and drank deeply. The water was cold and clean as freshly melted snow. The garden was filled with pink flowers, opening their buds to the rising sun, filling the air with perfume. Yellow-breasted songbirds flitted among the branches of the low trees and greeted the day with music. The beauty made her feel ill. The garden was too lovely, too peaceful in light of the horrors she’d seen.
 “Here,” Pet said, returning. He carried the pack she had seen him with earlier. He pulled a golden goblet from it and handed it to her. “I guess I won’t be needing this after all,” he said.
 “Thank you,” she said as she took the goblet.
 Delicate engravings of butterflies covered the golden cup. It was the loveliest thing she had ever seen and it broke her. The goblet fell from her hands as tears began to stream from her cheeks. She began to tremble, her body weak with sorrow.
 Pet sat beside her. He took one of her hands and squeezed it. “It’s okay,” he said, stroking her hair with his free hand. “It’s okay.”
 “No,” she said, shaking her head. “They’re going to die. Kanst doesn’t bluff. It’s all my fault.”
 “It’s not your fault.”
 “The dragons wouldn’t be here if Vendevorex weren’t here. He’s only here because of me. Maybe things would have been better if the guards had just killed me the morning after Bodiel died. I’ve been holding on to such foolish hopes. I thought . . . I thought everything would be all right. I thought we could win.”
 “You can,” Pet said. “Vendevorex will be okay. You’ll both live through this.”
 “But it’s too late for the villagers,” Jandra said. “They’re dying because of me.”
 “Hush,” Pet said. “Don’t torture yourself. This isn’t your fault. It’s Bitterwood’s. He’s the one who killed Bodiel. He got the dragons all worked up. If he has a heart in him, he’ll turn himself in and end this.”
 Jandra sniffed, wiping her cheeks. “A minute ago you were the one saying he wouldn’t surrender. I don’t think he gives a damn about saving people. He only wants to kill dragons. He won’t give himself up. We can’t do a damn thing to stop Kanst. I think we’ve proven tonight that we’re both pathetic at fighting.”
 “Shhh.” Pet hugged her tightly for a long moment. Then he broke the embrace. “Bitterwood is going to surrender. You have my vow.”
 “Oh, what good is your vow?”
 Pet turned Jandra’s face toward him and brushed her hair away from her face. “You can’t worry about that right now,” he said. “Vendevorex needs you, honey. He’s thirsty, and hurting, and probably more scared than you are. Be strong for him, okay?”
 Jandra swallowed. “Okay.”
 Pet helped her to rise. He picked up the goblet from the green carpet of grass and filled it with water.
 “Take this to him,” he said, then he sat by the fountain and lowered his face to take his own drink.
 Jandra entered the throne room, breathing deeply. She would be strong, for now, at least, while Vendevorex needed her. She knelt and held the cup to the wounded wizard’s lips and helped him to drink.
 “More,” he whispered as he swallowed the last drops.
 Jandra returned to garden, both for water and to find Pet, to thank him for his words. She also felt a need to apologize for her earlier insults. Perhaps she’d expected too much of him. But Pet wasn’t sitting by the fountain anymore.
 “Pet?” she asked.
 Only the colorful birds answered, singing joyfully as they danced among the hedges.
 ZANZEROTH WATCHED as Kanst gave the order. The earth-dragon lifted the little girl roughly by the hair. She screamed in pain and fear as Kanst slowly slid his sword from his scabbard.
 “Stop this!” a man yelled, his voice coming from outside the circled humans. “I’m here.”
 Zanzeroth smiled with satisfaction. The guards on the far side of the circle stood aside and the crowd parted. Zanzeroth struggled to rise, ignoring the pain of his injuries. He couldn’t wait to see the look of defeat in his enemy’s eyes.
 The general motioned for the soldier to lower the girl. The cloaked figure walked forward haltingly, his shoulders sagging, his bow dangling from his weak grip, as if surrender sapped all his strength.
 As the figure reached the platform, two earth-dragons rushed to him, knocking the bow from his hands, each grabbing an arm. They ripped his cloak away, exposing an old man, his skin weathered and tan, his hair thin and gray.
 “A valiant attempt,” Kanst said. “Alas, I’m not so easily fooled. You aren’t the one we seek.”
 The old man looked up as Kanst’s words sunk in. Anger flashed in his eyes. “Are you mad?” he asked. “I’m Bitterwood. I’ve done as you asked. Let these people go.”
 “Zanzeroth,” Kanst said. “Twice you’ve stood in the presence of the Ghost who Kills. Tell me, is this the man we seek?”
 Zanzeroth looked at the aged figure before him. His clothes were caked with blood—Gadreel’s? Though he’d never been close enough to meet Bitterwood’s gaze, this man’s eyes looked as he’d imagined: hard, hateful, as dark and cold as a grave. But the old man was short, and while his arms revealed hard, wiry muscles, they were far too thin. The demon who stood in the window the night before had strength and stature. Still, if the Bitterwood who killed Bodiel were the same as the Bitterwood of legend, he would be old by now. Could this unimpressive specimen truly be the fabled dragonslayer? It seemed impossible. If only the arrow hadn’t pierced his nose; the scent would reveal the truth. As it was, he couldn’t smell a damn thing.
 Zanzeroth weighed his answer carefully. If he named this old fool as Bitterwood, and dragons continued to die, no doubt Albekizan would have his head. His eye fell on the quiver slung over the old man’s shoulders. It was filled with arrows fletched with goose feathers. This told him all he needed to know.
 “This is an imposter. Put him with the others,” Zanzeroth said. “Continue the executions.”
 “No!” the old man shouted. “I am Bitterwood! I killed three score of you during the night! I am—”
 An earth-dragon struck the gray-haired man hard in the stomach, silencing him. While the two dragons continued to hold him, another dragon began to bind his arms with rope.
 “I like your spirit, old man,” Kanst said. “Your willingness to sacrifice yourself for others is admirable. I’m going to reward you by changing the order of the executions. You’re next.”
 “But,” the old man gasped painfully, “no one else will come forth. I’m the man you seek! I am Bitterwood!”
 “No he’s not!” a man shouted.
 The crowd turned. On a nearby hill, astride a white stallion, another man could be seen. He was tall, broad-shouldered, his face fair, his hair long and golden. He was dressed in black silk and a velvet cape, and he held in his hand a well-crafted longbow. Over his shoulder a quiver hung, holding only three arrows, the feathers gleaming red in the morning sunlight.
 The man shook the horse’s reins and rode toward the platform. The crowd of humans murmured, excited.
 “Release them,” the stranger said in a firm, commanding voice. “The war is over. I’m the one you want. I’m Bitterwood.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
* * *
MASKS
SCREAMING WITH RAGE, Zanzeroth lumbered toward the man on the white stallion as fast as his wounded frame would carry him. The horse bucked, panicking. The man somersaulted to the ground with acrobatic grace then turned his steely gaze toward Zanzeroth’s charge.
 “Stop him!” Kanst bellowed.
 Pertalon, a sky-dragon half Zanzeroth’s size, dashed into the hunter’s path. Both tumbled into the assembled humans, sending them scrambling in fear. The soldiers plunged into the crowd, beating people down with their spear ends, preventing them from fleeing. A mob of earth-dragons rushed toward the man in the velvet cape, surrounding him in a wide circle. Most kept a respectful distance from the fabled dragonslayer, but two of the braver—or perhaps dumber—members of the guard ran forward and grabbed his arms.
 Pertalon and Zanzeroth rolled on the broken ground, each seeking to best the other. Zanzeroth had the advantage of size but his wounds sapped his strength. Pertalon proved to be a skilled brawler. In seconds, the smaller dragon had pinned his much larger opponent.
 “Damn you!” Zanzeroth howled. “Why do you deny me my justice?”
 “Justice is for Albekizan to dispense,” Kanst said. “Tell me, are you the one willing to face the king? To say we had Bitterwood captive, then killed him instead of giving Albekizan that pleasure?”
 “I demand my revenge!” Zanzeroth said.
 “I deny it,” Kanst said.
 Kanst turned back to his captive, the blond-tressed hero of the humans who stood stoically in the grasp of the two earth-dragons. Borlon, the captain, stood nearby, a two-handed sword gripped tightly in his chunky green fists, his eyes wide in an alert expression that was set somewhere equally between fight and flight. Kanst said, “Chain this man, then take him to my tent. Keep him constantly under guard. Under no circumstances allow Zanzeroth to come near. Use whatever force is necessary.”
 “Yes sir,” Borlon answered. Then, he cast his gaze toward the assembled crowd. “What about the villagers we’ve gathered? Should we let them go?”
 “Why bother?” Kanst shrugged. “In less than a month we were supposed to escort them to the Free City. We will take them now, as we return to the palace with Bitterwood.”
 Kanst turned to Zanzeroth. His armor clanked and clattered as he lowered himself to all fours to address the pinned hunter. “Old friend, I know you are a dragon with more than his allotment of guts and guile. I’m tempted to put you in chains as well to insure Bitterwood survives. Still, in the years I’ve known you, I’ve come to respect you as a dragon of unparalleled integrity. If you give me your word, as one sun-dragon to another, that you will not seek revenge against Bitterwood until he is presented to Albekizan, I will spare you from bondage.”
 “So be it,” Zanzeroth snarled. “Our precious king may have his prize. But you must tell him I was the one with the plan that snared him. Speak for me, tell him that I deserve to be appointed as Bitterwood’s executioner.”
 “I shall grant this,” Kanst said, rising back to his hind-talons. Then, to Pertalon, “Let him go.”
 “My apologies,” Pertalon said as he helped Zanzeroth to his feet.
 “You had your orders,” Zanzeroth said, brushing dirt from his skin. He looked down at his worn and torn body. This impromptu wrestling match had not only reopened some of his wounds, it had also cost him many more scales. Faded, rust-colored flakes littered the ground like leaves. He sighed, then raised his head to address Kanst once more. “One last thing. We must retake the castle. The body of Vendevorex lies in the throne room. It is a prize for which the king will reward both of us highly.”
 “Agreed,” Kanst said. His polished armor gleamed in the light of the morning sun. “Our retreat from the castle to gather the villagers came as our victory was imminent. We shall retake it within the hour.”
 JANDRA TURNED FROM THE WALL, running back toward the throne room. She had gone looking for Pet and arrived in time to witness the turmoil as a sky-dragon tackled Zanzeroth. She couldn’t make things out clearly from this distance, but it was apparent that Bitterwood had surrendered. The executions had stopped. So why didn’t she feel any better?
 As she ran through the corridors she had to constantly step around the bodies of the dead. She wanted to think the defenders of the castle had been defending more than the walls. They had died opposing Albekizan’s cruelty and his vision of a world without humans. As shocking as it had been to watch the boy die at Kanst’s blade, she knew that atrocity paled before what was to come.
 When the other sun-dragons learned of the assault against Chakthalla, would they be galvanized to rise against the king? Or would they instead cower before him, acquiescing to whatever mad scheme he might conceive? She feared the latter. Only Vendevorex could make a difference. He would listen to her now. He had to.
 But as she entered the throne room she gasped in horror. Vendevorex had lapsed back into unconsciousness, causing his aura of invisibility to fade. Now an enormous sun-dragon crouched above Vendevorex’s helpless figure. Hearing her distressed cry the dragon turned his face toward her. He wore a black hood, hiding his features, so that only his eyes could be seen. Jandra had never seen a dragon in such a mask before. She thought it looked sinister, evidence enough that this was a servant of Albekizan—another assassin, no doubt.
 Jandra knew that she stood little chance against a sun-dragon, even if she wasn’t exhausted already. Despite her sense of impending defeat she clenched her fists and braced herself for one last battle. She again summoned the illusion of flame around her hands.
 “Get away from him,” she growled, stepping forward with all the menace she could muster.
 “Jandra,” the dragon answered, stepping backward. “I mean no harm. I’m here to help.”
 Jandra paused. She didn’t recognize the dragon’s voice, slightly muffled by the hood. “How do you know my name?” she asked. “Who are you?”
 “A phantom,” the dragon said in a weary voice. “A faint echo of the being I once was. I heard whispers of a plot against Albekizan and came to investigate. It looks as if I came too late.”
 “We’ve lost this fight,” Jandra admitted. “But no war is decided by a single battle.”
 “Perhaps. But news of the slaughter here today will squelch any thought of rebellion among other sun-dragons.” The masked dragon sighed, his voice full of despair. “Albekizan need not rule with the respect of his subjects when all he needs is their fear.”
 “Fear you must possess in abundance,” Jandra said. “You say you want to stand with us but you hide your face. You want to protect yourself if the war is lost. Obviously you fear for your name, or your power.”
 The dragon shook his head. “I no longer have a name, or power.”
 “Then you have nothing to lose,” said Jandra. “At the moment, I’m short on allies. Can I count on your help?”
 “I am at your service,” the masked dragon answered with a courtly bow.
 Suddenly, the blast of battle horns could be heard from the castle gates.
 “Sounds like they’re coming back in,” Jandra said. “We’d better move Vendevorex.”
 “Why was he brought to the throne room to start with? With such serious wounds he should never have left his bed.”
 “He received his wounds here.”
 “When? How?”
 “Zanzeroth almost killed him. This happened only hours ago.”
 “Hours?” The dragon sounded as if he thought Jandra was crazy. “These wounds are days old.”
 “Listen, Phantom, this isn’t the best time to explain. No one’s left to defend this place. Kanst’s soldiers will just sweep through here. We need to get moving.”
 Vendevorex moaned. He turned his head toward Jandra’s voice. His eyes fluttered open as he whispered, “What’s the point?”
 Jandra ran to his side. She dropped to her knees and placed a hand on his fevered brow. “You’re burning up, Ven. Phantom, go get him some more water!”
 “Don’t bother,” Vendevorex said. His voice sounded utterly defeated. “I—I heard the battle horns. I’m too weak to move. It’s time to accept . . . I’m going to die. Save yourself, Jandra.”
 “I’m not going to let you die,” Jandra said. “I won’t abandon you, Ven.”
 “You m-must,” the wizard sighed. He closed his eyes. He arched his back in response to some internal agony. His belly was twisted and distorted with ugly tumors of scar tissue. His skin seemed to be crawling. “It’s all o-over. I’m too sick to move. You could make us invisible, but what’s the p-point? Zanzeroth will bring in ox-dogs. We’ve lost.”
 “Don’t be so willing to surrender, my friend,” the phantom said, reaching for a large pack he had left on the floor. “Let Jandra make us invisible to their eyes and I will make us invisible to their noses. I can carry you both from here with ease.” The phantom pulled a crystalline atomizer from his pack.
 “You’re going to save us with perfume?” Jandra asked
 “Hold your breath until the mist settles to the floor,” the hooded dragon said. “This is filled with the essence of hot peppers. The dogs won’t even enter this room.”
 The phantom sprayed the fine pink mist around the room. Jandra fought aside her own exhaustion to concentrate on her role in the escape. She needed to create a circle of invisibility large enough for all three of them to hide in; this was no small task, given the sun-dragon’s great size. The phantom looked back as he neared the door.
 “Where?” he whispered, looking around.
 “Here,” Jandra answered, certain now that the invisibility was working. “Follow my voice.”
 The phantom hurried to her, stopping with a shock as he entered the circle and saw them again. “I’ve always wondered how this was done,” he said. He looked at the sparkles on his scales. “A reflective dust. Interesting.”
 “Keep quiet,” Jandra whispered. “Someone’s coming!”
 “In here, Pertalon,” came a voice from the outer chamber. Oh no, thought Jandra. Zanzeroth.
 Jandra held her breath as the hunter’s head appeared in the doorway. The phantom froze where he stood. Zanzeroth moved into the room slowly. He was a mass of fresh white gauze bandages. He walked with the assistance of another dragon, a sky-dragon who stood beneath Zanzeroth’s shoulder to support him.
 “Damn,” Zanzeroth said. “We’re too late, Pertalon.”
 “What’s wrong?” Pertalon asked.
 Zanzeroth motioned toward Jandra. “This is where I left the body. It’s gone now.”
 “I thought he was too wounded to move.”
 “Jandra must have taken his corpse,” Zanzeroth said, sounding disappointed. “Damn Gadreel’s incompetence. She should have been an easy kill.”
 Pertalon asked, “Who’s Jandra?”
 “The wizard’s pet,” Zanzeroth said. His eyes were following her bloody footprints from her earlier trip from the throne room to the armory. Ven’s blood had been freshest then; it was the most obvious trail in the room. Zanzeroth twisted his neck around to follow the trail back into the hall. He continued his explanation of Jandra’s role in Vendevorex’s life as he studied the clues before him. “The wizard raised a human girl from infancy. The little bitch treated Vendevorex like a god. She never suspected the truth.”
 “What truth?” Pertalon asked, supporting Zanzeroth as they stepped back into the hall.
 “The girl was an orphan by Vendevorex’s hand,” said Zanzeroth. “The wizard killed her parents with as little thought as you or I would give to killing a fly.”
 Jandra raised her hands to her mouth to silence her surprise. Zanzeroth had to be lying. But why? Why would he lie if he didn’t know she could hear? Was this a trick? Perhaps he wanted her to cry out, revealing her location.
 “Let’s see where her trail leads,” Zanzeroth said. “She can’t have taken him out of the castle. We’ll come back with the ox-dogs.”
 Jandra turned to Vendevorex as the voices of Zanzeroth and Pertalon faded down the hallway. The wizard lay with his head facing away from her. The phantom studied her face, his eyes sad, as if he knew some awful truth.
 “Ven?” she said.
 “What t-terrific luck Zanzeroth didn’t come further into the room,” the wizard whispered, looking at the wall. “We have a chance after all.”
 “Agreed,” the phantom said. “I will carry you. If we can remain invisible we can slip through the gates unnoticed.”
 “Ven?” Jandra said, placing her hand on his shoulder. “Why won’t you look at me?”
 Vendevorex twisted his neck around to face her in a swift motion. Pain etched lines onto his face as he hissed, “Because it’s t-true.”
 “What?”
 Vendevorex sighed. He closed his eyes. His whole body slackened and sagged. “Years ago, when I arrived in the k-king’s court, I was no one,” he said softly. “I had no allies to convince Albekizan to take me in. I had to p-prove my abilities, to convince him I was a worthy member of his court. Albekizan tested me by having me destroy a cottage near the castle.”
 Jandra shook her head, not believing what she was hearing.
 Vendevorex continued. “Setting the structure ablaze was simple. Killing the man and woman within was simpler still. To further prove my power I walked through the burning house, showing that the heat and smoke couldn’t harm me. I heard your cries above the roar of the flames. I hadn’t known they had a child.”
 “You killed my parents?” she said. “As . . . as a demonstration?”
 “Yes,” he said. “But I spared you. I . . . I saw you in your burning bed and you looked so . . . innocent. That night I knew I was committing murder solely for my own selfish needs. I never lied to myself. I made the cold, calculated decision to end your parents’ lives to improve my own. But when I saw the innocence in your eyes . . . that was the first moment in my life I ever felt shame.”
 “I can’t believe this,” she said, choking back tears.
 “I—I’ve tried to make amends,” Vendevorex said, sounding as if he, too, were on the verge of tears. “I have used my powers more wisely, I hope. I try to protect life when I have the opportunity. I use my powers to harm as little as possible. You’ve taught me that all life is precious, Jandra.” He closed his eyes and shook his head remorsefully. “I made a horrible mistake that night. I only hope the intervening years have proven that I’ve since learned compassion.”
 Jandra kept her eyes fixed upon his face. It was true, his words, his feelings. Remorse for the deed filled him, but didn’t change the fact. He had killed her parents. He had raised her all these years to appease his own guilt. Her relationship to him now seemed so clear. He kept her by his side to convince himself he was something better than a cold-blooded murderer.
 She stood up. The cloak of invisibility around them dissolved. She turned her back on her former mentor.
 “Good-bye,” she said.
 “Jandra,” Vendevorex said, reaching out a feeble wing to touch her back. “I truly am sorry.”
 Jandra recoiled from his touch, stepping beyond his reach. “Sorry? You think that an apology now makes up for a lie you’ve told all my life? It’s not enough, Ven. Nothing you can say will ever be enough.”
 “I understand you’re hurt,” he said. “And once this is over, I understand you may desire some time apart. But you can’t leave now. Our circumstances require us to stay together, at least a while longer.”
 “I think leaving now is an excellent option,” Jandra said.
 “Where would you go?” he asked.
 “Where I belong,” she said, running for the door as tears burst from her.
 ZEEKY COULDN’T STOP SHAKING. She’d been singled out with the other children earlier, into a group the dragons would eventually execute. Now the other girls and boys were free, threading back through the crowds to their parents who desperately called out their names.
 No one called for her. She wasn’t so far from her home village—twenty miles at most—but she knew no one here.
 She had lost Merria in the confusion so she called for her now. To her relief, Merria called back. Then Merria’s voice was cut short. Still, Zeeky headed in that direction.
 “Merria!” Zeeky cried out as she spotted the girl held in Hodan’s arms. The farmer had placed his hand over Merria’s mouth. He scowled at Zeeky.
 “Go away, child,” he said.
 “Hodan,” Alanda whispered, “couldn’t we. . . ?”
 “Be quiet, woman,” Hodan said.
 “What’s wrong?” Zeeky asked. “You said you’d look after me.”
 “The evil that has fallen on our village arrived with you. The man who left you is mad, claiming to be Bitterwood. I don’t understand what has happened, but these things taint you. Kamon warned against the evils outsiders can bring.”
 Zeeky couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
 “But—”
 “Go,” Hodan said, his eyes narrowed to hard slits.
 Zeeky shut up. She saw that Hodan was serious. Alanda looked uncertain but Hodan would never let Zeeky stay with them. She wished Poocher were here now. He needed her so. She felt stronger when she cared for him. Now she had no one.
 Unless Hey You was here. She thought she had heard his voice earlier but she couldn’t see a thing from where she had stood. If she could find him, he would be nice to her.
 She didn’t have to look for long before she found him. His arms and legs were bound with rope and he lay on the dirt. The people of the village looked away from him, ignoring him, making a circle several steps around him for him to lie in, alone.
 No one moved to stop Zeeky as she walked to him. But when she got there, his eyes were blank, staring straight ahead as if he didn’t see her.
 “Hey You,” she said, crouching next to him. “It’s me. Zeeky.”
 The old man didn’t answer.
 Zeeky said, “I don’t know anyone. You were nice to me. Can I sit here with you?”
 Still he didn’t answer.
 Zeeky’s eyes blurred with tears. She said, “Please talk to me. I’m scared.”
 “Hello,” a woman said from behind her as she placed her hand on Zeeky’s shoulder. “Don’t be afraid.”
 Zeeky turned. The woman was beautiful with long brown hair held back by a silver tiara. She was dressed in white cotton though her clothes were covered with dark stains. Zeeky couldn’t even say hello, however, as tears choked her voice.
 “Hey,” the woman said, crouching before her, wiping her cheeks. “What’s wrong? Have you lost your mom and dad?”
 “And my pig.” Zeeky swallowed, then sobbed. “I’m all alone.”
 “Me too,” the woman said. “So why don’t we stay together. You can help me, okay?”
 “O-okay.”
 “So what’s your name?” the woman asked.
 “Z-Zeeky. What’s yours?”
 “Jandra,” the woman answered as she swept her up in her arms. Jandra looked at Hey You and said, “I’m surprised they don’t have you under guard.”
 The old man shifted his eyes toward her. His lips barely moved. “I’m not the man I thought I was.”
 “What do you mean?” Jandra asked.
 “I am no longer Bitterwood,” Hey You said, continuing to lie as still as death. “Another now answers to that name.”
 “I don’t understand.”
 At last, Hey You lifted his head from the ground. He frowned as he said, “Your boyfriend stole my name. I may let him keep it.”
 “My boyfriend?” Jandra asked, sounding confused. Then she raised her eyebrows. “Pet?”
 The man Zeeky called Hey You lowered his cheek to the dirt once more and said nothing.
 A commotion came from the edges of the crowd. The shouts of dragons could be heard, barking orders for the people to line up.
 “Stick close to me, honey,” Jandra said to Zeeky as she lowered her back to the ground. Then she moved to Hey You and said, “Let me help you up.”
 “Why bother?” the old man complained. “Let the dragons carry me or kill me.”
 “Don’t be like this,” Jandra said, placing her hands on the ropes that bound him. Her hands glowed in the morning light and the ropes fell free. “I’m going to save these people. You’re going to help me.”
 “I tried to save them,” the old man said. “I failed. I’m too tired to go on.”
 Jandra took him by the shirt and with a grunt lifted him to a sitting position. She stared into his eyes and said in a low voice, “No matter what the dragons or these people believe, I know who you are. You do too. You aren’t going to simply give up.”
 “You don’t know me,” he said. “I’ve fought for so long. Now another has agreed to die for my sins. You could never understand what that means.”
 “Then you can try to explain it as we go,” Jandra said, struggling to pull him to his feet.
 The old man sighed, then stood, shoulders hunched.
 “I need to borrow your cloak for a second,” Jandra said, picking it up from where the dragons had thrown it to the ground. She looked around; no one even looked in their direction. “Zeeky, I need you to keep secret what you’re about to see.”
 “Okay,” Zeeky said.
 Jandra took Bitterwood’s cloak and placed it over her, hiding her face in the hood. By now the guards had reached them and forced them into the column of people that formed across the field. Zeeky noticed that other green dragons had herded the animals from the village at the back of the column, and she wondered if Poocher was with them.
 “There,” Jandra said, handing the cloak back to Bitterwood.
 Zeeky gasped. Jandra’s hair was no longer long and brown, but was now short and black. Bangs completely concealed her tiara. Her dress was neither stained nor white but a uniform beige. Zeeky could hardly believe the change.
 “How I have fallen,” Bitterwood grumbled, “that I keep the company of a witch.”
 “Don’t mind him, Zeeky,” Jandra said. “I’m not a witch.”
 “Villagers!” Kanst again stood on the wagon, shouting through the wooden cone.
 “Chakthalla, the tyrant who held you all in bondage, is dead. I have liberated you in the name of the great King Albekizan. The king has ordered me to take you to a new home, a better place, called the Free City. There you may live your days liberated from the worries of daily labor. In the Free City, food and shelter are provided at the king’s expense. Chakthalla resisted the king’s plan to shower you with wealth and comfort, preferring to keep you in servitude. Now she’s paid the ultimate price for her cruelty. The journey in the days ahead will no doubt be hard. We will be walking during all the hours of daylight so that we may bring you to your new home as quickly as possible. But be strong, good people. You will have your reward.”
 Confused voices rose all around Zeeky.
 “It makes no sense,” a man said. “They threaten us with death, then say they’ve come to help?”
 “My cousin in Richmond sent word of the Free City,” another said. “He says he’s been employed in its construction and that the wages were the highest any man could earn.”
 “It’s God’s will, my children,” said an old man with a shrill voice.
 “Kamon speaks!” A ripple of excitement ran through the villagers. “It’s Kamon! He’s broken his silence!”
 The crowd turned and Zeeky caught a glimpse of an ancient withered figure clothed in rags. He was bald save for a fringe of thin white hair that hung around his shoulders like a wedding veil. He had a long braided mustache that hung six inches below his chin. His eyes looked twice the right size for his wrinkled, spotted face.
 The villages were all jabbering now, whispering back and forth about the significance of Kamon speaking. They drew into a large circle around the old man. The ragged figure silenced the crowd with a raised hand.
 “For years I’ve kept silent, waiting for the sign of our redemption,” Kamon said, in a dry, scratchy voice. “In the blood of the child, all is revealed. We must obey the dragons. The murder of the boy, the taking of our homes, the fall of the castle: these are signs that the land is cursed. Though even they don’t know the truth, the dragons lead us from this place, to the Promised Land, where we will finally be free from sorrows. The day of redemption is at hand!”
 An earth-dragon pushed his way through the circle of villagers. “Break it up,” he ordered. “We’re leaving.”
 Male villagers, including Hodan, rushed to form a protective line in front of Kamon.
 “Stop,” Kamon said to his impromptu defenders. “Now is not the time to fight. These dragons are mere servants of fate. The day will come when they will pay for their sins against our people; today is not that day.”
 The dragons jostled the people into a long column, no deeper than three abreast. The people began to move forward, guided by the dragons across the broken fields. Zeeky looked back, trying to see the animals that some of the earth-dragons had gathered from the nearby farms. She watched the dragons herd the beasts together behind them. She hoped she might catch some glimpse of Poocher, but there was no sign of him.
 Then they started marching, and the only animals she could see were the crows descending in great dark clouds, shattering the morning air with their harsh caws, forming a black wake as they fell on the battlefield, covering the dead with a living shroud.
PART THREE
RIVER
Take the millstones, and grind meal:
uncover thy locks, make bare the leg,
uncover the thigh, pass over the rivers.
Thy nakedness shall be uncovered,
yea, thy shame shall be seen:
I will take vengeance,
and I will not meet thee as a man.
—Isaiah 47:2-3
EPILOGUE
* * *
HOME
KILLER GROWLED, causing Zeeky to stir from her sleep. Poocher squealed as the ox-dog began to bark furiously. She rubbed her eyes. Zeeky scanned the darkness around them but saw no one. The air carried the smell of the last embers of the fire she’d built earlier in the night.
Killer continued to bark into the dark voids among the surrounding trees.
“Is that thing going to eat me?” a man said.
Zeeky recognized the voice.
“It’s okay,” she said, and Killer stopped barking.
“Come on, Hey You,” she shouted.
The old man emerged from the darkness as the moon slid from behind the clouds. He walked stiffly and sort of tilted to one side. His left arm hung limply, swaying as he moved. Bandages had been wrapped around his chest.
Yet, as awful as he looked, Zeeky was happy to see him. She jumped up and ran to him, giving him a hug, though not a hard one, as he looked like he might not be able to take it.
He placed his right hand on her back and said, “You don’t need to call me Hey You anymore.”
“So what should I call you?”
“Bant will do.”
“Okay.”
Bant grimaced as he lowered himself to the ground. She helped him sit then sat beside him.
“I’m glad you’re alive,” she said. “After the—”
“Shh,” he said. “Let’s not talk about what happened back there. Let’s talk about tomorrow. Where you heading to?”
“Home,” said Zeeky.
“You aren’t an orphan?”
“I hope not.”
“Didn’t think so,” Bant said. “Bet your dad was going to kill that pig ‘cause it was a runt, so you ran away with it.”
“How’d you know?”
“I was young once. A long time ago.” Bant shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll be young again one day.”
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“Don’t know,” he said. “If you want me to, I’ll stick with you for awhile. I’m guessing you don’t know how to find your way back.”
“No,” Zeeky admitted. “I’m so lost.”
“So am I,” Bant said. “But home’s out there somewhere. Maybe, together, we’ll find it.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
* * *
BLASPHET
 1100 D.A. The 69th Year of the Reign of Albekizan
METRON, THE HIGH BIOLOGIAN, descended the dark stone spiral that led to the deepest tombs of the library. His carried a lantern but kept it shuttered. He didn’t need his vision to walk this familiar path. He’d spent over a century within the library. He was the guardian of all the wide-ranging and ancient knowledge contained within the walls. No dragon alive had read more books than Metron; no dragon was more in love with their musty smell or their yellowed pages. This made his present descent into darkness all the more troubling. Today Metron’s mission was to destroy the collection’s most sacred books.
 He’d been drinking wine all evening, with three bottles drained and a fourth, nearly empty, clutched in his gnarled talons. His courage, he knew, would never be greater. If he didn’t destroy the books now he never would.
 At last he arrived in the basement. He paused before the display case that held one of the dragons’ most cherished artifacts. It was a slab of white stone, etched with the feathered fossil of a creature long since vanished from the earth. Half bird, half reptile, the winged beast looked for all the world like the smaller, more primitive ancestor of the winged dragon. A copper plate beneath the case bore the word “Archaeopteryx.” Replicas of this stone hung in the halls of sun-dragons and in the towers of biologians throughout the kingdom, in testament to the dragon’s long and rightful dominance of the earth.
 Metron knew it had not been a dragon who long ago exhumed this fossil and engraved the letters into the copper.
 “Guardian of the secrets,” Metron muttered, his speech slurred. “Guardian of lies is more like it.”
 With no reverence at all for the artifact before him, Metron leaned his shoulder into the case and used the full weight of his body to push it aside. He paused, taking another drink from the flask, studying the iron door revealed behind the display, its hinges caked with rust.
 Beyond the door was the forbidden collection, to be seen only by the High Biologian. Metron wished he had never read the terrible truths held in the books behind this barrier. He hung his lantern on the wooden peg near the door and placed the tarnished key into the deep lock. With a strain that hurt his aged wrist, he twisted the key until the lock clanged open. Clenching his teeth, he grasped the ring that opened the door and dug his feet into the cracks in the floor stones. Needles pierced his heart as he strained and struggled against the weight, but at last, with a shudder, the door creaked open.
 Light seeped from the growing crack. Metron frowned, unable to comprehend what could cause the brightness from within. He looked inside. The wine bottle slipped from his clutch, crashing to the stone floor.
 Blasphet, the Murder God, waited for him, resting on all fours before an immense wooden table strewn with dozens of books and glowing candles. The chamber, which always seemed so vast to Metron, looked cramped when occupied by a sun-dragon, even one as thin and withered as Blasphet. The rear of the chamber was gone; the stone wall had been carted away, revealing a dungeon chamber beyond.
 Metron swallowed, his throat suddenly very dry. He wished he had more wine. “How did you—”
 “In my years in the dungeons, I grew quite sensitive to sounds,” Blasphet said. “I knew there were other chambers dug into the bedrock of the castle. I used to fantasize about what I might discover were I to have access to an army of earth-dragons armed with sledgehammers.”
 “I see,” Metron said. “So much effort, only to discover a chamber full of lies.”
 “Lies?” Blasphet said, holding up a small, leather-bound volume entitled Origins of the Species. “Most of what I’ve read parallels your own teachings . . . though with one significant twist. Still, while this is an interesting discovery, it’s not what I’m looking for. I’m disappointed. I was certain this sealed chamber would hide something worth knowing.”
 “Nothing in here is worth knowing,” Metron said. “It’s why these books aren’t kept with the others. You’ll find only fables and heresies here.”
 “I’m rather fond of heresies,” Blasphet said.
 “No doubt,” said Metron. “Still, I insist you leave. No one is allowed into this room save for myself. It’s the law.”
 “Dear me, another law broken,” Blasphet said, his eyes brightening.
 “The books here can be of no value to you,” Metron said. “Half are written in lost tongues. You waste your time.”
 “I’m a quick study,” Blasphet said. “I’m also the best judge of what interests me.”
 “The only thing that interests you is death,” Metron said.
 “Ah, but you’re mistaken, Metron.” Blasphet sat the book back on the table. “Life is what fascinates me. Life and the lies we are told about it. For instance, how many times have I been witness to a funeral pyre and listened to the legend of Asrafel? We are taught that life is flame.”
 “So it is written,” Metron said.
 Blasphet shook his head. “My experiments tell me otherwise. If life is flame, why is it that when I burn my subjects in a pit of fire, they die? Shouldn’t they, in fact, prosper? In the legend of Asrafel, we are asked to believe that breathing smoke reconnects us to our ancestors. I have tested this. I have placed my subjects in airtight rooms and filled the atmosphere with smoke. They cough. They die. There seems to be no spiritual connection at all.”
 “Just because our mortal minds are unable to comprehend the paradox of flame is no reason to dispute the holy truth,” Metron said.
 “‘Holy’ is a word used to conceal a great deal of nonsense,” Blasphet said. “If we disregard the evidence of our senses, won’t that lead to madness?”
 “Perhaps our senses are limited while confined to flesh,” said Metron. “And you are already mad.”
 “No. Not mad. I merely trust the senses I possess. My eyes tell me that flame is not beneficial to life, despite your ‘holy’ teachings.” Blasphet raised himself from all fours to place his weight on his hind claws in the more common posture of the sun-dragons. His shoulders scraped the stone ceiling of the chamber. “Unlike my fellow dragons, I have the intellectual honesty to reject an idea simply because it’s labeled ‘holy.’ I’ve pondered the mystery of life for many decades. I thought perhaps it’s not flame but heat that gives us the vital force. I’ve slit open many a dragon. The core of a dragon is undeniably hot—much hotter than the air around it. Perhaps heat is the key. However, when I place subjects in a steel box and heat it to a cherry-red glow, again they expire. Save for a brief bust of activity from the subject early on, heat has no invigorating effect at all.”
 Metron rubbed his chin. Perhaps the wine mellowed him. He knew Blasphet was confessing to disturbing crimes, but he still found the observations intriguing. He often thought of heat as invigorating. Standing beside the fireplace in the morning did wonders for his old bones. Blasphet must be overlooking something obvious in his experiments.
 “Life also requires air,” Metron said, latching onto the missing element. “Perhaps the heat drives out the air, extinguishing life.”
 “Air may be a key,” Blasphet admitted. “My subjects do die in its absence. Yet fish are undeniably alive and they live without air. This showed that water might be the key—obviously, we expire if long deprived of it. But when I place subjects beneath the water, they do not live long.”
 “Then there must be a mix,” said Metron. “Life isn’t one thing. It’s a mix of fire, of heat, of air, of water. All these things combine to animate our base matter.”
 “If this is true, I believe there must be some perfect mixture of the elements. Some ratio of flame and water that gives birth to unquenchable life.” Blasphet sounded excited to be discussing this issue with someone who could follow his reasoning. Blasphet snaked his head closer to Metron, bringing his yellow teeth near the biologian’s ear. He said, his voice soft, yet quivering with anticipation, “Tell me, Metron, do you believe in immortality?”
 “In truth?” Metron asked, summoning the courage to look into the Murder God’s blood-rimmed eyes. “No. It’s idle fantasy.”
 “I believe,” said Blasphet. “When I lost the contest to my brother, I was castrated; the normal path to continuing one’s bloodline is simple procreation. With that route closed to me, I began to contemplate the alternative. It was in these very libraries that I gained the first knowledge of substances that could hasten death; by simple symmetry, isn’t it likely there are also compounds or formulas that can extend life? I believe our bodies can be perfected. I believe it’s possible to live forever.”
 Metron sighed. “I’m old, Blasphet. When I was younger I occasionally entertained the thought of life without end. Alas, the years roll by. The body breaks and bends. The mind fogs day by day. Eternal life may not be a blessing.”
 “I refuse to accept that,” Blasphet said. “The life force is a mystery, yes, but one I will solve. I will not go willingly into the final darkness. I will find the key to life and unlock eternity.”
 Metron nodded. Perhaps it was possible. Blasphet certainly seemed convinced. Then the biologian’s stomach grumbled and knotted. This was Blasphet who spoke. This was a butcher before him, not a philosopher.
 “This is fine talk,” Metron said. “But I believe not a word of it. I think you kill because it gives you some deep gratification that I will never comprehend. I think all this talk of the mystery of life is meant to mask your vile actions. If you truly believe yourself engaged in some noble quest, you are only deluding yourself.”
 “You think me deluded? Hypocrite! You are the one who knows the truth yet lives a lie. The time I’ve spent here convinces me these books aren’t forgeries. You know the truth about the origins of dragons.”
 Metron frowned. How much had Blasphet read? How many of the ancient languages did he know? “Don’t believe everything you read here, Blasphet. You are making a common intellectual mistake that confounds many an otherwise brilliant student. You assume that just because information is old, it must be true.”
 “You are in a poor position to speak to me of intellectual mistakes,” Blasphet said, his voice mocking. “You’ve counseled three generations of kings, telling them it is natural to kill the humans, as nature has decreed we are the superior race. How can you live with yourself?”
 “You are hardly in a position to make me feel guilty,” Metron growled. “I nourish the myths that allow dragon culture to flourish. You’re the one with blood on his claws.”
 “Yes. Blood. And poison.” Blasphet drew his fore-claw close to Metron’s eyes. He flexed his bony talon, displaying the black, tarry substance caked beneath the nails. “Or perhaps you are speaking metaphorically? Implying I should feel remorse? Your own teachings contain the doctrine that organisms do what they must to survive. I devote my life to this central principle. If I must strip the planet of all life to learn how to ensure my own survival, so be it. I’ll never shed a tear.”
 “Have care, Blasphet. Push too far and Albekizan will recognize your true evil. You’ll find yourself in chains once more,” Metron said.
 “Evil? What a quaint idea, unworthy of a scholar such as yourself. For the true intellectual, good and evil are mere hobgoblins. All that matters is the quest for truth. Perhaps your century of scholarship can end my quest. What is the animating force? What is the source of life?”
 “What I know, I have told you,” Metron said, looking at the floor, away from Blasphet’s intense gaze. “Life is flame.”
 “Still you insist on that lie?” Blasphet grabbed Metron’s cheeks, turning his eyes once more to meet his own. “If you truly do not know, admit it. You may not be the most intelligent dragon who lives, but you are, perhaps, the most educated. Give me the answer or I’ll sink a single claw into your neck, putting an end to your miserable life.”
 “Kill me if you must,” Metron said, not daring to blink. “I do not know the answer you seek.”
 Blasphet released him. Metron staggered backward. Blasphet sounded more frustrated than angry as he said, “There is not a book in this library you haven’t studied. If you were to join me in my quest for truth, I know I could find the answer more rapidly.”
 Metron paused, considering the words of the Murder God. Metron truly had no special insight into the secret of immortality. Nevertheless, as long as Blasphet thought he might, perhaps he held some advantage over the wicked dragon.
 “I don’t have the information you seek,” said Metron. “But that doesn’t mean I cannot discover it.”
 “Then you will research the answer? This is not the only library on the planet; the College of Spires has a collection that rivals your own. I know you biologians have a network of contacts. Will you not help me search?”
 Metron rubbed his cheek where Blasphet’s claws had rested. His scales crawled where he’d been touched. “Am I to believe that if you found the secret of eternal life, you would give up your murderous ways?”
 “You can believe whatever helps you sleep at night,” Blasphet said.
 “I believe that even if you were to change your ways, it would matter little in the grand scheme of things. Albekizan will continue to execute the humans with or without your help.”
 “Hmm.” Blasphet studied Metron’s face. “It bothers you, the genocide. Interesting. I hadn’t guessed most dragons would object. However, if it’s any comfort, when I gain the secret of immortality, I won’t be sharing it with my brother. Albekizan won’t live forever. I’ll see to that when the time is right.”
 “Your words hint at treason.”
 “Tsk. Tsk. Those pesky laws.”
 Metron found himself in curious admiration of the monster before him. It occurred to him that a being unconstrained by laws or morality might prove useful. He said, “I do not lightly enter into treason. Give me time to consider your words.”
 “Of course,” Blasphet said, his eyes glittering with the light of victory. “But I already know how you will answer.”
 DESPITE HER EXHAUSTION, Jandra couldn’t sleep. Kanst had marched them nonstop through the day with no break for food or water. Any who stumbled or fell behind had been quickly motivated with whips to keep up the pace. When night fell Kanst had allowed them to drop, too weary to fight or protest, beside a small, muddy pond in the middle of a pasture. For dinner, the dragons passed around sacks of half rotten seed potatoes they’d scavenged from the village. The dragons slaughtered the cows they found in the pasture and the smell of charred meat hung in the air. The humans would get no taste of this.
 The dragons set up tents for themselves, but no shelter, not even blankets, had been provided for the humans. The villagers all huddled together for warmth. Jandra wrapped her arm around Zeeky who was now sound asleep. The child hadn’t complained once during their long march.
 Jandra studied the stars, trying to make some sense of Kanst’s reasons for the forced march. What did this talk of a “Free City” mean? Why hadn’t Kanst simply slaughtered the villagers where he found them?
 A sky-dragon circled high overhead, a dark blot against the night sky.
 Vendevorex?
 No. Most likely it was one of the aerial guard, flying on routine duty. If Vendevorex had followed, he would certainly be invisible. It was foolish to think he would follow. Never mind that he’d been too weak to even stand when she left him; he’d proven by word and deed that he was too cowardly to fight. Jandra pushed back thoughts of her former mentor. This was the problem with being raised by someone who knew how to become invisible: every time she looked over her shoulder to see nothing, it only fueled her suspicions that he was there. Perhaps in time she would stop seeing him in any small flicker of shadow. She had to accept the reality that she would be better off never seeing Vendevorex again.
 She couldn’t believe how good the dragons’ meals smelled. The aroma taunted her.
 Carefully Jandra slid from Zeeky’s embrace. She spread her cloak over the child then, glancing around to make sure no one watched her, she tossed a handful of silver dust into the air.
 Jandra moved invisibly among the sleeping humans, toward a small circle of five guards gathered around a fire for warmth. They were gnawing on charred bones.
 “Can’t be him. Seeing what they want to see,” one of the guards said.
 “He’s supposed to be a ghost,” another said. “How can chains hold a ghost?”
 The third grunted. “Who cares if it’s him or not? If Kanst and Albekizan are satisfied by killing him, our lives will be easier.”
 “It must be him,” said another. “He had the arrows.”
 “Should’ve killed him where he stood,” said the fifth dragon, tossing a gnawed thighbone over his shoulder. “I can’t believe Kanst is actually sharing a tent with the monster.”
 Jandra grabbed the bone from the dirt. There was still quite a bit of meat on it. Earth-dragons were sloppy eaters. She shoved the meat into a pocket in her cloak and moved on.
 She went in search of Kanst’s tent. That task proved simple enough—his was the largest and surrounded by the most guards. Unfortunately, some of the guards held ox-dogs on chain leashes. Invisibility wouldn’t fool an ox-dog. Still, the guards and dogs looked as worn out and ready for sleep as the villagers were. Indeed, one of the dogs was already snoring. She held her breath and tiptoed between them.
 She moved toward the tent flap. As she reached for it, the flap took on a life of its own, pushing outward. She jumped back as Kanst emerged from the tent. Jandra scrambled to move out of his way. Invisible or not, it wasn’t difficult to be discovered if a creature with a forty-foot wingspan brushed up against you. Kanst’s whiplike tail swung toward her and she skipped over it like a rope.
 “Make sure no one gets in,” Kanst said to the guards. “I go to consult Zanzeroth.”
 Kanst lumbered off into the night. Once the general was safely out of earshot, one of the guards muttered to another, “Going to consult that keg of goom in the hunter’s tent is more like it.”
 Jandra slid between the gap in the tent flaps.
 In the dim light she could barely see Pet lying prone on Kanst’s huge battle chest. Manacles held his arms and legs to the four corners of the lid, and a steel collar was fastened around his neck.
 He lay still as death. Her heart sank.
 But why would they bother to chain a dead man?
 She moved closer until she could hear his breathing. She had expected to find him bruised and bloodied but he looked unharmed. Kanst apparently wanted his prize delivered in good health.
 Becoming visible, she carefully placed her hand over his mouth as he slept. He stirred to wakefulness.
 “It’s me,” she said. “Don’t be scared.”
 “Jandra,” Pet whispered as she removed her hand. “What are you doing here? And what on earth have you done to your hair?”
 “I’m not here to discuss grooming. I’ve come to rescue you.”
 “Don’t,” Pet said. “I’ve made my choice.”
 “Pretending you’re Bitterwood isn’t going to solve things. You saved the hostages for the moment but Albekizan’s death warrant on all humans is still in place. I need every ally I can muster. I want you free and fighting.”
 “I’m no warrior,” Pet said. “We both know that. I’m only an actor, a pretender. I told you, if I could help people by acting, I would. Who knew I’d get my chance so soon? When they take me before Albekizan, I know he’ll kill me. Perhaps my death will assuage his anger. He might call off his order of genocide.”
 “Or maybe you’ll have died in vain.”
 “Your words of encouragement are a great comfort to me,” Pet said.
 “Sorry. But you don’t have to die. I’m working on a plan to stop Albekizan.”
 “How?”
 “The first step is to rescue you. Then. . . .” Jandra hoped for inspiration. It didn’t come. “To be honest, I’m still fleshing out the rest of the plan.”
 “If you’re here, Vendevorex must have come to your way of thinking,” Pet said. “What help can I be compared to him?”
 “Ven isn’t with me,” Jandra said.
 “Oh. He didn’t pull through?”
 “I’d rather not discuss it.”
 “But, if Vendevorex—”
 “Stop,” Jandra said, raising her hand. “I’m not here to discuss Vendevorex. I’m here to save you so you can help me in my fight to save mankind.”
 “As an army of two?” Pet said. “I think I currently have the better plan.”
 “When did you get so brave? I think I liked you better when you were—”
 “Cowardly?” Pet interjected.
 Jandra shrugged. “More protective of your self interests.”
 “I didn’t do this for you. I told you, the villagers weren’t strangers to me. I’ve done what I could over the years to help them. And they . . . Well, some of them . . . some of the young women . . . have, um, been grateful.”
 “What are you saying?”
 “Chakthalla would never have allowed me to select a permanent mate from among the villagers but she couldn’t know everything I was up to. If I had allowed Kanst to slaughter the village children he might have been killing my offspring.”
 Jandra’s heart sank. Of course, she should have known that he’d use his privileges and talents to seduce the village girls. He’d tried to bed her after ten minutes of conversation. She was shocked to find an icy vein of jealousy running through her body. Why? She didn’t have any romantic feelings for him, did she?
 Pet seemed to sense her disappointment. “I’m sorry. I haven’t been a saint. Maybe what I’m doing will make up a little for the self-centered way I’ve lived. Don’t worry about me. This is just another performance, one last moment on the stage. You know I love being the center of attention.”
 Jandra nodded. Her eyes blurred with tears. “You do what you have to,” she said, her voice wavering.
 “Don’t cry.”
 “I’m sorry,” she said.
 “It’s okay,” Pet said. “But you need to go. Kanst could return at any time.”
 “Good-bye,” Jandra said, leaning down and placing a kiss on Pet’s cheek.
 “Good luck with your plan,” Pet said.
 PET WATCHED JANDRA step away. A swirl of tiny stars engulfed her in the darkness, and when they fell away, she had vanished. Turning his eyes toward the door, he saw at last the flap sway aside before falling back. Only then did he let tears fill his own eyes. He’d done well playing brave before her. He prayed he could repeat the performance when he finally faced Albekizan.
 JANDRA KNELT BESIDE the sleeping form of the real Bitterwood. He’d been silent all day, marching sullenly, looking as if he’d lost all will to live. First Pet decided to become a hero, then Bitterwood lost his will to fight. Were all human males this prone to mood swings? Ven had his faults but at least he was predictable.
 Bitterwood lay so still she wondered for a second if he was dead. She could see the slightest movement of his chest, rising and falling beneath his threadbare clothing. His shirt was a mass of patches, stitches, and stains; it looked as if it hadn’t been laundered in months. Not even the humans that lived in the hovels around Albekizan’s palace had worn such rags. Furthermore, Bitterwood stank; he smelled of sweat, road dust, and dried blood. Holding her breath she reached out her hand to wake the sleeping dragonslayer. When her hand was still an inch from his shoulder he said, quietly, “I’m awake.”
 “Good,” she whispered. “We need to talk.”
 He continued to lay perfectly still, his eyes closed. He sighed, with breath ripened by rotting teeth, then said, “Say what you must.”
 “I want to know what’s wrong with you. Twenty-four hours ago you were this cold-blooded dragon-slayer. Now, all day you’ve been shuffling around, blank-eyed, looking half dead. Are you faking this? Are you just waiting for the right moment to strike? Because if you are, I want to help.”
 He waited a long moment before answering, “You should get some sleep.”
 “In preparation for battle?” she said, hopefully. “You are planning to fight.”
 “I’m planning on walking however far the dragons command us to walk tomorrow,” said Bitterwood.
 “This isn’t like you,” she said.
 He turned toward her voice and opened his eyes. He fixed his gaze upon her.
 “You cannot judge me,” he said. “Long ago, I was taught that the greatest thing a man could do was to lay his life down for another. I was taught that if struck, I should turn the other cheek. If anyone harmed me, or trespassed against me, I was commanded to love and forgive them. Love and forgiveness were the greatest virtues. I believed these lies for almost a decade.”
 “Why are love and forgiveness lies?” she asked, aware of the irony as she said it. She certainly had no intention of forgiving Vendevorex, or ever loving him again.
 “I was taught that there was a god who loved us so much, he gave his own son in sacrifice. Imagine that foolishness . . . sacrificing your life to redeem others.”
 “It sounds noble to me,” she said.
 “As it did to me, once. Then I learned that the man who taught me these things wasn’t what I thought he was. I met him when I was young; I almost thought of him as a father. You can’t know how his betrayal wounded me.”
 Jandra nodded. “I might have some idea.”
 “After his betrayal, I vowed never to be weak again. There would be no love. There would be no forgiveness. I would never turn my cheek if struck. I would match every blow with double the force. I would never show mercy.”
 “But you turned yourself in to save the villagers. You still have a good side.”
 “I still have a weak side,” Bitterwood said. “I once . . . I once had children. Two daughters. An infant son. The night before the attack, I met Zeeky. She reminded me of my own long lost daughters. On any other night, Kanst’s gambit would never have caught me. But I couldn’t get Zeeky’s voice out of my head. In the end that lingering trace of compassion destroyed me. I surrendered myself to the dragons to save her.”
 “Just as you’d been taught to do,” she said.
 He nodded. “Yet my sacrifice was in vain. I was rejected. The dragons would have slain me and slaughtered the villagers.”
 “If Pet hadn’t intervened.”
 Bitterwood didn’t respond to this. He closed his eyes and turned back on his side.
 “He gave himself selflessly,” he whispered. “The villagers were spared. Now I wonder, were the lies of my youth true after all? Can a man love others so much he will surrender his life to save them? Was my sacrifice rejected because I am unclean, corrupted by my hate? I’m guilty; Pet was innocent. Was his sacrifice superior because his heart was pure?”
 Jandra said, “Pure isn’t a word I would use to describe Pet. I spoke to Pet a minute ago. He’s intent on getting himself killed. It doesn’t have to end like this. I can get your bow and arrows back. You were magnificent in the castle. Think how much damage you could do with me by your side, keeping you invisible. We’d be the ultimate dragon-slaying team. You can save Pet and everyone here. You’re my only hope.”
 Bitterwood lay motionless once more. His breathing was even, as if he had actually fallen asleep. She reached out to nudge him, and once more, he spoke before her fingers reached him.
 “Life is more bearable when you live without hope,” he said.
 VENDEVOREX WOKE into darkness, his eyes straining as dim light began to slowly form shapes around him. For hours he’d pitched and turned, burning with fever. Now his fever had broken. He touched his belly, probing softly. His wounds had vanished. Once he’d set the healing in motion, his unconscious mind had been able to guide the process.
 Smoke hung in the air. The smoke had a touch of pine to it. The air was moist and . . . he could hear water boiling. He sniffed again. Sassafras? Vendevorex looked around. He wasn’t in Chakthalla’s castle anymore. He lay next to a small fire pit and, across from him, basking in the fire’s glow, was a sun-dragon, his face hidden beneath a black velvet hood. Vendevorex had a brief flash of memory. He’d been carried from the throne room by this dragon.
 “Where am I?” Vendevorex asked.
 “A cavern. I’ve hidden here before,” answered the masked dragon as he stirred the coals beneath a blackened kettle. “You lost consciousness not long after we slipped past Kanst’s army. I brought you here to recover.”
 “How long have I been asleep?”
 The masked dragon motioned toward a stalactite. A tall, slender glass cylinder etched with lines sat beneath it, catching the water that dripped from its tip. “If my clock is accurate, you’ve been unconscious nearly thirty hours.”
 “Where’s Jandra?”
 “Don’t you remember? She ran off, angry with you.”
 “She didn’t come back?”
 “I’m sorry. I couldn’t wait. I know of no way she could find us now. We’ve eluded even the ox-dogs.”
 “I see,” Vendevorex said. “Then I should go search for her.”
 “Perhaps she doesn’t want to be found,” the masked dragon said.
 “I must find her. I had hoped to convince her to avoid Albekizan’s schemes. I see that is no longer an option. But I can’t let her fight single-handedly against your father.”
 The masked dragon grew suddenly still. Then, after too long a pause, he asked, bemused, “My father?”
 “Come now, Shandrazel. You can’t fool me. I’ve known you for too long. You have nothing to fear. I’m definitely not going to carry out your father’s death order.”
 “No,” Shandrazel agreed, grabbing his mask and pulling it from his head. “I suppose you won’t.”
 “Nor, I suspect, would Chakthalla. She would have welcomed you to her planned rebellion. Why hide your identity?”
 “Because,” Shandrazel answered, “I’ve no desire to be king.” He lifted the kettle from the coals and poured pungent, oily liquid into clay cups. “This drink will help revitalize you. It’s—”
 “Sassafras,” Vendevorex said. “I know my medicinal herbs. It’s made from the roots of a tree that grows here in the eastern mountains. It’s similar in odor and taste to the European licorice root.”
 “European?” Shandrazel asked, offering the clay cup.
 Vendevorex shrugged as he accepted the drink. The rough, unglazed ceramic warmed his talons. “I’m not trying to be obscure, but it really would take a long time to explain. Let’s just say that your father may not have been the best source for you to learn geography.”
 “I concur,” Shandrazel said, then stopped to take a drink.
 Vendevorex inhaled the steam from his own cup. The vapors were sour, with a fragrant kick that made the deep recesses of his sinuses tingle.
 “So,” he said. “What have you been up to besides digging roots and hiding in caves?”
 “I also made a clock and sewed a mask,” Shandrazel said. “These haven’t been the most glorious months of my life, to be honest. I probably wouldn’t have made it this long except, after I fled the College of Spires, a student followed me and pledged his loyalty. He visits me from time to time with news and supplies. Through him I learned that Chakthalla was harboring you, and heard the whispers of rebellion. I thought it might be time for me to once more seek the company of sun-dragons.”
 “You came to help overthrow your father?”
 Shandrazel shook his head. “I came hoping to prevent violence. I believe, despite all that has happened, that it is not too late for cooler heads to prevail. My father ordered my exile during horrible times. Bodiel . . . Bodiel was his favorite. I know this. But now that father’s had time to grieve, his reason may have returned.”
 Vendevorex sighed. “You didn’t know your father at all, did you?”
 “Of course I did,” Shandrazel said, sounding offended. “As his son, who could know him better?”
 “Precisely because you’re his son, you cannot see him plainly. I’ve advised Albekizan for many years. Trust me when I tell you the king is bull-headed and stonehearted. He’ll not be talked out of his plans. Your exile will only end with your death, or his.”
 Shandrazel opened his mouth as if to argue, then shook his head. The wispy white feathers around his nostrils wafted like steam as he sighed. He stared at the flickering coals within the stone circle.
 “Killing him would be the same as killing myself,” said Shandrazel.
 “A noble sentiment,” Vendevorex said. “If only your father displayed half your compassion.”
 “So what now?” asked Shandrazel. “I’d rather not live the rest of my life hiding in caves.”
 “Nor I. What’s more, I have Jandra to think about. I must save her and, to satisfy her, I must save the entire human race.”
 “No small task,” said Shandrazel.
 “True,” Vendevorex said, stroking his chin with a fore-talon. “Fortunately, I’m not without resources. I see now that open revolution will only bring further destruction. What’s needed is some candidate for the throne who will assume the duty with a minimum of bloodshed. If you aren’t volunteering, I believe our best hope may be Kanst. I didn’t like that possibility before but we are running out of options. We could play upon his vanity; if I play my cards right, I might even wind up as his most trusted advisor, and help the kingdom see better days.”
 “The armies would accept Kanst as king,” Shandrazel agreed. “He certainly possesses ambition. But he’s also known for his ruthlessness. In any case, I fear his loyalty to my father is too great.”
 “You may be correct,” Vendevorex said. “Right now, my first duty is to find Jandra. Once we are united with her we can focus our energies on approaching Kanst and stopping Albekizan.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
* * *
HEART
THE SUN WAS LOW over the mountains to the west as the villagers marched through the green valley. Zeeky felt as if she couldn’t take another step. She wished Jandra would carry her but her mysterious friend looked as tired as she was. She certainly couldn’t ask Hey You. The man who had been so friendly to her in the barn now kept everyone at a distance with his stern countenance and silence.
 Zeeky’s stomach growled. The dragons fed them only one meal in the mornings and water at night. She’d eaten better during the days she’d been on her own as a runaway. Of course, she hadn’t really been on her own then. She’d had Poocher to care for and his needfulness had kept her going. She was far more alone and scared now, surrounded by a crowd of strangers, than she had been when wandering across the countryside.
 How nice it must be to be Kamon. The aged prophet wasn’t suffering at all on this journey. The village men carried him when he grew tired, and everyone gave him food until he’d had his fill. The villagers adored him but wouldn’t even look at her. She grew dizzy with anger thinking about it.
 Or perhaps she was dizzy with thirst or exhaustion. Whatever the cause the world was definitely spinning, the path tilting sideways around her, until she fell face forward into the dust. She tried to stand up but didn’t have the strength. All she could do was lie there as the villagers stepped over and around her. She felt as if she should be angry with them but all she felt was shame at her weakness.
 A bony, rough hand slid under her shoulders, turning her over. Hey You knelt over her, placing his strong, wiry arms under her knees and behind her back. Without a word he lifted her, placing her head on his shoulders
 From her new vantage point, Zeeky looked back down the trail at the line of humans. Along the line, dragons herded humans, making sure none strayed. Following behind the humans were the farm animals the dragons had also gathered. It was difficult to tell in the diminishing light, but she squinted, and sure enough, she could see him. There among the predominantly pink pigs, Poocher’s black and white hide stood out.
 Zeeky knew then that she would live through this. She had to. She didn’t know when, and she didn’t know how, but she would escape and save Poocher, and go someplace far away where she would never have to see another dragon again.
 AFTER VENDEVOREX FLED, Albekizan gave Blasphet his chambers. The star-shaped room in the high tower suited Blasphet’s needs. Blasphet was one of the few dragons in the kingdom who understood the contents of the beakers and vials that lined the shelves along the room. What lesser creatures might think of as magic, Blasphet recognized as natural substances. There was nothing mystical about an acid that ate away iron, nothing strange about liquids that burned. Blasphet had yet to learn the secret, but he was convinced the wizard’s most amazing feat, his ability to turn invisible, was based in some as yet to be understood physical principle rather than supernatural forces.
 Over the weeks, Blasphet had made many modifications to the star chamber and the rooms beneath it. To start, the main chamber was too cluttered and crowded for a sun-dragon to move comfortably in. He had most of the treasures and oddities in the room packed and carted to the chambers below to await further study. He kept the large, central oak table. With the addition of manacles, the table was perfect. A series of lanterns and mirrors lit the oak surface to high-noon brightness, even in the chill, dark hours of the night.
 “You will probably want to scream,” Blasphet said to the naked young man shackled to the wooden slab. “I hope you won’t. Think about how ennobling it would be to die with dignity. Instead of howling and begging for mercy you will not receive, resolve to let your death serve the quest for knowledge. Tell me if you have an increased sensation of warmth, or perhaps of cold. If anything, anything at all, makes you feel even the slightest bit stronger, tell me at once. Do you understand?”
 The human didn’t speak but his angry, defiant eyes were a comfort to Blasphet. Perhaps this one had the will to survive the vivisection long enough to be of some use.
 Blasphet reached to the onyx tray at the edge of the table and retrieved his scalpel, its razor edge glowing in the focused light. Blasphet made three cuts across the man’s chest with practiced precision, one down the center, then one each across the top and bottom of the first cut. The man arced his back from the agony and ground his teeth, but did not cry out as Blasphet took the two flaps of skin and peeled them back, exposing the man’s rib cage. The salty scent of flesh and blood invigorated Blasphet, as did the realization that his victim was still holding on to some last faint glimmer of hope that he might survive.
 He’d picked this subject well. It hadn’t just been the firm musculature and overall good health the human had displayed; he’d also recognized courage within the man’s eyes, a spirit of defiance. He congratulated himself on his perception. His foolish brother could never have recognized the value of this specimen. Albekizan thought all humans looked alike.
 Setting the scalpel aside, Blasphet sank his sharp, strong claws into the tissue just beneath the man’s sternum. With a grunt he tore open the man’s rib cage, exposing the organs within. The man opened his mouth to scream but no sound came out. His eyes closed and his head fell suddenly limp. Blasphet knew the man hadn’t fully lost consciousness. The stimulant draught he had forced the man to swallow earlier would prevent sleep until the very end.
 At that moment there was a knock on the door of the chamber. Blasphet grimaced, hesitant to leave his work but certain he knew who was visiting. He’d been expecting him for some time. Licking the red blood from his ebony talons, Blasphet went to give his visitor admittance.
 “Have patience, Metron,” he called out. “I’m coming.”
 He pulled the door open, revealing the High Biologian.
 “How did you know it was me?” Metron asked.
 “No one else dares visit. Moreover, I knew you would accept my offer. You and I value knowledge—we need not let petty morality interfere with that quest. We are kindred souls.”
 Metron shook his head. “We are nothing alike. You are a wicked, hateful thing that thrives on death. You use the gloss of intellectual pursuit to mask your vileness.”
 “Yet still you’ve come to help me, yes?”
 Metron hesitated, then looked to the floor as he whispered, “Yes.” The aged dragon then raised his head. “But unlike you, I am driven by a hatred of death. I see dark times coming upon the kingdom, and an alliance with you may be my only hope of preventing greater bloodshed.”
 “Of course,” Blasphet said. Then he gave a little bow, and said, “Where are my manners? Keeping you in the doorway . . . Please come in, my honored guest. We have much to discuss.”
 The High Biologian followed him through the lab, his feathery scales trembling at the sight of the man shackled to the table, the exposed heart still beating.
 “This disturbs you,” Blasphet said. “It shouldn’t. Think of this body as a book. There is much to be learned by studying its pages.”
 “What can you possibly hope to learn from this?” Metron said, sounding choked.
 “I am presently studying hearts,” Blasphet said, motioning toward the feeble pulses of the purple blob that lay between the gray lungs. “There’s no question that a beating heart is essential to the life of a man. Yet their eyes have been known to follow me for several seconds, even after I’ve removed the heart entirely. Life endures, however briefly. Often when I remove a heart it will beat in my hands for some time. Curious, yes? I have even devoured hearts still beating; the muscle expands and contracts as it rolls on my tongue. These are pieces of the puzzle, I’m certain.”
 Metron looked as if he were about to faint.
 “Perhaps you would benefit from some fresh air,” Blasphet said.
 Blasphet opened the door that led to the sitting room. A light breeze stirred the curtains that led to the balcony, letting pale moonlight spill across the polished wooden floor. Strolling to the curtains, Blasphet pulled them aside and stepped onto the balcony overlooking the huge city under construction.
 The Free City had a gem-like symmetry, a diamond encased by high wooden walls, with wide avenues dividing the structures within into perfect squares. Even though the sun had set long ago, the sound of hammers and saws rose from the city, which glowed with the light of a thousand lanterns.
 “Magnificent, is it not?” Blasphet asked as Metron joined him on the balcony. “Say what you will about my brother, he does have a talent for motivating his workers. Construction is well ahead of schedule.”
 Metron nodded. “It is impressive. I admit, it does look more like a dwelling than an abattoir. I don’t understand why you’ve gone to such an elaborate ruse, promising humans a life of ease when the plan is to slaughter them.”
 “The humans would only flee were we to wage unfettered genocide against them. It’s much easier to draw them all together in one place. When I am through, there will be no men left in the kingdom.” Blasphet leaned against the stone rail and said, dreamily, “Who knows what will take their place?”
 “What do you mean?” Metron asked.
 “Once it’s complete, the city before you could comfortably house perhaps a hundred thousand humans. I plan to fill the city with over a million. I will kill a steady number of them daily, of course, so that the king won’t grow too suspicious of my true plan.”
 “Which is?”
 Blasphet spread his wings in a gesture that encompassed the city. “To study life on a grand scale! Imagine what we can learn with a million subjects to study. Food will be limited so fights will take place constantly as the strong take the food from the weak. Soon there will be no pretense of lawfulness anywhere within the Free City. The strongest men will take what is needed to live and breed with the women most capable of survival. Their children will add to the population pressure within the city.”
 Metron shivered in the cool breeze that blew up against the tower. “This is a nightmarish vision,” he said.
 “Compared to their waking life, the humans within these walls will pray for nightmares. Diseases will flourish in a city so bloated with corpses. The bodies of their kind will become the humans’ only sustenance and rainfall their only water. Yet I am certain some will survive, even flourish. I do not think they will be human anymore, but something much hardier, something that can survive any suffering. What secrets will such a being hold, Metron?”
 Metron turned away from the city. He stepped back inside, his wings wrapped tightly around him to fend off the chill. He said, softly, “What if, before then, I can give you your answer? I learn the secret source of life and reveal it? You will stop this plan?”
 Blasphet cocked his head. “You’ve found the answer?”
 “No.”
 “My experiments will continue, then.”
 “By my very profession, I am one who places faith in books,” Metron said. “It’s true that I haven’t found the answer in my studies, but there are still great stores of ancient knowledge kept by other biologians throughout the kingdom. I shall consult them. I ask only that you hold off on your experiments until such time as I can complete my search.”
 “Bring me your answer when and if you find it, fellow conspirator. But I won’t stop my research while I wait.”
 Metron started to speak, then stopped. Blasphet knew the old dragon had no choice but to agree to his terms.
 “Very well,” Metron said. “I will go. The quicker I begin my search, the quicker I can halt this madness.”
 “Of course,” Blasphet said. “May the flames of the ancestors bring you luck in your quest.”
 “I didn’t think you believed in the flames of the ancestors,” Metron said.
 “No. Neither, I suspect, do you. Now hurry on. My subject in the next room is most likely dead by now, but I wish to weigh his organs while they are still fresh.”
 Metron hurried from the room, passing through the lab without turning his face toward the pale body on the slab. Blasphet locked the door behind him but didn’t return to his work, which suddenly bored him. He returned to the balcony to look at the Free City. Soon, the sound of construction would give way to the constant cries of men in torment as his city filled to overflowing. How pleasant it would be to sleep to such music.
 PET STIRRED FROM SLEEP. He wasn’t alone. He opened his eyes and found Zanzeroth looming over him. Pet glanced to the door of the tent. The guards were gone.
 Zanzeroth bent his face close to Pet’s. His wounds were terrible. Stained gauze was stuffed into the gaping hole in the center of the aged dragon’s snout. Black blood caked between his teeth. His eye patch was gone, revealing a scarred, ragged hole where his right eye should have been. His left eye was fixed on Pet’s face. The old dragon’s breath reeked of gore and goom.
 In his claw, Zanzeroth held one of the arrows that had been pulled from his body. He raised it to his bloodied face. His tongue flickered out, licking the notched end of the arrow where the fingers would hold it against the string.
 Then Zanzeroth moved his head to Pet’s chained hands. Pet squirmed as the hunter’s raspy tongue danced along his fingertips for a long moment.
 The aged hunter then sat back, contemplating Pet in the darkness. He reached out a claw and, one by one, undid the buttons of Pet’s silk shirt. He pushed the cloth open, exposing Pet’s bare chest.
 “Not a scar on you,” Zanzeroth whispered. He pulled Pet’s shirt closed. He leaned down and said, so softly that Pet wasn’t sure of the words, “I wanted to make certain.”
 Zanzeroth turned and moved back toward the tent flap, half limping and swaying like a drunkard. He cast one last glance back as he pushed open the tent flap. Pet could see the body of a guard sprawled in the mud outside. Zanzeroth nodded.
 “Sleep tight,” he said before the tent flaps closed behind him, leaving Pet alone.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
* * *
SATISFACTION
A WEEK AFTER HIS VISIT with Blasphet, Metron restlessly flipped the pages of an illuminated tome, waiting for sunset. Earlier, he’d watched Kanst returning, leading a band of captured humans to the Free City. Little time was left to avert the impending atrocities. Fortunately, his fellow biologians had pledged their assistance in researching Blasphet’s question. Today held the appointed hour for their responses.
 As the last rays of daylight faded, Metron closed the tome before him. He straightened the green sashes that hung across his chest, then descended from his private chambers into the main body of the library. Here the long, high bookshelves were arranged in twisting rows, forming a maze in which even experienced biologians might find themselves lost. The narrow passageways between the shelves barely allowed room for sky-dragons to creep between them; sun-dragons never ventured into this area of the library. Metron often wondered if this was by accident or design.
 Metron navigated the rows with a speed born of experience. He entered into a side chamber that was filled with crates of uncataloged books and looked around to make certain no one was watching. Then he pushed aside the crates along the far side of the room, revealing a smooth stone wall. The illusion of solid rock would have fooled Vendevorex himself. The builders of this place had access to many secret arts. Metron stepped forward, the wall rippling as it swallowed him.
 Beyond the false wall, Metron’s scales bristled. The air here was thick and electric, ice-water cold yet smelling of heated iron. From all directions came a buzz of angry bees. Most unnerving off all, the room had no floor, no walls, no ceiling. All around him was a uniform, blank whiteness. It had been seven decades since he first stepped foot in this strange space, and still the sensation of toppling into an unending void threatened to overwhelm him. Despite the information his eyes gave him, he knew his feet rested on a solid surface. He tapped his staff against the unseen floor to assure himself.
 This was the Snow Room, the secret meeting chamber of the biologians. There were thirty such chambers throughout the kingdom, and all predated the libraries that surrounded them. From this point, it was possible to see all who stood in those distant chambers, though hundreds of miles separated them. As he stared into the nothingness, he soon began to see the image of another biologian, materializing beside him like a traveler emerging from a fog.
 It was Daknagol, the only biologian older than himself. Daknagol had initiated him in the secret of the Snow Room all those long years ago.
 “Cursed place,” Daknagol grumbled. The fine scales around his eyes crinkled into a mask of disgust. “How this chamber filled me with wonder in my youth. Now, following every visit, I’m seized with prodigious vomiting. The humans who built this place must have been wicked indeed.”
 “Hold your tongue, honorable Daknagol,” Metron said.
 As he spoke, a second dragon emerged from the mist. It was Androkom, the youngest of the initiated biologians and, some said, the most brilliant. Despite his rank, Androkom still had the air of a student. This was due in part by his youth and the brightness of his feathers, but also because of the deep ink stains that covered his claws; scribe work was usually left to the novice biologians.
 “Why would you have him hold his tongue?” Androkom asked. “Everyone present knows the truth. We live in a world of lost wonders. We scavenge among the miracles of a vanished human civilization. The pathetic, ignorant beasts we use to tend our fields once strode this world like gods.”
 “Yes,” said Metron. “And they destroyed themselves with their own dangerous technology. Let me remind you, we aren’t here to debate the ancient past. We are here to discuss a more urgent question: what is life?”
 By now, ten or more dragons had appeared. The question set them all talking at once. Metron banged his staff on the floor, regaining order. All fell silent save for Androkom.
 “Exalted brothers,” Androkom said, raising his inky talons, “I have the answer that eludes the High Biologian. I know the secret source of life!”
 Metron wasn’t surprised by this response. Androkom was famed for his intelligence—and his arrogance.
 “Speak,” said Metron.
 “Nothing contradicts the Book of Theranzathax. Life is flame.” Androkom held his head high as if to dare any of his fellow biologians to challenge him.
 A cacophony of voices arose instantly, shouting in protest.
 “Brothers,” Metron urged, banging his staff. “Restrain yourselves.”
 When the assembly regained order, Metron said, “Androkom, why insist on the validity of the Book of Theranzathax? All here know that the book is a fabrication, composed not in ancient times but mere centuries ago.”
 “I am aware that the biologian Zeldizar created the book,” Androkom said. “He wrote in the belief that dragons would only be truly liberated when they lost the knowledge of their lowly origins and embraced his new mythology. However, my studies lead me to believe that Zeldizar didn’t simply fabricate these myths. Rather, he disguised truth with metaphor and parable. His assertion that life is a flame is based on his knowledge of chemistry, for life and flame are analogous chemical processes.”
 “Blasphet won’t be content with such a broad answer,” Metron said. “Many processes are chemical.”
 “Acknowledged,” said Androkom. “The full details of my answer are not easily grasped, but I can provide evidence of their truthfulness.”
 Metron nodded, then addressed the assembly as a whole. “Brothers, have any others among you found another answer?”
 Daknagol was next to speak. “I, too, arrived at the answer that life is a chemical process. It is described in many ancient texts. But the writings are arcane and complex. Though we have insights into the true answer, understanding will no doubt forever elude us, despite young Androkom’s boasts.”
 “I agree,” Metron said. “My own studies tell a similar tale. The words and symbols lie before me on the page, but their context has been lost over the centuries.”
 “Not lost,” Androkom interrupted. “Not any more. I understand the context. For too long we biologians placed our faith in books alone, searching them for secrets and wisdom, growing frustrated at the contradictions we’ve discovered. I have moved beyond books and followed the experiments described in the texts. Though I lack much of the equipment available to the ancients, I believe the experiments I’ve conducted to be valid. Let me travel to Albekizan’s palace. I can demonstrate my knowledge to Blasphet. He won’t be able to deny the truth.”
 Metron contemplated Androkom’s offer. He envied the young dragon’s confidence, and the fearless way he desired to enter Blasphet’s presence.
 “Very well,” Metron said. “Leave your post and travel here at once, my brother. How quickly can you arrive?”
 “I anticipated your approval. I have already gathered the texts and materials I need. My flight will take two days, perhaps three, for my load is a heavy one.”
 “Bring only what you must,” said Metron. “The Free City begins to fill. Time grows short if we’re to prevent the coming tragedy.”
 Metron said farewell to his brother biologians and turned from the white chamber, stepping toward an unseen door. As he emerged into the library, he was greeted by a frightened cry and a flurry of papers thrown into the air. Wentakra, one of his newer assistants, stumbled away from him, looking prepared to run.
 “Do not be alarmed,” Metron said. “It is only I.”
 “B-but . . . the wall!” Wentakra said. “You passed through it like . . . like a-a—”
 “Ghost? Yes. Try not to let it haunt you. Tell no one you witnessed this.”
 “Y-yes, sir,” Wentakra said. Then his eyes brightened as if remembering something important. “Did Flanchelet find you? He searched for you in this chamber only moments ago.”
 “No. I haven’t seen him. What did he want?”
 “Albekizan wants to see you at once. Kanst has returned.”
 “I know of his return. I witnessed it earlier.”
 “They say he’s captured Bodiel’s killer.”
 Metron needed half a second to fully grasp the importance of the statement. “Bitterwood?” he asked, his voice betraying his excitement. “They’ve captured Bitterwood?”
 “So Flanchelet said.”
 Metron turned at once from his subordinate, feeling a glimmer of hope as he hurried back through the maze of books. Perhaps Albekizan might change his mind about the genocide he had ordered once he had his revenge against Bitterwood. With any luck, Blasphet might be back in his cell before Androkom arrived.
 BLASPHET DISMISSED the messenger with a wave and turned back to the balcony overlooking the Free City. The balcony was decorated with pots of a dozen colorful species of plants, most of them poisonous. Normally, he felt something akin to peace standing in his little garden. Now, watching the new arrivals entering the city, peace was replaced with a cold anxiety. Bitterwood captured. Would Albekizan break his word and spare the remaining humans after slaking his thirst for revenge with Bitterwood’s blood? Many influential dragons spoke against the king’s plans. The labor of humans provided the wealth of the kingdom. They tended the fields, toiled in the mines, and harvested the sea. Perhaps in the afterglow of Bitterwood’s death, his brother’s reason would return. Blasphet couldn’t allow this.
 Blasphet leapt from the balcony, feeling his feathers catch the wind, and for an instant all his worries vanished in the joy of flight as he slipped between the stars above and the ragged darkness beneath. For long years this pleasure had been denied him as he moldered in the dank recesses of the castle dungeon.
 As he thought of the dungeon, the sensual pleasure of the air racing across his wings faded, the memory of the cruelty of cages returning to his mind. The bars of a cell could restrict humans in one plane—the horizontal. For a dragon, the pain was squared, the inability to walk about on the earth being secondary to the denial of flying above it. He added this thought to the list of debts to be repaid to the fellow members of his race once their usefulness to him had been exhausted.
 As he turned a wide circle in the moonlight, his eyes caught movement outside the walls of the Free City. A handful of earth-dragons marched away from the gates, herding before them a mixed collection of cattle, sheep, and pigs. Blasphet turned the edges of his wings upwards, slowing himself to descend into their path.
 “You there,” he said to the apparent leader of the earth-dragons who flinched at his sudden appearance. “Who are you? What are you doing with this livestock?”
 The earth-dragon looked confused. “I’m Wyvernoth, sir. This livestock was taken from a human village. The citizens were taken to the Free City earlier today. We’re taking the spoils back to the barracks to stock the larders.”
 “I gave no orders that the humans were to be deprived of their livestock. Take this herd back inside. The humans raised them and shall feast upon them.”
 “Begging pardon, sir,” Wyvernoth said. “That don’t make no sense. Blasphet plans to kill all the humans. Why feed them?”
 Blasphet realized that Wyvernoth had no idea who he was speaking with, which amused him. He said, “The reasoning is simple, my thick-headed friend. The food supply will remain constant in the Free City. Those now within the walls, and those arriving in the next few weeks, will want for little. As more humans arrive, their shares will grow smaller and smaller. Due to the simplicity of the human mind, the humans who were here first will blame their hunger upon the new humans who arrive, rather than the dragons who once fed them so generously.”
 “They’ll be at each other’s throats, then,” Wyvernoth said. “They’ll be impossible to control, fighting and squabbling among themselves.”
 “Precisely,” Blasphet said, then realized from Wyvernoth’s expression that the earth-dragon had raised this point as an argument against, rather than in support for, the plan.
 “Whatever, sir,” Wyvernoth said. “When a sun-dragon wants something done, I do it. If you want the livestock inside, it goes inside.”
 Blasphet again took to the air, disgusted by the encounter. Wyvernoth had obeyed him simply because of his race and not because of his reason. There were days when Blasphet felt like the only intelligent being in the world. No wonder he found the lives of others to have so little value. They were simply too stupid to live.
 BREATHLESSLY, METRON CLIMBED the stairs leading to brthe king’s hall. He remembered wistfully the days when coming to this hall had been effortless, when it was just a simple matter of stretching his then young wings and letting the wind carry him to his destination. He felt a slight envy for the earth-dragons who would never have age steal the freedom of the sky away from them.
 As he entered the flame-flickered hall, all eyes turned toward him.
 Only the king’s most trusted advisors were present. Kanst stood before the throne platform, bedecked in full uniform, the steel plates and chain mail draped across his body in such a way as to reveal the well-defined musculature of a warrior still in his prime. Beside him stood Zanzeroth. A horrible black scab dominated the center of his swollen snout. Metron noticed the bandages on the hunter’s shoulders and legs, and the slight crook in his posture, as if standing caused him pain.
 Like a chill in the air, Metron sensed the presence of one other. He turned to the far corner of the room where the torches cast deep shadows. Blasphet waited there, his dark scales blending with the gloom with only the red glow of his eyes in torchlight to reveal him. The Murder God’s gaze briefly acknowledged Metron’s glance, then looked beyond him to the arrival of the royal family.
 Albekizan walked forward slowly, his untrimmed claws clicking on the marble floor. Tanthia followed Albekizan, her wings trailing long, lacy ribbons, the feather-scales around her eyes newly dyed in a rainbow of colors. Metron noted a faint blurring of the colors, however, as if recent tears had been shed and wiped away.
 Albekizan took his place on the pedestal throne. Weeks had passed since Metron had been in the king’s presence. He was startled by the change. When he’d last seen the king, his hatred of humans still flashed in his eyes as lightning illuminates a storm. He’d spoken with passion about the great deeds that lay before him. Now Albekizan’s eyes looked dark and tired. Indeed, everything about the king seemed weary, from the rarely seen downward turn of his neck to the heavy way he slouched onto the throne pedestal and hissed, “Speak.”
 “Sire,” Kanst said, his voice deep, strong, and vibrating with anticipation. “I apologize for calling this assembly at such short notice. I’ve returned from my mission earlier than planned to bring you a gift.”
 “A gift?” Tanthia said, with barely concealed anger. “You come to report the death of my sister-in-law, do you not? What possible motivation could you have had to perpetrate such an outrage?”
 “My queen, I regret the loss of Chakthalla, but she was harboring the fugitive, Vendevorex. There was no time to send for further orders. We had to launch a daring assault, relying on surprise to best a superior—”
 “Kanst,” Albekizan interrupted, raising his bejeweled claws dismissively. “I know this. The news traveled more swiftly than your army. Save your battle tales for the amusement of others. I am only interested in the heart of the rumors. Did you capture Bitterwood?”
 “Sire,” Kanst said, “honor requires me to speak of the role the cunning hunter Zanz—”
 “Pay attention,” Albekizan said, again cutting the general short. “Your answer requires only one word. Is Bitterwood your prisoner?”
 “Yes,” Kanst answered. He turned toward one of the side halls leading from the throne room and shouted, “Bring forth the prisoner!”
 Pertalon, a sky-dragon Metron recognized as a victor from the martial games, marched into the room, his sinister teeth flashing in the torchlight as he barked, “Faster, worm!”
 The command was a cruel one, for its target was a human who had little choice in his speed. His long, powerful legs were manacled, with barely enough chain to let him hobble along. His well-muscled arms were shackled behind him with chains as thick as those used on ox-dogs. Pertalon controlled the prisoner by means of a long pole capped with a metal ring which was in turn connected to an identical ring on a steel collar locked around the captive’s neck. Aside from the metal that bound him, the prisoner was unclothed. Human faces were often deeply lined with emotions—fear, anger, shame—that Metron could read as simply as he read the written word on a piece of parchment. This man was different, his lips and eyes locked into utter blankness. What else would he expect from the legendary Bitterwood?
 “Bow to your superiors, dog!” Pertalon said, swinging his tail around to smack his captive behind the knees before pushing him forward with the neck pole until he was prostrate.
 Metron looked again at the king, expecting to see the lightning return to his visage. However, Albekizan still appeared lethargic, and if he received any pleasure at all at seeing his enemy humiliated, his face failed to show it.
 “This is him?” Albekizan asked, sounding bored.
 “Yes, Sire,” Zanzeroth said. “I’m the one who bested him.”
 “So I see,” Albekizan said. “It’s obvious by the numerous wounds you bear, and the absence of wounds upon him.”
 “I defeated him with wits, Sire,” Zanzeroth said.
 “No wonder he’s unbruised,” Albekizan said.
 Tanthia suddenly rose, tears now plainly visible in her eyes. “Lies!” she cried. “This is not the murderer of my son!”
 “But, my queen,” protested Zanzeroth, “I witnessed this man as he took my eye. I struggled with him in mortal combat in the throne room of Chakthalla’s castle. No dragon alive can speak more authoritatively as to the identity of this prisoner. I tell you, this is the man.”
 Tanthia looked as if she might charge across the room and strike Zanzeroth in her anger. She shouted, “You fool! This is Chakthalla’s personal slave. She calls him ‘Pet.’ I’ve seen him before, many times. You recognize him, don’t you?” she said, addressing Albekizan.
 “I pay little attention to slaves. Perhaps he does look familiar.”
 “As I should!” the human said.
 “Silence!” Pertalon shouted, twisting the pole to choke his prisoner.
 Albekizan shifted on his pedestal. “Let him speak.”
 “It’s true I disguised myself as Chakthalla’s slave,” Pet said, rising to his knees. “How better to infiltrate your castles? Chakthalla was present at the ceremonial competition between Bodiel and Shandrazel. I was to wait in her quarters during the ceremony. Instead I slipped out to perform the murder!”
 “For one who’s spent long years hiding in shadows, you seem eager to confess,” Albekizan said.
 “I’ve nothing to be ashamed of,” Pet said, throwing back his muscular shoulders. “I’m proud to have killed Bodiel. Set me loose and give me my bow, and I’ll kill you all where you stand!”
 Metron held his breath, expecting Albekizan’s rage to at last ignite. Instead the king asked only, “Why?”
 Metron noted a crack in Pet’s demeanor, a look of confusion as if he hadn’t expected to be asked the question. Then the cool mask again claimed his features as he answered, “Because I hate you. I hate how humans are made slaves. I seek to kill dragons until such time as men live free.”
 “How noble,” Albekizan said. “Fighting for your fellow men.”
 “I do what I must,” Pet answered. “I would fight you now, at this moment, if I were free.”
 “I believe you,” Albekizan said.
 “Sire,” Zanzeroth said, “I crave to be this man’s executioner. With your word, I will end his life.”
 “I shall consider the request,” Albekizan said. “Now, all of you, go. Take Bitterwood to the dungeons and secure him while I consider his fate.”
 “Yes, Sire,” Zanzeroth said. As he turned, Metron felt sure he witnessed a look of sly satisfaction in the hunter’s good eye.
 Pertalon dragged Pet away.
 Tanthia grumbled. “This is an outrage, Kanst. You’ve murdered my sister-in-law and abused her property. That man is too young to be Bitterwood. You’ve lost your senses.”
 “He was caught with incriminating evidence,” Kanst said, holding forward a bundle wrapped in silk. Albekizan took the bundle and unwrapped it. It held a bow and three arrows, fletched with the crimson wing-scales of a sun-dragon. Bodiel’s?
 “This is damning evidence,” Albekizan said, flatly. “Well done, Kanst. Now go. I’ve much to consider.”
 Kanst and Zanzeroth left, soon followed by Tanthia. Metron wondered at the king’s somber mood. Could it be that the anger that had burned so brightly within the king had at last burned itself to ash? He had to know.
 “Sire,” he said.
 “What is it, Metron?”
 Metron glanced back toward the shadows. Blasphet remained there, silent and still as a statue. “May I speak with you in private, Sire?”
 “We shall speak at another time,” Albekizan said.
 “But—”
 “Metron, your ancient office is owed a great amount of respect, even by a king. But don’t presume to question my orders. I told you to leave. Your request for an audience is noted. I will summon you when I’m ready.”
 “Yes, Sire,” Metron said, turning away. But you’d do well to speak to me soon, he thought. Before I’m forced to rely on my alliance with your brother.
 ALBEKIZAN WATCHED the High Biologian shuffle slowly from the hall, wondering why he’d been so easy on the old fool. He allowed his advisors to be too familiar with him. The accursed Vendevorex was to blame, no doubt. He should have snapped the wizard’s slender neck a decade ago. It would have spared him much grief.
 The door closed behind Metron, leaving Albekizan with the torches that blazed throughout the hall, the life-flames of his ancestors, now joined by the flame of a descendent. Albekizan looked at the torch that had been his son burning beside the throne, and wondered if Bodiel had been witness to Bitterwood’s presence in the room. He wondered if his son retained the full senses he had possessed in life, and suddenly he wished that Metron were still here, for it was his job to know the answer to such a question.
 “I’ve seen this look upon your face before. Something troubles you, Brother.”
 Albekizan looked away from the torch into the shadows. His eyes adjusted to make out Blasphet’s dark form.
 “I told you to leave,” Albekizan said.
 “So you did. Yet, I remain.”
 “I was just thinking how useful it might be to throttle one of my advisors. It would keep the others in line. You tempt fate by taunting me.”
 “You’ll not find my neck so easy to throttle, I fear,” said Blasphet. “Today I have coated my claws with a most efficient poison. One scratch and you’d be dead within a heartbeat.”
 “You threaten me?”
 “No. When I decide it is time for you to die, you will die, but today is not that day. Not if you give me the correct answer to a most urgent question.”
 “I know your question,” Albekizan said. “Bitterwood’s capture changes nothing. You may continue your work in the Free City.”
 “It feels hollow, doesn’t it?” Blasphet asked, approaching.
 “What do you mean?”
 “It looks as if you haven’t eaten or slept in days. I deduce you lost both your appetite and your restfulness when you learned he’d been captured.”
 “I care nothing for your speculations,” Albekizan said.
 “I will make them anyway. I believe you are feeling a disappointment I’m long familiar with: the hollowness of death. How can you hurt Bitterwood now that you have him? Death will only take him from your grasp. You want him dead, and you want him to suffer, and the two are mutually incompatible.” Blasphet shook his head as if saddened by the poor options. “What shall it be, Brother? Torment or dissolution? The ache of knowing he still lives, or the frustration of knowing he no longer suffers?”
 “You . . . may be right,” Albekizan said. “You surprise me with your wisdom. So, tell me, what is the answer? How do I hurt him even beyond death?”
 “I don’t know,” Blasphet said. “Even if I did, why would I choose to end your agony? One reason you still live is that I enjoy your suffering.”
 Albekizan felt, not for the first time, an admiration for the cold, twisted mind of his sibling. Suffering or death: he framed the problem so eloquently. If only there were some way to have both . . .
 Albekizan chuckled. Suddenly, the solution was obvious.
 “Have I amused you?” Blasphet asked.
 “You’ve inspired me, my brother,” Albekizan said feeling fire return to his limbs. “You’ve inspired me indeed.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
* * *
REFLECTIONS
JANDRA HADN’T KNOWN what to expect from the Free City, but she certainly didn’t expected this. Thousands of freshly built houses in neat, orderly rows, were furnished sparsely but adequately. The homes were modest by the standards of the dwellings she’d lived in among the dragons, but they were far better than the hovels that used to surround the palace. The city also smelled better than any human dwelling she’d ever visited; Richmond always stank of fish guts and dung. The Free City had the pleasant aroma of sawdust and new paint. There were even freshly planted flowers blooming in window boxes.
 Jandra had anticipated cruel guards and chains for everyone inside. She expected at least more of the starvation and thirst of the long march here. Instead, there were banquet halls, where meals were served three times a day in heaps of roasted meats and fresh vegetables, and gallon upon gallon of fresh, clean water. At first she’d worried that the food was poisoned . . . but after seeing other people digging in, her hunger had overcome her caution.
 Perhaps the most disturbing thing about the Free City was that Jandra felt very much at home. She’d lived her life in a castle built to accommodate sun-dragons. She was used to tables twice her height. At mealtimes, she was often confronted with dinner platters as long as she was. A dragon’s cup was a bucket to her. In the libraries, she sometimes encountered books so large and heavy she couldn’t lift them from the shelves. She had simply never fit into the dragons’ world. The Free City was being built by humans for humans. There was something cozy about being able to climb a flight of stairs simply by stepping up, rather than actually climbing.
 The nearly empty streets of the Free City, with no guards in sight, offered a surprising refuge for Jandra. She could wander among the alleyways for hours, trying to make sense of the events of the recent days, attempting to divine some truth from them that would give her guidance.
 Foremost in her mind was Vendevorex and his lie. She wasn’t surprised that he’d been able to keep the truth hidden all these years. Other dragons feared Vendevorex. Who among them would have cared enough about her to tell her the truth at the risk of the wizard’s wrath? She could see him more clearly now that she was distant from him. He was a cold, cruel manipulator who acted only to increase his power and wealth, never for any noble purpose.
 Even his seeming kindness toward her had a selfish origin; Vendevorex wanted to assuage his own guilt. Caring for her had been his path to a clean conscience.
 So why did she miss him so? Why, the more her mind argued all the reasons she should hate him, did she feel only longing? Had she made a mistake by leaving him?
 No, she thought. He killed my parents. This is the central fact. He admitted it. I will hate him until I die.
 Her longing for her mentor’s company was amplified by her lack of human companionship. In the midst of the thousands of humans already at the Free City, she found no kindred spirits. Bitterwood was closed to her. He wasn’t hostile, but he was distant, as if he were still struggling with his own internal demons. Zeeky was too young to truly be called a friend, though she spent more time with her than with anyone else. And the villagers . . . the villagers were incomprehensible. They seemed completely in the thrall of the prophet Kamon who had convinced them that their passage to the Free City was foretold by his visions.
 Jandra knew the Free City was meant to kill them, but doubted she could convince anyone of this. She’d never persuade people the dragons were the enemy while all the residents of the Free City slept with full stomachs on clean linens. The humans were more a threat to themselves than the dragons were, as the only violence she had seen since arriving in the city was a brawl between the followers of the prophet Kamon and the followers of a rival prophet named Ragnar, whom she had yet to meet.
 At last, she had walked the streets until she was weary enough to sleep, no matter how troubled her thoughts. With a sigh she returned to the small house she shared with Zeeky. Perhaps in the morning her mind would be clearer.
 ANDROKOM WEARILY GLANCED over his shoulder once more. No one followed, though the spiky fringe of scales on his neck still tingled with the sensation that he was being watched. The sky was crystal clear; if anyone was behind him, he would certainly have seen him.
 “You’re paranoid,” he said to himself.
 Maybe, he thought. But I still think I’m being followed.
 At length, thirst crept into his awareness, overpowering his caution. He was only hours away from Albekizan’s palace but could go no further. He needed water, a good meal, and a long nap.
 In the distance a fat river gleamed like a band of silver. He spied a small, tree-covered island in the middle of the waters and knew this would be the perfect spot to rest. No one could sneak up on him there. Besides, who would want to? Only Metron and his fellow biologians knew of his journey. Certainly none of them would have set pursuers after him, would they?
 If only Metron hadn’t uttered that cursed name: Blasphet, the Murder God. What could the High Biologian be thinking in dealing with such a disturbed mind? Moreover, was he a fool for helping? Could this be some elaborate scheme by Blasphet to lead the biologians to their deaths?
 “You’re paranoid. Only an idiot could dream up such concerns,” he said. He often talked to himself on long journeys. He wished, if he must talk to himself, that he wouldn’t be so insulting.
 Androkom swooped down, gliding along the moist air above the river, watching fish dart and scurry beneath the ripples. His blue hide was reflected in the surface of the water. He tilted his wings up to slow himself, then swung his legs forward to land on the island’s sandy shore. The small beach faced north, shaded from the sun, and the sand was cool and soothing beneath his talons. The damp sand carried an aroma that reminded Androkom of the Isle of Horses, where he’d trained with the biologian Dacorn. Androkom unstrapped the pack he carried on his chest and set it gently on the sand, careful not to jar the equipment he carried. He walked to the water’s edge and knelt, craning his long neck forward until his chin touched the water. With one last glance over his shoulder to confirm he was alone, he stuck out his tongue and lapped up the cool, fresh water.
 The water was exceptionally still in the little cove, so still his own face looked back at him as he drank, distorted only by the small wavelets his tongue created. Again, he felt the strange sensation that he wasn’t alone and looked behind him. Shrugging it off, he lowered his head to the water once more. Suddenly, he began to choke as his reflection was joined by two others, a sky-dragon and a sun-dragon, standing on the beach next to him.
 Androkom jumped forward into the knee-deep water and spun around. To his dismay, he recognized one of the intruders.
 “Shandrazel!” he shouted. He’d heard about the reception the banished prince had received at the College of Spires and feared that Shandrazel might not feel warmly toward biologians.
 “Don’t panic, Androkom,” Shandrazel said. “You’ve nothing to fear from us.”
 Androkom straightened himself, raising his wings for balance. “You remember me, Prince? I’m flattered.” He’d met Shandrazel almost five years ago, while the prince was still under the tutelage of Dacorn.
 “Of course,” Shandrazel said. “I was impressed by your argument that books often contain falsehoods and contradictions. So many of the biologians seem fixed on the notion that if it’s written, it must be true. It helped guide me to the view that the form of government we dragons have chosen might not be the wisest one.”
 “A surprisingly enlightened view for a prince of the realm,” Androkom said. He cast a glance at the sky-dragon beside Shandrazel. A biologian? Why didn’t he recognize him? Unless . . . could it be? “Who, may I ask, is your companion?”
 “I am Vendevorex,” the sky-dragon answered.
 “Of course,” Androkom said with a knowing nod. “I’ve tried to make your acquaintance before now. I wanted to discuss your so-called ‘magic.’ I have theories as to its origins. Did you not receive my letters?”
 “I received them,” Vendevorex said. “I ignored them. The source of my powers is my secret. If I won’t reveal it to the king, you can’t expect that I’d share it to you.”
 “I heard rumors you’d taken ill,” Androkom said. “I took this to mean you’d fallen out of favor with Albekizan. I assume you’ve joined Shandrazel’s quest to overthrow his father?”
 “I’ve not come to overthrow my father,” Shandrazel said.
 Vendevorex added, “Albekizan knows nothing of our alliance. With luck, he thinks I’m dead.”
 “I see,” said Androkom, walking back onto the shore, shaking his tail and wings to dry them.
 “We’re sorry if we frightened you,” Shandrazel said. “We were traveling back toward my father’s castle when we spotted you. We followed you until you came to rest. Knowing your reputation as one who is unafraid to challenge authority, I felt that I could trust you.”
 “Your instincts serve you well,” Androkom said. “I’m at your service. But, may I ask, where were you? I felt I was being watched but saw no sign of pursuit.”
 “I used my magic to make us invisible,” Vendevorex said.
 “I believe you were invisible,” Androkom said, “but I don’t believe you’re magic. I’ve read tomes describing ancient technologies. I believe you are in possession of a Magnetically Integrated Rapidly Rotating Optical Reversal System.”
 The wizard looked stunned. “I’ve never met another dragon I could discuss this with. I’m impressed. You’re right. It’s done with M.I.R.R.O.R.S.”
 “But how did you come to be in possession of the technology? Having the information is a far leap from having the artifacts.”
 Vendevorex glanced at Shandrazel, then back at Androkom. “For many years I’ve guarded such secrets and recently, I paid a great price by having one such secret revealed. You must trust me when I say it could prove dangerous to tell you all I know.”
 “Your secrets may not be as secret as you think,” Androkom said. “For years, we biologians have known the truth: the humans who live among us are the degenerate remnants of a once ascendant human civilization. They possessed knowledge beyond our imaginations. They had technology that we cannot distinguish from magic. They walked upon the moon, and explored the deepest depths of the oceans. They possessed other machines so small they could not be seen by the naked eye, devices that could transform matter from its most basic components into refined, priceless treasures. Most impressive of all, they knew the secret code of life itself.”
 “Astonishing,” said Shandrazel. “Can it be true?”
 “It is,” said Vendevorex. “Their civilization peaked over a thousand years ago. Much of what they created has decayed over the years. My magic is accomplished using what they referred to as nanotechnology. The silver dust in my pouch is composed of these tiny machines, powered by the sun itself. They respond to thoughts, transmitted via my skullcap, or Jandra’s tiara.”
 “This . . . this technology could change the world,” Shandrazel said. “Why have you kept this secret?”
 “Because,” said Vendevorex, “I gave my word.”
 “To whom?” Shandrazel asked.
 Vendevorex looked around, as if he, too, were worried someone might be listening. “Not all of human civilization collapsed to its present, degenerate state. Far beyond our shores exists a city where men live as gods. I’ve visited there and seen wonders beyond description. These men travel to other worlds. They fly through the air more gracefully than dragons. They’ve conquered death. They reshape matter with the most casual wish. The secrets I’ve stolen from them are so trivial as to be beneath their notice. My so-called magic wouldn’t impress an infant in this wondrous city.”
 “How can this be?” Shandrazel asked. “If there are people with so much power, why don’t they help their fellow humans? Why aren’t they here right now?”
 Vendevorex motioned Androkom and Shandrazel closer, drawing them into a conspiratorial huddle. “For all we know they might be here. They need not rely on the illusion I use for invisibility; they posses the power to recalculate the equations of space itself, and walk above, beside, and beneath what we know as reality. However, it is their practice not to interfere with the fates of their fellow men. Once, long ago, the ancients gave little thought to changing the world. They grew in such power that even their most casual actions shook the planet. In attempting to heal the sick, they sometimes unleashed plagues. In their attempts to feed the hungry, they would turn lush lands into deserts, and drain underground seas in the effort to make these deserts blossom. As a byproduct of lighting their cities, they would raze mountains and poison oceans. They risked destroying themselves with their own miraculous tools.”
 “To say nothing of their toys,” Androkom added.
 “What do you mean?” asked Vendevorex.
 Androkom felt a chill run through him. He was certain the wizard had known. Did he dare tell them? Did he dare reveal the most terrible secret of the biologians?
 Before Androkom could decide, Shandrazel said, “While this discussion of ancient history satisfies my intellectual side, it doesn’t help us solve our problems. Tell me, Androkom, why were you flying toward my father’s fortress?”
 “The short answer is that I go to give information to the most wicked dragon who ever lived. However, you may require more than a short answer. I’m unsure what you know of events that have transpired since your exile. Did you know that Blasphet has been freed?”
 “I’ve heard. He’s now my father’s most trusted advisor, I’m told.”
 “What information do you have for Blasphet?” Vendevorex asked.
 “Metron says that Blasphet kills only so that he may search for the secret of life. I go to provide that answer.”
 “You know the secret of life?” Vendevorex asked, his voice somewhere between amusement and astonishment.
 “Indeed. Tell me, do these words mean anything to you? Double helix.”
 Vendevorex wrinkled his brow. “This is a mathematical form.”
 “So you don’t know all the secrets of the ancients, eh?”
 Shandrazel said, “I feel like you two are trying to one-up each other. I ask you to put this aside for the moment and use your great intellects to ponder the situation before us.”
 “Of course,” said Androkom. “I think I have solved one problem. When I explain the source of life to Blasphet, and convince him of the answer via my experiments, he will no longer be a threat. The question that drives his evil will be sated.”
 “Or he’ll use the knowledge to kill every last being on the planet. I can’t allow it,” said Shandrazel.
 Androkom narrowed his eyes, annoyed by Shandrazel’s attitude. He didn’t recall asking for permission. Perhaps arrogance was transmitted genetically. Still, arrogant or not, he was pleased to be in the company of two dragons whose intellects approached his own.
 “Good dragons,” he said, “I think better on a full stomach. Come, I have food in my pack. Let us break bread while we decide how best to save the world.”
 AS NIGHT FELL over the Free City, a youthful earth-dragon named Torgoz trudged toward the front gate for guard duty. As he approached, he saw the guard he was supposed to replace, an old-timer by the name of Wyvernoth. He raised a claw in greeting. Wyvernoth didn’t respond. He drew closer and tried again. Again, the old-timer gave no hint he’d noticed him, though he was now less than a spear thrust away.
 “Wyvernoth!” said Torgoz.
 The old veteran jumped as his name was spoken.
 “Asleep on your feet again?” Torgoz chided.
 Wyvernoth shook his head. “I wasn’t sleeping. I was thinking.”
 “Thinking’s not your best skill, old-timer. When you try, it only causes more of your scales to fall out.”
 Wyvernoth scratched his scarred head as Torgoz spoke. A shower of moss-green scales fell with the motion.
 “It’s a waste of my know-how to be pulling watches,” Wyvernoth grumbled. “All these years of duty and the best they can do is stand me next to a gate. Me, with command experience. Why, once I—”
 “Led your unit on to victory after the commander died,” Torgoz said. “You’ve mentioned it once or a hundred times.”
 “I deserve better is all,” Wyvernoth said.
 “What you deserve is a thump on the skull. But since I’m here to relieve you, what you’ll get is a good night’s sleep in a bunk. That is, if you still remember how to sleep lying down.”
 “Oh. I remember,” Wyvernoth said, in a tone that let Torgoz know the old-timer considered it a clever retort.
 Taking his spear, Wyvernoth marched off stiffly, as if all his muscles weren’t fully awake yet.
 Torgoz took his place and sighed. Wyvernoth might not deserve better duty, but Torgoz certainly did. The Free City was a prison. Guards on the inside made sense. Guards on the outside were useless. They weren’t even supposed to stop the humans who showed up wanting to get in; they only had to make sure that they didn’t have weapons.
 It still amazed him how many people showed up each day. He’d heard that the king planned to forcibly round up humans after the harvest. So far, that was proving unnecessary. The rumor of the Free City had spread, and now a steady stream of fools showed up voluntarily. The villages must be truly awful to produce people desperate enough to walk away from their old lives and come to a city not even fully built.
 Torgoz noticed a wagon coming toward him on the road which struck him as unusual. Most of the voluntary arrivals came on foot, too poor to afford a cart, let alone an ox-dog like the one approaching. As the wagon drew closer, he could plainly see that there was a human at the reins, apparently alone. He was dressed all in black and was beyond doubt the biggest human Torgoz had ever seen.
 “This is the Free City?” the stranger asked as he came within a few yards. The man’s face was dusty from the road.
 “Indeed. Welcome,” Torgoz said.
 “You will not block my entry?” the man asked.
 “Of course not. We want you to enjoy all the pleasures of the Free City.” Torgoz fought the urge to snicker. “Come, step down from your wagon. I’ll call someone to take your ox-dog to the stables where he’ll be fed and cared for. You look as if you’ve traveled a long time to get here.”
 “Centuries,” the man said, stepping down from his seat.
 Torgoz assumed this passed as humor among humans. He said, “Your journey is over. Welcome home.”
 The man nodded. “Your hospitality is unexpected. Dragons normally treat me with hostility.”
 “King Albekizan has commanded an end to old rivalries, friend.”
 “I care nothing for the commands of earthly kings,” the stranger said, fixing his stern gaze upon Torgoz. “I do care, however, for the safety of my animal. I will hold you responsible should harm befall him. What is your name?”
 Torgoz bristled at the man’s haughty attitude but decided he’d play along. It wasn’t as if the man would get away with anything once he was inside. “I’m Torgoz. And you?”
 “I am Hezekiah,” the man said as he lifted a pack from beneath the wagon’s flatboard seat. Torgoz noticed an axe strapped to the side of the pack.
 Torgoz said, “The king wants peace inside the city. You’ll have to leave the axe in your wagon, and I need to check your pack.”
 Hezekiah turned his shadowed gaze toward him. He said, in a stern tone, “I do not recognize the authority of your king. I serve a higher power. Within my pack is a Holy Book containing the words of the one true Lord. It is sacred. You shall not look upon it.”
 Torgoz gritted his teeth, nearly ready to lower his spear and run the insolent bastard through. With a second glance at Hezekiah’s broad hands, he paused. Hezekiah looked like he could snap a spear like a toothpick. Worse, Hezekiah had an ox-dog by his side. If the beast defended its master, Torgoz would have a real fight on his hands. He decided to pretend he hadn’t seen the axe.
 “I guess I stand corrected,” Torgoz said, opening the gate. “Go on in.” The human strode through the opening. Torgoz closed the gate, hissing with soft laughter. The fate that awaited Hezekiah would more than repay the debts the insolent fool had incurred with his tongue. As for the axe, Torgoz didn’t see a real threat. How much damage could one man do?
CHAPTER NINETEEN
* * *
RECKONING
THE MORNING SUN seeped through the open window, its rosy fingers touching Jandra’s face. She sat up, stretching her arms, blinking the sleep from her eyes. Something about the small, nearly bare room seemed wrong.
 “Zeeky?” she said, realizing how still the girl lay beneath her blanket.
 Zeeky didn’t stir. Jandra moved to her side and pulled back the covers, revealing a second blanket balled into the outline of a sleeping child.
 Jandra rose, dressing quickly. She knew the fear that gripped her had little basis in reason. Zeeky was half her age but had spent more time fending for herself than Jandra had. Still, she couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to the child.
 Rushing down the stairs of the small building, she was surprised to find Bitterwood waiting outside on the steps. He looked more worn out than usual, and she wondered if he had been awake all night.
 “Have you seen Zeeky?” she asked.
 “When?” Bitterwood asked.
 “This morning. She was missing when I got up.”
 “No,” Bitterwood answered. “I’ve been sitting here since before dawn.”
 “Where can she be?” she asked, looking down the empty street.
 “Don’t worry,” Bitterwood said. “She can’t have gone far.”
 “She’s been talking about the animals ever since we got here. I wonder if she’s gone to the barns?”
 “We can go look.”
 “Okay,” Jandra said. Then she was struck by the strangeness of their conversation. Bitterwood was actually speaking without her having to drag words out of him, and now he had offered to help her.
 “What’s going on?” she asked. “Why were you waiting for me?”
 “We can speak as we walk,” Bitterwood said, stepping away without looking back to see if she would follow. “The barns are several blocks from here.”
 Jandra hurried after him. “You must be in a better mood. A different mood, at least.”
 Bitterwood nodded. “I’ve given your words a great deal of thought. You request that I help you fight dragons. I came to give you my decision.”
 “Then you’ll help me? It’s still not too late. For whatever reason, it looks like they want to round up people here before killing them. Here’s my plan: we sneak out invisibly and find weapons. Albekizan’s castle isn’t far. I know its layout by heart. We can walk right into the throne room and you can shoot him.”
 Bitterwood didn’t answer at first as they walked down the nearly empty streets. Then he shook his head. “That’s not the decision I’ve made. Killing Albekizan is futile. All dragons hate us. Slaying the king will only prolong the inevitable.”
 “The inevitable? You accept it as inevitable that we’re going to lose?”
 “For twenty years I’ve slain dragons. What good have I done? There are as many dragons today as when I started. They breed as fast as I kill them.”
 “You were only one man,” she said. “I’ll stand beside you.”
 “It’s too late.” Bitterwood sighed. “My life has been utterly wasted.”
 Jandra wasn’t shocked to hear his words. Bitterwood’s despair had been obvious to her ever since his capture. However, she took heart that he had come to her to talk about his decision. She took it as a sign that he wanted her to change his mind.
 “You’re wrong,” she said softly. “You think that you can’t win the war unless you kill every last dragon on earth. I agree that can’t be done. Don’t you see that’s not needed for true victory? Humans and dragons have lived side by side for centuries. Most dragons don’t hate humans, and would gladly embrace a return to our peaceful coexistence if Albekizan were removed.”
 Bitterwood shook his head. “You think that peace was my goal? You don’t know me. No one does.”
 “I know you’re a strong, willful man who fights for what he believes is right.”
 “No,” Bitterwood said.
 “Come on. You’re Bitterwood. You’re a legend to these people, even if they are too blind to recognize you. You’re a hero.”
 “They call me the Ghost that Kills. I’m a dead man. I died when dragons killed my family. When I saw what they had done, it was like my heart froze within me. I’ve not been warm since.”
 “I’m sorry,” Jandra said. “I, too, lost my family to dragons. It happened so long ago I don’t even remember them. I don’t even know their names.”
 “Memory’s a curse,” said Bitterwood. “You’re lucky.”
 “Lucky,” Jandra said, noting how sour the word tasted. “I don’t think luck had anything to do with my survival.”
 “I don’t mean it’s lucky you lived,” Bitterwood said. “I mean it’s lucky you don’t remember. Memories will burn you and sear away all that’s soft inside, leaving only hard, hot hatred. Hate can feel like passion, like life, in the absence of anything else. It makes you feel strong and focused, eager for action. But now . . .”
 His voice faded away and he turned his face from Jandra.
 “Now?” she asked.
 “Hate was all I had. I see that my greatest strength was my greatest weakness. My hate kept me going, gave me purpose. But it corrupted me. I’ve become an instrument of darkness, my every action bringing only ruin. If I had foreseen that murdering Bodiel would bring about the genocide of the human race, do you think I would have let the arrow fly? The time has come for me to surrender to the inevitable and do no more harm.”
 Jandra contemplated his words, surprised at how they seemed directed at her. She wanted to hate Vendevorex. She was certain that he deserved only her fury, and that there could be no room for forgiveness. Did she want to become like Bitterwood? No. She could hate Vendevorex forever and still not lose her soul.
 Suddenly, Bitterwood stopped. Jandra raised her head, looking down the street toward the focus of his attention. An aged earth-dragon, its tail raised high, charged toward them, screaming, kicking the ground so hard in his haste that he trailed a cloud of dust.
 “My god,” Bitterwood said. “It’s one of them!”
 Jandra recognized the passion that had returned to his voice. For some reason she couldn’t guess at, the sight of this dragon had ended his despair.
 WYVERNOTH YAWNED AS HE LEFT the barracks and headed for his assignment. The sky was still dark though tinged with the faintest red of the rapidly approaching day. Wyvernoth was tired despite having just arisen. He actually looked forward to his assignment today—guarding the animal pens. Not much action there. He’d have plenty of opportunity to catch a little extra sleep.
 The sky had brightened by the time he reached his post near the pens. Borlon stood by the gate to the swine yard, his eyes wide and alert, his shoulders drawn back as if ready to fight the entire world.
 “You don’t fool me,” Wyvernoth said.
 Borlon jerked his head toward Wyvernoth’s voice and barked, “Sir!” Then he relaxed. “Oh. It’s you.”
 “I used to be that good,” Wyvernoth said. “But now that I’m older, I find my eyes tend to shut.”
 “I wasn’t asleep . . . Ah, who cares? Of course I was sleeping. By the bones, if I ever needed proof that any dragon with wings is insane, this job provides it. Pigs! We’re guarding pigs!”
 “We’d have eaten them ourselves if I’d had my way,” Wyvernoth said. “The fact that I’m not a captain with my leadership experience is all the proof I need that our commanders are crazy.”
 “Leadership experience?”
 “It was twenty years ago. My first time out. I was assigned to a tax enforcement unit in the southern province. We met up with some resistance. They slaughtered the commanders. I led the survivors on to victory and completed the mission.”
 “Ah,” said Borlon, nodding. “I heard about that. Only, the way I heard it, you and the others ran blindly from battle and by luck found the village you were headed for. Nothing but women and children and wooden shacks. Easy to burn. Some leadership . . .”
 “Hmmph,” grunted Wyvernoth. “You weren’t there. You didn’t see the horrors we faced.”
 “Nightmares most likely,” said Borlon. “Why don’t I get out of here so you can get some sleep?”
 “You do that,” Wyvernoth said, no longer sparing the younger dragon from the full force of his wit.
 Borlon headed off, leaving Wyvernoth alone.
 Wyvernoth muttered curses as he took his position before the pens. He braced his tail against the ground and locked his muscles, ready for a little nap. As he settled in, closing his eyes, he heard someone sneeze.
 He looked around. No one was there. Had he imagined it?
 He went into the large barn. The structure was long, opening out onto several pens that held pigs. Could pigs sneeze? He thought they could, but he wasn’t certain. He was a soldier, not a farmer.
 One by one, he walked down the center of the barn, peeking over the stall doors. Pigs. Pigs. Pigs. Girl. Pigs. Hold on!
 He stepped back a stall and pushed open the door. A human child, a little blonde girl maybe eight years-old, huddled in the corner of the stall, her arms wrapped around a small black and white pig.
 “Um, hi,” she said, then wiped her nose.
 Wyvernoth didn’t answer.
 “I just wanted to see him. For a visit,” she said.
 “Why do you think I care?” Wyvernoth said, reaching down and grabbing the girl by her arm.
 “Ow!” she yelled.
 Instantly, the pens and stalls erupted in a cacophony of squeals. Seconds later, the rest of the animals in the neighboring barns joined in; a chaotic chorus of moos, baas, and clucks filled the air. The ox-dogs held in the nearby kennels began to yelp and howl, a sound that brought back bad memories for Wyvernoth.
 “See what you’ve done,” he said. “Set ‘em all off. You’re in a heap of trouble.”
 “You’re hurting my arm,” she cried as he lifted her from the ground and carried her outside. Given the noise, he guessed other guards would get here soon enough. He’d have one of them watch his post while he took her in to the captain. He could wind up looking good for this, especially if he trumped up the charges. He could blame her for the goat that’d gone missing yesterday. That way he’d get to enjoy not only his full belly, but also the fun of pinning the blame on someone else.
 As he walked out of the barn, he noticed a figure approaching. He looked up, expecting to see a fellow guard. Instead he saw a tall, dark-robed man, his eyes hidden by the broad, black brim of his hat.
 “You there,” the man said. “What upset the ox-dogs?”
 Wyvernoth noted that the man had a pack slung across his shoulder, and strapped to the pack was an axe, which worried him, for the man seemed familiar. Had he let this man in? What would his superiors say if they learned that he’d let someone bring in an axe?
 An axe.
 A broad-brimmed black hat.
 An ox-dog.
 Suddenly, Wyvernoth recalled quite clearly where he’d seen this man before, twenty years ago.
 “Y-you?” Wyvernoth said, his voice trailing off in a little squeal. He dropped the girl who fell roughly to the ground.
 “You were one of the soldiers on the road to Christdale,” the man said. “It’s been many years.”
 Wyvernoth turned, raised his tail, dropped his spear, and shot off like an arrow.
 “YOU!” BITTERWOOD SHOUTED, unable to believe this turn of fate. Even after twenty years, the faces of the dragons who’d surrounded the wagon that night and thrust spears at him were burned into his memory.
 Bitterwood braced himself as the dragon barreled toward him, wondering why his opponent was charging without a weapon drawn. He could plainly see a sword in the sheath on the dragon’s hip.
 The dragon swerved as he approached, his eyes not fixed on Bitterwood but on the path beyond him. Bitterwood realized the dragon wasn’t attacking him, but planned instead to run past him.
 “No you don’t,” Bitterwood said, sticking his leg out as the dragon raced by. The impact of leg against leg nearly toppled Bitterwood, so great was the dragon’s speed.
 Only a balance honed by years of combat kept him on his feet while the dragon hit the hard-packed earth beak-first. The dragon’s legs flipped over his shoulders and he rolled three times before sliding to a stop on his back.
 Bitterwood pounced, landing on the dragon’s chest, locking a hand around the beast’s scaly windpipe while his free hand drew the sword from the dragon’s scabbard.
 “Let me go! He’s after me!” the dragon whimpered.
 “He’s caught you,” Bitterwood said, looking down into the dark terrified eyes of the dragon. “After all these years, we meet again.”
 “What?” the dragon cried. “Are you mad?”
 “Yes!” Bitterwood said, tightening his grip on the dragon’s throat. “Don’t pretend you don’t remember. The village of Christdale!”
 The dragon’s eyes opened wider. “You! You were with him! The young man in the wagon!”
 “Bitterwood,” Jandra said, placing her hand on his shoulder.
 “Go away!” Bitterwood snarled. “Don’t try to stop me. He’s one of the ones who killed my wife and children! He dies now!”
 Bitterwood raised the sword.
 “Please!” the dragon squeaked. “We killed no women or children that day! All but the men were taken into slavery! Please spare me!”
 Bitterwood felt his heart skip one beat, two. “What?” he said, lowering the sword.
 “Spare me!”
 “Slavery?” Bitterwood said, studying the dragon’s eyes. “You sold my family into slavery?”
 “Yes. Oh, please let me go, let me go, let me go. He’s after me!”
 Bitterwood felt his heart resume beating as hope sparked within him for the first time in memory. Recanna could still be alive. And Ruth, and Mary, and Adam.
 The dragon beneath him suddenly stopped squirming. His eyes opened even wider until they looked as if they might pop from his skull. He opened his beak wide to scream but no sound came out.
 A long, dark shadow draped over Bitterwood. Suddenly, he understood he wasn’t the one causing this dragon to feel such terror.
 “Bant Bitterwood,” a voice said, deep and familiar as thunder. “Your day of reckoning has come.”
 BITTERWOOD GRIPPED THE SWORD in his hand so tightly it trembled. The dragon he held had information he couldn’t afford to lose. He couldn’t let the dragon go, he couldn’t kill him, and he couldn’t take time to think about the problem with Hezekiah stepping closer.
 “Jandra,” Bitterwood said. “Run.”
 “Why?” she asked, sounding confused. “Who is this?”
 “The devil,” Bitterwood said. “Go!”
 “Bant Bitterwood,” Hezekiah said, “the Lord is merciful. If you will confess the error of your blasphemy those long years ago, I will spare you.”
 “By the bones,” the dragon whispered, tears welling in his eyes. “Let me go. He’ll kill me.”
 “You’ll stay until I’m done with you,” Bitterwood said. With a grunt he brought the sword down. The dragon screamed, arching his back in pain, as the tip of the sword was driven through his right shoulder and deep into the hard earth, pinning him.
 Bitterwood rolled off the dragon and onto his feet, facing the giant who stood only a yard away and was casually drawing an axe from his pack.
 “Who are you?” asked Jandra, who hadn’t run.
 “I am Hezekiah, child,” the prophet answered. “I have come to bring the word of the Lord to the people of this new city. The man beside you has turned his back on the Lord and, unless he repents, he must be removed, lest he poison the minds of others with his blasphemy. What say you, Bant Bitterwood? Will you accept the Lord’s mercy?”
 “Go to hell,” Bitterwood said, the tight muscles of his legs uncoiling to drive him forward into the breast of the demon.
 Hezekiah stood steady as a rock, just as Bitterwood had anticipated. His hands closed tightly around the axe the prophet carried and he leapt up, curled his feet under him, then drove them both into his foe’s stomach. He knew the blow would cause Hezekiah no pain, but at least he could pry the axe from the demon’s grasp.
 Unfortunately, the axe didn’t budge. Bitterwood dropped back to the ground, continuing to push and pull against the axe handle. It was like trying to remove a stone from a wall.
 Then Hezekiah moved, pushing his arms forward with a snap. Bitterwood was thrown backward. He landed on his back, hard, but years of experience allowed him to roll with the force so that the momentum carried him to his feet. Jandra was running now, not fleeing, but moving to his side as she tossed a handful of silver dust into the air.
 “Stay quiet!” she whispered as the morning sunlight dimmed.
 “What witchcraft is this?” Hezekiah shouted. “Where have you vanished to, Bant Bitterwood?”
 Bitterwood started to speak, uncertain of what was happening, but Jandra placed her fingers on his lips and whispered, “Shh.”
 “There,” Hezekiah said. He hurled his axe in the direction of Jandra’s whisper. The tool raced more swiftly than an arrow. Bitterwood tried to push Jandra from its path but succeeded only partly, for the steel tip grazed her ear, spinning her around. Her body went limp and she fell into Bitterwood’s arms. Bitterwood lowered her to the ground and looked up, expecting to see death hovering overhead. Instead, Hezekiah had turned his attention toward the pinned dragon, wrapping his thick hand around the hilt of the sword.
 “It’s best you not speak of what you’ve witnessed,” he said, and effortlessly drew the buried blade from the dragon’s shoulder. He lowered the blade again, swinging sideways, silencing the dragon’s sobs suddenly and permanently.
 Bitterwood went numb as if the sword had pierced his own throat. The dragon was his only lead, his sole hope of learning Recanna’s fate. He turned and raced to where the hurled axe had fallen. His muscles strained to their limits to move the heavy weapon. Perhaps its weight would tilt the scales toward the justice due him.
 He looked over his shoulder and gasped as Hezekiah stood mere feet from him, raising the sword above his head. Bitterwood leapt sideways as the demon drove the blade down in a savage blow that left a long crack in the packed earth of the street. Before Hezekiah could recover his balance, Bitterwood struck, bringing the axe down with all his strength into the center of his opponent’s back.
 Sparks leapt into the air. The axe clanged and quivered as if it had struck metal, numbing Bitterwood’s hands with the vibration. The blow was sufficient to knock the sword from Hezekiah’s hands.
 The black-robed prophet needed no weapon. Hezekiah struck sideways with his fist, catching Bitterwood in the chest, sending him spinning. The axe flew from his grasp. He landed on his stomach, skidding in the dirt. He blinked through the dust of his landing, looking sideways. He spotted the fallen axe and extended his arm toward it.
 As his fingers touched the handle, a heavy black boot dropped onto Bitterwood’s hand, grinding a cry of pain from him as Hezekiah’s incredible weight crushed down. He tried to pull free but he was pinned and could only watch helplessly as the prophet bent over and lifted up the axe.
 Bitterwood could hear the beating of the mighty wings of the Angel of Death. The dust around him rose in a cloud as Hezekiah raised his axe heavenward. With a surge of fear-driven strength, Bitterwood pulled his hand loose and rolled to his back, hoping to avoid the blow, but knowing the cause was lost. Hezekiah towered over him, the axe held high in both hands, his body tensed to deliver the killing blow.
 The moment lingered, frozen in time, with Hezekiah waiting to strike, his body motionless, as if he considered the perfect placement of the axe-head. The dust in the air began to settle. The axe did not lower. Hezekiah stood still as a statue. Bitterwood scrabbled back from his enemy. Hezekiah’s eyes didn’t follow.
 Bitterwood could see a trio of glowing threads floating in the air behind Hezekiah, writhing like snakes striking at an unseen opponent. The air beyond their reach shimmered like heat over hard ground on a summer day, then broke into countless tiny shards that vanished as they fell. In their place stood a sky-dragon, his eyes fixed upon a small silver sphere no larger than an acorn that he held in his talons. The dragon wore a silver skullcap similar to the one worn by the dragon that Jandra had asked him to spare. His wings were studded with jewels in an identical pattern. Nonetheless, this dragon’s blue belly didn’t have a scar on it. This couldn’t be the same creature.
 “Intriguing,” said the dragon, snaking his neck forward to closely study Hezekiah’s frozen face. “I haven’t encountered one of these since I escaped Atlantis.”
 “Atlantis?” Bitterwood said. The word triggered memories. The southern rebellion . . . The dragon’s tongue beneath his fingertips . . . The kudzu-draped grove . . . His eyes widened as he studied the face of the sky-dragon before him. “You were in the cage,” he said, “in the City of Skeletons.”
 “What a small world,” said the dragon, glancing toward Bitterwood. “I wouldn’t have recognized you. You’ve aged poorly. In retrospect, you did me a favor not opening the cage.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
* * *
SKELETONS
 1081 D.A. The 50th Year of the Reign of Albekizan
GLANCING OVER HIS SHOULDER, it seemed as if the whole world was on fire. Bitterwood whipped his horse to have it run faster along the cracked, vine-covered stones of the ghost line. He looked back once more, still clinging to the hope that he might see one of his men following. All that lay behind him, though, was the black tower of smoke rising from the fort. No living thing traveled the cursed ground with him. Most likely, everyone he’d fought beside was dead.
 For the last few years, Bitterwood had stirred up rebellion in the southern reaches of Albekizan’s kingdom. It hadn’t been difficult. The king’s unreasonable taxation had planted the seeds of the resistance. Bitterwood’s tale of the king’s injustice and cruelty, which he’d told from town to town, had helped bring the rebellion to harvest. Albekizan’s tax collectors for the last two years had faced an increasingly hostile population, until at last the town of Conyer had built a wooden fort and declared its independence from Albekizan completely.
 Now, Conyer was burning. Albekizan’s dragons had swarmed the place in unimaginable numbers, ruthlessly slaughtering men, women, and children. Bitterwood had fought as long as he could until a small band of his fellow rebels had announced a plan to fall back and retreat to the ghost lines. They would reband and continue the fight on more favorable grounds at the City of Skeletons. Two dozen of them had fled on horseback. One by one, in the dark of night, dragons had swooped from the sky and picked off Bitterwood’s companions. Now, Bitterwood alone raced into the twisted, rusting towers of the City of Skeletons.
 This was haunted ground. Legend said it had once been a great city of men. Now it was deserted, a maze of ruins countless miles across covered in avenues of cracked concrete and crumbling, oily-black stone. The shells of countless buildings still stood, walls of brick and glass, over towering frames of rust-red beams. Thick blankets of kudzu covered much of the remains, softening the edges, hiding pits and jagged glass and snakes. Bitterwood rode into the heart of the city, the one place he hoped the dragons wouldn’t dare follow.
 A shadow passed over him. He recognized the leading edge of the shadow as that of a wing. He knew then that he’d been wrong about any safety the city might offer. There was no place in the world Albekizan’s forces wouldn’t follow.
 Suddenly, a talon dug into his left shoulder. He was jerked up from his horse. His leg tangled in the stirrups. With a yank so forceful it lifted his horse, Bitterwood was snatched upward. His ankle snapped as the dangling horse twisted around. His knee felt as if it were torn from his body entirely. Bitterwood rose, a dozen feet in the air, two dozen, three . . . Then the talon released his bloody shoulder and he plummeted feet first toward the gray ground below. He looked up to see the bright red plumage of a sun-dragon pass over him. He glanced down in time to see his horse crumpling against the ground and his own feet inches from impact.
 A moment of darkness followed. The heavy thump of giant wings woke him. He was propped against a mound of torn meat. His legs lay twisted before him, as limp and boneless as the limbs of a rag doll.
 Twenty feet away, a sun-dragon stood.
 “You’re going to wish the fall had killed you,” said the dragon.
 Bitterwood looked around for a weapon. By chance his bow and quiver lay within reach, still strapped to what remained of the horse. He snatched them up and with quivering, scarred fingers placed an arrow against the string. He pulled with what remained of his strength. His shoulder felt as if it had a knife through it. His vision blurred as stars danced before him. He could barely see the outline of the dragon as he let the arrow fly.
 He closed his eyes and sagged back against the dead horse. If he’d still believed in a merciful God, he would have prayed that the arrow he’d just fired had found its target.
 Hot, stinking breath blew against his cheek.
 “You missed,” the dragon whispered into his ear.
 Bitterwood opened his eyes and found himself staring straight into the nostrils of the dragon. The white wispy feathers around the snout wafted with the dragon’s breath. Bitterwood fumbled to draw a second arrow from the quiver.
 The dragon lowered his snout to intercept Bitterwood’s hand. A sound that was half a slurp, half a crack, echoed through the stony wastes. Bitterwood felt a numb pressure at the end of his arm.
 The dragon once more brought his face level with Bitterwood’s eyes. In his dagger-like teeth lay Bitterwood’s severed hand. The dragon began to chew leisurely.
 Some last remnant of resistance stirred in Bitterwood and he raised his good hand to the dragon’s snout, punching it. He drew back to punch again. The dragon spit out Bitterwood’s hand. The drool-covered palm slapped Bitterwood’s cheek. The dragon caught Bitterwood’s second punch in his mouth. Bitterwood’s arm was in the beast’s maw up to the elbow. The last sensation he felt was of his fingers against the dragon’s raspy tongue. Then the beast clamped his jaws together and Bitterwood felt nothing at all.
 He slumped against his bed of bone and flesh, life draining out of him, aware of each fading beat of his heart. The dragon’s red scales shimmered like fire as the beast drew near to watch him die.
 Then the dragon jumped backward. Bitterwood’s eyes reflexively followed the motion. The beast’s scales no longer shimmered like flame—they were actually on fire. The dragon yelped like a scalded puppy as bright white flame danced over his whole body. The dragon fell in seconds, its hide and muscle boiling away with a terrible heat. Foul, oily smoke rolled over Bitterwood, reeking of burnt feathers and charred meat. In under a minute the flame died away, leaving only a mound of jumbled, black bone, which cracked and crumbled to dust.
 Bitterwood knew what had happened. The gates of hell had opened for him, and the heat of the infernal furnace had caught the dragon. It was time to pay for all his sins. Silently, he closed his eyes, and surrendered to the glowing green devil that walked toward him. The last sound he heard was the buzz of flies.
 BITTERWOOD WOKE SLOWLY to soft music played on instruments he couldn’t recognize. The sound was ephemeral; a woman’s voice sang wordlessly in harmony. The air was cool and dry, and smelled of freshly washed cotton. He opened his eyes to the cleanest room he’d ever seen. Light seeped from every direction through pale, translucent blue walls. The room was dome shaped, as best he could determine. In the absence of shadows and corners, it was hard to judge its scale. Raising himself for a better look, Bitterwood discovered he was naked, resting beneath a cotton sheet on a firm, white mattress. He raised his right arm to his face. To his bewilderment, he found a hand there. A strange, new hand, plump and pink as baby skin, nailless, hairless, and itching like mad.
 He raised his left arm to scratch . . . and discovered a second fresh limb, also sporting pale, white fingers. His hands felt as if they were being swarmed by ants, as did his legs. He kicked aside the sheets to find his legs restored. Not even a bruise remained as evidence of their earlier mutilation. He noticed something strange about his toes. He could see them quite clearly. Although he was looking at them from a distance of about five and a half feet, they may as well have been an inch from his face.
 Behind the walls the shadow of a tall, slender man moved. The shadow grew closer. The wall shimmered as the figure passed through.
 He gasped as the figure turned out to be not a man, but a woman, the glowing devil he’d seen before he’d died. Now that he wasn’t seeing her through the haze of smoke, she didn’t look as fearsome as she had earlier. Still, she didn’t look fully human, either. While she had a lovely face, beautiful by any measure, her skin was a bright jade green. Her hair was a darker shade, like moss. She wore a golden gown that hung closely to the curves of her body. She smiled with pearly teeth. Her lips were a shade of green darker than her hair, nearly black.
 “You’ll grow nails in a few hours. Hair, too,” she said. “Until then, you’ll itch like crazy. Sorry.”
 “Where. . . ?”
 “We’re still in Atlanta,” the woman said. “My name is Cynthia. I used to live here, a long time ago. I know I look strange but I’m human, like you. What’s your name? Where are you from?”
 “Christdale,” he answered. “My name is Bant Bitterwood.”
 “Hmm,” she said, setting down on the edge of the bed. “Interesting. Christdale. I’m always amazed at how Christianity has endured over the centuries. Of course, when I lived here, this whole state was in an area known as the ‘Bible Belt.’ If the old time religion was going to survive, it makes sense that it endured in what used to be Georgia.”
 Bitterwood stared at the woman, at her flawless features. Despite her odd coloring, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Her face reminded him of the face of the Goddess statue that used to dwell in his home village, long ago. She smelled liked honeysuckle and mint. He asked, “Are you the Goddess? Is this heaven? Was Hezekiah wrong about my damnation? Was that only another lie?”
 “No,” Cynthia said. “I mean, no, you’re not damned, but, no you’re not in heaven either. I have no idea who Hezekiah is or what he told you. But I’m just a person like you.” She paused a moment and glanced down at her hands with their dark green nails. “Oh,” she said. “You might be thrown by my skin tone; it’s just a fashion choice where I come from. You’re still on earth.”
 “But, the dragon . . .” Bitterwood held his hands before him. His skin continued to itch.
 “Is dead. I’ve broken all sorts of rules,” Cynthia said, brushing her long hair back from her face. “I’m here as part of an ecological survey. My job is to capture a few dragons and take them back to Atlantis for further study. Still, I saw that dragon toying with you and something just snapped. I’m not supposed to intervene but I felt guilty. I had to save you.”
 “Guilty?” asked Bitterwood.
 “About a thousand years ago, I was one of the people who decided we should leave the dragons alone. They were ecological nightmares, yes, the epitome of everything wrong with genetic modification. However, I argued that it would be unethical to exterminate them all after they’d escaped into the broader environment. They were sentient beings, after all. I had no idea where that would leave the world a thousand years later.”
 Bitterwood shook his head. “I don’t understand what you are saying.”
 “No. I’m pretty sure you don’t,” Cynthia said, smiling. “You don’t have the proper social context to understand what we did a thousand years ago. The simple story is that mankind went through a century or so when we had unraveled the genetic code—the building blocks of life itself—and we used it to make all kinds of fun things. Some were benign: drought resistant crops, cancer-eating bacteria, allergen-free cats. Some weren’t so great, though. We made weapons out of micro-organisms, for instance. Nearly killed half the people on earth in the last war with those. And, of course, somebody had the bright idea of making dragons.”
 Bitterwood sat up further in the bed. He wasn’t sure what she was trying to communicate, but thought he got the gist of her final statement. “People made dragons?”
 “Yeah. By the mid twenty-first century, all the big game animals on the planet were extinct or protected. So my employers sidestepped the law by creating new game animals. We pulled creatures out of mythology: chimera, hydras, unicorns and, of course, dragons. Filled up a big game park in the middle of the Ozarks. Charged clients a million dollars an hour to hunt there. We turned a profit inside of five months.”
 Bitterwood tried to make sense of what Cynthia was saying. Individually, he understood about half of her words. Strung together, the words were meaningless to him.
 “We wanted the dragons to be smart,” Cynthia said in a tone that sounded like a confession. “We already had the genetic code to build the most effective brain the world had ever evolved—the human mind. Around the time I was born, our early genetic tampering let us put jellyfish genes in monkeys. By the time I entered the field, we were putting human cerebral cortexes in warm-blooded bird-lizards. There was something of a slippery slope in between the two developments. In fairness, we only wanted the dragons to be smart enough to be challenging prey. We didn’t really plan on them escaping and organizing the way they did. We set out to make entertaining monsters; we wound up making man-eating politicians with feathers. Talk about the law of unintended consequences.”
 Bitterwood shook his head. “I don’t know what you are trying to tell me.”
 Cynthia shrugged. “It’s not important. I’m just babbling about old times. I get nostalgic whenever I come back to the mainland.”
 Bitterwood rubbed his eyes. “I must be dreaming,” he said. “I have a clear memory of my legs breaking. My hands . . . they were devoured.”
 “Yeah, that was pretty gross,” she said. “I’m not supposed to help people, but really, when the dragon spit out your own hand into your face, I kind of lost my head. After I killed the dragon, I figured, in for a penny, in for a pound, and decided I’d save you. I pumped you full of nano and nutrients to fix your legs and regrow your arms.”
 “Nano?”
 “Tiny machines. Don’t worry about it. Think of it as magic. And, hey, you’re in for a treat. Your old arms and legs looked pretty banged up. I examined the hand the dragon had spit out. It looked like you’d broken almost every bone in it at one time or another. Your new arms and legs are going to be as finely tuned as your genetic code can support. You’ll be crazy fast and crazy strong, at least for a few years until you wear them out again.”
 “Oh,” he said. “Will they always look this strange?”
 “Once they age a few hours, they’ll look more like the ones you had. I also tuned up your eyes. You were a teeny bit nearsighted; you probably didn’t have a great picture of what your feet looked like most of the time. Now I’ve got you set to about twenty-ten. The next time you shoot at a dragon from a couple of yards away, maybe you’ll hit him. I just wish I could do something about your brain.”
 “My brain?”
 “Yeah. It’s a bi-polar mess. Alas, I have to tap into a different database before I can program any kind of brain alterations. I’ll get grief if they find out I gave you new fingers. If I start rewiring your brain, wow, I won’t be let back out of Atlantis for like, another thousand years.”
 “Atlantis?”
 She motioned toward a wall. It faded away, revealing a great golden city beyond. Angels flitted through the air, darting among slender spires taller than the highest mountains. The music shifted from the light, ethereal tones to a more dramatic, brassy rhythm.
 “This is a picture of where we live now,” she said. “It’s where we went, once we became immortal.”
 “Then this is heaven, after all,” said Bitterwood.
 “I can see why you might think that. Atlantis is the city we retreated to after we decided that tinkering with the world always led to more harm than good. We had reached such power with our technology that we changed the planet faster than we could react. We had the footprints of giants, and we were stumbling around as aimlessly as toddlers. After we beat death, we had the most dangerous technology of all in our hands. The fact that humans died off easily was always a nice brake on our ability to harm the world. If all the billions of people in the world were allowed to live forever and keep breeding, we’d wreck the planet. So we had to make choices. Not everyone could be allowed immortality. In the end, a select few retreated to a place where we wouldn’t do any further damage, and let the rest of the world go feral.”
 Bant scratched the backs of his tingling hands against the raspy stubble of his cheeks. He asked, “If you are human, and you have this power, why do you allow the dragons to kill your fellow men? Why don’t you save us?”
 Cynthia nodded toward the wall which faded back to blue. “Actually, we’re considering it. Some of us think it’s time to tinker again. Bring the gift of knowledge back to the rest of humanity, slowly and carefully. Unfortunately, the downside of immortality is we’ll probably debate this another century or two.”
 “A century?” Bitterwood asked.
 “Or more,” she said. “We have to consider all ramifications.”
 “Humans are dying now,” Bitterwood said. “Dragons killed my family. Their king starves humans with his unreasonable policies. He currently wages war . . . I may be the only survivor of his last atrocity. What is left for you to consider?”
 She sighed. “Look, don’t hassle me, okay? It’s not like things were so different when humans were in charge. We killed a lot more people than dragons can even dream of. You’re just going to have to have faith that we’ll do the right thing.”
 “Faith is a foul word in my vocabulary,” said Bitterwood. “I’ve suffered only betrayal when I acted on faith.”
 “You’re not a very grateful person are you?” Cynthia asked. “I save your life, fix your hands, tune up your eyes, and I don’t even get a thank you?”
 Bitterwood looked around. Without looking in her direction, he asked, “Where are my clothes?”
 Cynthia handed him a neat stack of folded linen. “I had the nano patch and clean your stuff. I also fixed up your bow and arrows. Get dressed, then follow me.”
 Cynthia walked back out the wall. Her shadow paused on the other side, then moved away.
 Bitterwood pondered the clothes she’d handed him. They looked like his, only as clean and crisp as if the cloth had just come off the loom. Was this witchcraft? Was he endangering himself by taking this gift? He thought the matter over and felt dumb; he was afraid of his own clothes. Shaking his head at his foolishness, he put his clothes back on. The clean linen against his new skin was disturbingly pleasant. It smelled as if it had been dried in warm sun in a spring breeze. His boots had been restored. The leather was cotton soft and fit like a second skin as he pulled them on.
 He reached out to touch the wall Cynthia had exited. It felt like a curtain of falling water, though when he pulled his fingers back they were dry. He noticed pale half moons near the end of his fingers. His nails were growing back.
 He held his breath and walked outside. Hot, humid air instantly soaked into his clothing. He raised his pink arm to the blazing summer sun. He was in a grove of fragrant, dark green kudzu, humming with yellow bees, aflutter with iridescent black butterflies. A trio of crates stood before him holding three dragons: a sun-dragon, a sky-dragon, and an earth-dragon. Two of the dragons lay still as death within their cages. The sky-dragon alone was awake. He pressed against the slender silver bars of the cage when he saw Bitterwood.
 “Help me,” the dragon pleaded, extending a blue wing through the bars.
 Bitterwood studied the creature’s face. This dragon seemed younger than the sky-dragons he’d fought in recent weeks. His scales bore the faint white speckles of late adolescence. His accent was strange to Bant’s ears. Perhaps it was only because he’d never heard a dragon ask for help before.
 The dragon’s golden eyes held a look of utter terror. “Before she comes back,” the beast begged, “unlock the cage.”
 “I’m not in a mood to help dragons,” Bitterwood said, walking away from the crates. He now saw Cynthia standing at the outer edge of the kudzu grove. She held his restored bow and arrows and offered them to him as he drew near.
 “I can’t believe this isn’t a dream,” he said as he took the weapons into his newly minted fingers.
 “Maybe it is,” Cynthia said, walking back toward the kudzu. “Maybe you should live as if it is, at least. You’ve got a new lease on life. What do you want to do with it?”
 “Kill dragons,” he said.
 She giggled. “It’s important to have goals. Maybe you can make all the studying and debating we’re engaged in back in Atlantis moot. Get out there and wipe out all the dragons single-handed.”
 “I’ll try,” Bitterwood said, pushing aside a veil of kudzu and stepping beyond the grove. “I just have one more question.”
 Cynthia didn’t answer.
 Bitterwood stepped back through the emerald veil. The crates were gone. He called out her name. All he heard in reply was the breeze rustling through leaves.
 Bitterwood took shelter from the sun in the shade of a vine-draped wall. He sat until nightfall, staring at his hands, watching his nails grow back, until all was restored. He thought about what Cynthia had told him, trying to fit the words into something that made sense.
 It all boiled down to this. Humans had created dragons. Dragons had no rightful claim to the world. As the sun sank, Bitterwood closed his strong, young hands into fists, digging the nails into his palms, until the pain would most surely wake him.
 He didn’t wake up. Bitterwood opened his hands, then picked up his bow and arrow. He fixed his eyes on a single purple kudzu bloom across the grove thirty yards away. He fired an arrow, neatly severing the stem. The flower dropped, vanishing into the blanket of dark leaves.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
* * *
HOMUNCULUS
VENDEVOREX STEPPED BACK from the now paralyzed body of the prophet. The three smartwires continued to snake toward the silvery command homunculus he held. He reached out his free claw, fusing the tips of the three wires together so that they fell dead. The human whose life he’d just saved stood looking at him, slack-jawed.
 “This is a very dangerous toy,” Vendevorex said. “Did you bring this with you from Atlantis? Are you still working with Cynthia?”
 “No,” the man said. “I never saw her again. You’re Vendevorex? You survived Zanzeroth’s assault?”
 “Yes and yes,” Vendevorex answered. “So, if you aren’t working with Cynthia, who are you?”
 “I’m Bitterwood,” the man answered.
 “I see,” Vendevorex said, furrowing his brow. “I expect you’ll be trying to kill me, then.”
 Bitterwood shook his head. “I agreed to spare you. I gave my word. To Jandra.”
 “Jandra,” Vendevorex said, remembering his reason for being here. With a thought, he encased the homunculus in a thin coat of lead, then turned away from Bitterwood and moved toward his fallen student. He knelt next to her, reaching out his hand to feel the pulse in her throat, then gently touched the gash above her ear. Jandra moaned slightly and turned her head away.
 At that moment three guards ran around the corner of the nearest building.
 “Halt!” one cried.
 “No,” Vendevorex said, reaching into his pouch of powders. He flicked his dust-coated claws in the direction of the three green dragons. “My friends and I will be left alone.” Vendevorex closed his claw in a deliberate, dramatic gesture. Suddenly, the spears carried by the dragons began to glow. Then Vendevorex flapped a wing, sending a breeze across the dusty ground. The spear shafts crumbled to ash and were carried off by the gust.
 The leader of the three dragons looked confused. His eyes glanced down to his empty hands, then looked toward the decapitated body of the slain soldier, before turning to the frozen form of the black-garbed man, then fixing, finally, on Vendevorex. The leader’s face flickered with sudden recognition.
 “You’re the wizard!” he yelped.
 “You’re right,” Vendevorex answered.
 “Yaa!” they shouted in unison. Their scales suddenly stood on end as they spun about to flee.
 “Stop!” Vendevorex commanded. “If you try to run, I will disintegrate your legs as easily as your spears. I want us to come to an understanding.”
 The three guards didn’t take another step. Vendevorex could see their muscles trembling as if resisting an invisible spring that threatened to snap them away.
 “You should know that now that I have seen your faces, I can kill you at any time with just a thought,” Vendevorex said. “I can make it as quick and simple as I did with your weapons, or I can prolong your agony, depending on my mood. I spare you on one condition. You must speak to no one of what you’ve witnessed. Understood?”
 “Y-y-yessir.”
 “Then go,” Vendevorex said.
 The three dragons tripped over one another as they raised their tails high and raced back down the side street.
 “It was foolish to let them go,” Bitterwood said. “To silence them, you should have killed them.”
 “I didn’t see the need for bloodshed,” Vendevorex said. “I fear there may be blood enough spilled in the coming days. Now be a good fellow and carry Jandra for me, will you?”
 “I’m not a slave to be ordered around by your kind,” Bitterwood said.
 “No, of course not,” said Vendevorex. “However, given your status as a legendary hero, I assume you’re too gallant to simply let Jandra recover from her wounds in the middle of the street, yes?”
 Bitterwood glowered. “I’ll help her, but don’t try to manipulate me.”
 “Understood,” Vendevorex said. “I hate to even ask the favor of you. I’d carry Jandra myself but I doubt you have the strength to carry our friend here.” Vendevorex moved to the frozen body of the axe-wielding man and tilted him backward, catching him with a grunt.
 “What did you do to Hezekiah?” Bitterwood asked as he slid his arms beneath Jandra’s shoulders and knees.
 “It’s a little hard to explain,” Vendevorex said, his voice strained as he tried to get a grip on Hezekiah’s heavy form. “I suppose you might say I’ve taken his soul from his body.” Vendevorex looked up and down the row of buildings. “I’m surprised your fellow humans haven’t been drawn to the commotion. Are most of these dwellings still empty?”
 “My ‘fellow humans’ tend to cluster together. I stick to this area because I like my privacy,” Bitterwood said, carefully lifting Jandra. He tilted his head toward an empty building. “Follow me.”
 BLASPHET PULLED THE WEED from the soil and tossed it aside. Laboring on the balcony beside the trellis full of poison ivy, he had occasion to contemplate the sunlight on his skin, still a novel sensation after his years in the dungeon. The sensual pleasures the world offered thrilled him anew each day. How could others be so insensate to a world full of life? Blasphet doubted that Albekizan felt even one-tenth of the satisfaction when he looked out over his kingdom that stretched as far as the eye could see, as Blasphet felt tending this small potted garden. He reached for the watering can, tilting it, releasing a shower of fresh human blood to nourish the soil in a pot that contained a belladonna shrub. Ah, the simple pleasures of gardening.
 Sometimes, while contemplating the life that burst from the soil, the answers seemed so close. The dark, wholesome earth was made rich by decay and excrement—surely a key to life’s mystery. But what lock did this key fit?
 A shadow passed over him. He looked up to see his brother descending from the sky. Blasphet drew back to allow his brother room to land.
 “Blasphet,” Albekizan said as he came to rest on the balcony, knocking over potted plants. “Thanks to your sage words, I’ve made a decision.”
 “I see,” Blasphet said, wincing as his brother crushed flowers beneath his heavy talons. “Odd. I don’t recall advising you to come here and wreck my garden.”
 “I speak of Bitterwood,” said Albekizan. “I’ve decided his fate. But first, I need information about the Free City. Everyone tells me it’s filling ahead of schedule. How many now dwell there?”
 Blasphet shrugged. “It’s difficult to say. The numbers increase daily, though the real influx will begin after next week’s full moon. The harvest moon, the humans call it.”
 “You didn’t answer my question. I want a number. How many humans are within the Free City?”
 “Why do you need this information so urgently?” Blasphet said, crouching to turn a potted nightshade upright once more. Its pink blossoms were horribly mangled. “You said you’d made a decision about Bitterwood. Is it possible you’ve decided upon a course of action before you’ve gathered the relevant information?”
 “I grow impatient, Blasphet.”
 “Very well, if it will get you to leave my balcony quicker. The total at present is eight thousand, approximately.”
 “A fair number,” said the king. “And how many guards are currently stationed in the city?”
 “Right now, most of the guards are out in the countryside preparing to herd the humans here,” Blasphet said.
 “But in the city itself? How many?”
 “Kanst could answer this for you,” Blasphet sighed.
 “You know everything about the city. Don’t pretend otherwise,” said Albekizan.
 Blasphet felt contrary, wanting instinctively to hold back any information that Albekizan might consider useful. However, a second part of him was curious. What did Albekizan have in mind? “By my count, there are six hundred earth-dragons. Fifty sky-dragon officers. What are you planning to do with them?”
 “There is a square at the center of the city? Large enough to hold a crowd of eight thousand?”
 “Not comfortably,” Blasphet said.
 “Order the guards to gather the humans in the square tomorrow morning. During the night, Kanst’s army will join with the city’s guards, bringing the force of dragons to two thousand. This should be more than enough.”
 “Enough?” Blasphet asked. “For what? To keep order?”
 “You’ll find out tomorrow,” said Albekizan.
 “You are no good at being coy,” Blasphet said. “There’s only one reason you could want to herd the humans together. You plan Bitterwood’s public execution.”
 “A public execution, yes,” the king answered. “You’re right; I shouldn’t be coy. A public execution is precisely what I desire. Order the guards to cooperate with Kanst’s troops.”
 “Of course,” Blasphet said, disturbed by Albekizan’s intrusion into his affairs, but feeling it unwise to press the issue now. Most likely, upon Bitterwood’s death, his brother’s interest in the Free City would wane. He said, in his most sincere tone, “I live but to serve you.”
 “You live to torment me,” Albekizan said, turning away and spreading his wings. “But you live because I allow it. Remember that.”
 “Have no fear about my memory,” Blasphet said as his brother leapt into the air. The king’s long tail whipped around, knocking over another flowerpot. Blasphet looked down at the shattered terra-cotta and crushed blossoms that marked his brother’s visit. He glanced back up at Albekizan’s retreating form. He said, softly, “I remember everything.”
 THE BLACK CURTAINS that shrouded Jandra’s mind parted. She opened her eyes with a start, expecting to find Hezekiah towering over her, preparing to kill her with a final strike in the middle of the dusty street. Instead, she found herself alone in a darkened room on a scratchy wool blanket. Her head throbbed as she sat up. She raised her hand to discover bandages around her brow. In the next room, she could hear a muffled but familiar voice.
 “Ven,” she whispered.
 She rose on wobbly feet and tiptoed toward the door. She paused, listening to her former mentor speaking with someone else. A human’s voice. Bitterwood?
 Feeling unready to face Vendevorex, she steadied herself with her palms against the wall and peeked through a small crack in the door. She could see Hezekiah propped against the far wall, his body rigid, his eyes unblinking. Vendevorex walked into view holding a small metal sphere in his claws.
 From beyond her view, Bitterwood said, “Hezekiah hasn’t aged a day in all the years I’ve known him.”
 “Understandable,” Vendevorex said, pulling free a yellow wire from the clump he had fused earlier. “He isn’t really alive. He’s a simulacrum.”
 “I don’t understand.”
 “Long ago, people were able to make copies of themselves, or anyone, really.” Vendevorex pried open the left eye of the paralyzed prophet and examined it closely. “The artificial bodies were practically indestructible, could mimic the human form perfectly, and were designed in such a manner that the maker of the simulacrum could feel and see and hear anything his double did. More, actually.” He let the eye close. “This one sees into the infrared and ultraviolet, I think.” He turned back to face Bitterwood. “Humans once used these doubles for sport. Normally, the simulacrum only did what its maker told it to do, but a few were fitted with the ability to think and act on their own. That’s where this comes in,” Vendevorex said, raising the sphere. “The homunculus. The soul of the machine.”
 “This is a soul?” Bitterwood asked. “I’ve cut open many dragons and never seen this organ. Are dragons truly soulless?”
 “You won’t find these in people, either. ‘Soul’ is merely an analogy.” Vendevorex turned back to the black-garbed prophet and picked up one of the three wires draped over its shoulder, a yellow one. He said, “It’s more accurate, perhaps, to say that this is Hezekiah’s mind. It’s the source of his intelligence and what passes for free will. For us,” Vendevorex said, touching the yellow wire to the sphere, “it’s the source of answers.”
 “Online. Testing,” Hezekiah said, though his lips didn’t move and his body remained motionless.
 “Skip diagnostics,” Vendevorex said.
 “Diagnostics aborted. Activating personality core. Activated.”
 Vendevorex spoke toward the orb he held. “What is your mission?”
 “To spread the word of the Lord,” answered Hezekiah’s seemingly disembodied voice.
 “Who gave you this mission?”
 “I was programmed by Jasmine Danielle Robertson.”
 “When?”
 “In the year of our Lord 2077.”
 Vendevorex glanced toward Bitterwood. “He means A.D. The numbering system of years that preceded the Dragon Age.” Then addressing the sphere once more: “Hezekiah, do you know why Robertson gave you this mission?”
 “The world was falling into chaos and decadence. Few people remembered the word, and my maker believed it likely that the world would be cleansed once more, just as the Lord had cleansed it in the days of the flood. I was created to survive the coming cataclysm, and to spread the word among the survivors.”
 “I see,” said Vendevorex. “Somehow this mission involves chopping off people’s heads?”
 “I am designed to remove any obstacles to the success of my mission.”
 “Excellent,” said Vendevorex. “As long as you’re programmed for violence, I think you should put that programming to good use. Only your mission will change when I let you go.”
 “Let him go?” Bitterwood said. “You can’t mean to release him from this spell you have on him.”
 “I can,” Vendevorex said. “Don’t be afraid. He’ll be no threat to you when I’m done with him.”
 “No threat?” Bitterwood said, moving forward into Jandra’s line of sight at last. His fists were clenched. “Hezekiah’s not human!”
 Vendevorex looked impatient. “That’s been established. However, being inhuman doesn’t make one a threat to humans. I’m proof of that. Hezekiah is too useful a tool to discard. As a fighter, he’s nearly unstoppable. He’ll be the perfect weapon if things turn ugly with Albekizan.”
 Hearing this, Jandra decided the time had come for her to make her presence known. She pushed open the door and said, “So. Now you plan to fight.”
 “Jandra,” Vendevorex said, looking startled. It gave her a slight tinge of satisfaction to realize that he wasn’t ready to speak to her yet. “I apologize for not keeping our voices down,” he said. “We shouldn’t have disturbed your rest. You’ve suffered serious trauma. Even with the treatment I’ve given, I recommend allowing several hours to heal completely.”
 “It’s funny how you pretend to care,” Jandra said. “Why did you come here, Ven? Not to apologize, I hope.”
 “Yes,” he said, sounding sad. “I am here to apologize, whether or not you’ll accept. I’ve made horrible mistakes, Jandra. I’d be foolish to think that things can go back to the way they were.”
 “That would be foolish,” she agreed.
 “I’m hoping that the last fifteen years of my life count for something. I’ve tried to be the family you never had.”
 She crossed her arms. “You did a poor job.”
 “Yes. I can’t deny it. But if I can’t win your favor with my past deeds, I still hope I may influence your opinion with what I’m doing now. I’ve decided to fulfill your wishes and go to war against Albekizan.”
 “Don’t do it because you want to earn my forgiveness. You won’t receive it,” she said. She was surprised to realize how deeply she meant it. She had practiced the words often enough in her mind in recent days. Now that she’d said them, the truth sank in. She would never forgive him.
 “For what it’s worth, it’s not only your forgiveness that has led to my reassessment of my actions. I’ve gained new information since we parted which makes me believe a revolution can now be successful.”
 “Oh?”
 “I saw little hope in revolution before. If Albekizan fell, the candidates for the throne were unattractive. Now, Shandrazel has returned. He’s perfect for the job. I feel that placing him on the throne will return peace and stability to the kingdom. Assuming, of course, I can change his mind.”
 “Whose mind? Shandrazel’s? About what?”
 “Shandrazel is perhaps a bit too idealistic and kind for my purposes. The prince doesn’t want to rule, nor does he want his father killed. I’m not sure that can be avoided, however.”
 “You would know about killing fathers,” said Jandra.
 Vendevorex turned his face away from her. Jandra knew her words had stung him.
 Bitterwood, who had listened intently to the conversation, suddenly stiffened. He said to Vendevorex, “You killed her father?”
 “Yes,” the wizard answered.
 He turned to Jandra, “Why did you beg me to spare him?”
 “He’s . . . I didn’t know then, but even so, I want you to spare him. Let him live with his guilt.”
 Bitterwood approached her. “If you’ve lost your father to a dragon, then you must understand how I feel. I lost my whole family to dragons. For years I thought them dead—”
 “I suppose, in that light, you’re almost happy to learn they were sold into slavery,” she said. She almost instantly regretted the words. They sounded so callous. Like something Ven might have said.
 Bitterwood didn’t look as if he took offense, however. “The possibility that my family is alive is something I can’t ignore. If only Hezekiah hadn’t killed my only lead. I don’t know where or how to search for them.”
 “I might be of use,” said Vendevorex. “If your family was sold as slaves during Albekizan’s reign, there will be written records. By law, all transactions are documented for taxation.”
 “But it was twenty years ago,” Bitterwood said.
 “That won’t matter,” said Vendevorex. “Albekizan never destroys any records. The king built his vast empire with blood, cunning, and paperwork.”
 “Where would these records be?” Bitterwood asked.
 “In the castle. In the library. You’ll probably need a biologian to navigate the maze, unfortunately.”
 Jandra realized this was a chance to hurt Vendevorex once more. She said, “I can take you there. I’ve spent enough time studying in the libraries. I know where those records are kept.”
 “Very well. We can all go there,” Vendevorex said, “after I’ve changed Hezekiah’s mind.”
 “We’ll go alone,” Jandra said. “I don’t want your help.”
 “No, but you’ll need it,” Vendevorex said. “The castle’s too dangerous. Suppose you run into Zanzeroth?”
 “Suppose we do? How will you being there help? Bitterwood and I both run while Zanzeroth guts you again?”
 “I’m only saying your invisibility will be no defense. I’ve learned that.”
 “No dragon within the castle walls is a threat to me,” Bitterwood said, picking up the slain guard’s sword. He moved toward the door and looked back at Vendevorex as he said, “I’ve waited long enough. As for you, wizard, if you plan to make Hezekiah your ally, you can count me among your enemies. I want nothing more to do with this demon.”
 “I’m ready,” said Jandra, walking to join him in the doorway.
 Vendevorex sighed. “Please reconsider. I’ve come a long way to find you, Jandra. I don’t want you placing yourself in further danger.”
 “I don’t care what you want,” she said. “I can take care of myself. Let’s go, Bitterwood.”
 “Please,” Vendevorex said, but Jandra paid no mind. She placed her hand on Bitterwood’s arm, both to show her solidarity with the dragonslayer and to steady herself, for the wound to her head hurt worse than she dared reveal. They stepped outside. Vendevorex came to the door and said, “You’re being very unreasonable.”
 And reason’s all you know, she thought, but held her tongue, knowing that silence hurt him more. The pain in Jandra’s head paled next to the pain in her heart. Vendevorex would never understand her, and she would never understand him. Bitterwood was right. Men and dragons could never share the world.
 Bitterwood led her away. She glanced back over her shoulder, hoping to see the look on Vendevorex’s face. But her mentor didn’t follow and now turned back inside. As Jandra watched his deep-blue tail vanish into the shadows of the building, a chill ran through her. This might be the last time she ever saw her former mentor.
 “Are you okay?” Bitterwood asked, noticing her shudder.
 “I’m fine,” Jandra said. “‘But I just thought . . . What about Zeeky? We never found her.”
 “We’ll have to hope she’s okay,” Bitterwood said. “She’s a tough girl.”
 “True. And it’s not like we could take her with us. So. Any ideas on how we get out of here?”
 “Follow me,” Bitterwood said. “I’ve found a rope and hidden it. I know of several places on the wall where we can climb up then use the rope to rappel down. We’ll need to wait for night before we can move safely, though.”
 Jandra looked at the sun high in the sky, the bright light making her head throb even more. “It’s several hours until sunset. Why don’t we scale the walls now? We can cross invisibly then make our way to the castle. By the time we get inside it will be nightfall. That will give us all night to search the records while the biologians sleep.”
 “Invisible?” said Bitterwood, sounding disdainful. “I dislike relying on your witchcraft.”
 “Would you stop that? I’m not a witch. I just happen to have fancier tools than most people. Trust me on this, okay?”
 Bitterwood looked into her eyes for a long moment. “Very well. If I must. Follow me.”
 Bitterwood led her behind one of the empty buildings. He pushed aside a half-filled rain barrel, then pulled up a loose wallboard that the barrel had pinned down. He reached inside the wall and retrieved a long coil of hemp rope.
 Jandra splashed some of the water from the rain barrel onto her face. The cool water helped greatly. Taking a deep breath, she felt strong and calm enough to make them invisible—but for how long? She tore a strip of cloth from her dress and wetted it to dab her brow as she needed it.
 “You sure you’re okay?” Bitterwood asked.
 “I’m feeling better,” Jandra said, trying to make herself believe it. “I just need to keep moving.”
 “If you’re certain. We can go up the wall here,” he said. The alley they were in ran along the outer wall of the city.
 “Let me get ready,” Jandra said, reaching into her pouch. “We’ll still be able to see each other, but we need to stay close if you don’t want others to see you.”
 Bitterwood nodded, then turned the rain barrel over and placed it against the wall. He hopped on and extended his hand to help Jandra up. Jandra activated the invisibility as she stood next to him. But now what? The wall stood twenty feet high, made of logs driven into the ground.
 Bitterwood didn’t share her hesitation. He placed his hands and feet between the gaps in the logs and scaled the wall as quickly as if he were walking across flat ground.
 “Wait!” she said. “You’re out of range!”
 Bitterwood didn’t stop. He placed his hand on the top of the wall and pulled himself up. He straddled the wall and turned around, looking down at her. He cocked his head.
 “You really are invisible,” he muttered.
 “Yes,” she said. “But you’re not. Someone will see you.”
 “Then we should make haste,” Bitterwood said, tossing one end of the rope toward the sound of her voice. “Don’t even try to climb. I’ll lift you.”
 Jandra wrapped the rope around her hand and arm and Bitterwood began to pull her up. She helped him by using her feet to climb the wider cracks when possible.
 “I see you now,” he said as she neared the top of the wall.
 He reached down and took her hand and lifted her the rest of the way. Jandra looked around for guards and noticed a nearby guard tower, but the guards within weren’t looking in their direction. Instead, the guards watched the sky. Jandra looked up and gasped. Sun-dragons!
 “I see them,” Bitterwood said. “I don’t think they’ve seen us.”
 Jandra soon realized this was true. She’d gotten him into the invisibility field just in time. The dragons weren’t headed directly toward them. They weren’t even looking in this direction. They seemed to be heading toward the center of the Free City, to the square.
 Albekizan himself led the way. It had been months since Jandra had seen him. The king was breathtaking in flight, with broad, crimson wings driven by a deep, well-muscled breast. He flew with powerful, precise movements, showing his mastery of the air. Tanthia followed. The queen was smaller than the king, sleeker, and her wings trailed yellow silk ribbons that flashed in the sunlight. If anything, she looked even more graceful in the air than Albekizan. In contrast to the elegant royal couple, Kanst followed behind in his slow, jerky motion. Weighed down by his heavy armor, the great bull dragon beat the air mightily, raising himself higher one flap at a time before holding his wings stiff and gliding down, losing the height he’d gained. He didn’t so much fly as climb and fall through the sky. Zanzeroth lagged even further behind, the stiff movements of his wings betraying his half-healed wounds. Another dragon would have stayed in bed with such injuries, Jandra suspected, but the tough old hunter was too proud ever to admit to weakness. A single sky-dragon completed the procession, Pertalon. Despite his youth and strength, Pertalon trailed behind Zanzeroth, for he carried a burden, a cocoon of white cloth wrapped around what looked to be the body of a man.
 Could it be Pet? Could it not be? She should have freed Pet when she had the chance. Now that Vendevorex was going to fight the king, there was no need for Pet to sacrifice himself. As much as she hated Vendevorex she respected his abilities, and knew that if he was intent on overthrowing the king, he would. The white bundle struggled as the dragons banked. She felt heartened that Pet was still alive. Jandra would help Bitterwood for now. When she found the information he needed, she would make him return the favor and rescue Pet.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
* * *
MYTH
METRON WATCHED Albekizan’s party fly from the grand hall toward the Free City. He’d received an invitation to join the king but had politely declined, stating that he was feeling under the weather. Metron had suspected the king wouldn’t take no for an answer, and had been anticipating the appearance of a few guards. Knowing the king proceeded without him was humbling. Apparently, he wasn’t essential to the running of the kingdom.
 Despite learning that he wasn’t as vital to the king’s court as he sometimes fancied, he was also relieved. Whatever the king had planned, the timing couldn’t have been worse. The note passed to Metron moments before he’d been summoned made it vital he stay; Androkom, the biologian who boasted of knowing the secret of life, had arrived. The scholar and his equipment were waiting below in Metron’s personal study.
 Metron hurried through the stone corridors and stairwells that led to the maze of books below. When he arrived at his study he found the door ajar. It locked with a secret key that only another initiated biologian would possess.
 “Androkom?” he said, peering into the dark chamber.
 “I’m here,” his fellow biologian said. In the darkness, there was a creak as the shutter of an oil lamp was opened. The light revealed Androkom sitting at the table in the center of the room, his pale blue form half-hidden behind a stack of books. A well-worn leather satchel rested on the table before him. Androkom clutched the strap of the satchel tightly in his ink-stained fore-talons as he nodded in silent greeting. Metron stepped into the room, pushing the door shut behind him. He gasped as the closing door revealed that they were not alone. The rich scarlet scales of a sun-dragon’s breast filled his vision. A familiar face loomed over him.
 “Shandrazel!” he cried.
 “Please,” Shandrazel said in a loud whisper. “Lower your voice.”
 “Sneaking back into the castle with a dragon of Shandrazel’s stature wasn’t easy,” Androkom said. “You’ll understand that we’d rather not be discovered.”
 “What’s the meaning of this?” Metron asked, pointing his walking staff toward Androkom. “Are you assisting the prince? This is treason! He’s duty-bound to kill the king!”
 “Nonsense,” Shandrazel said. “I never felt any obligations to the old ways. I feel even less now that I know how artificial the so-called ‘ancient traditions’ truly are. Androkom has told me much about the ways of the biologians.”
 “Tell me this is a lie, Androkom,” Metron said. “You cannot have told him the initiated secrets.”
 Androkom nodded. “I did; at least, what I had time to tell. I respect you, High Biologian. But I no longer respect our ways. The higher I have risen in the ranks, the more I have learned that has troubled me. Shandrazel and I share an abiding faith in the redemptive power of truth.” Androkom toyed with the shutter of the lantern as he spoke, opening it fully to cast as much light as possible over the chamber. The younger biologian glanced around at the dusty tomes and shadowed niches of Metron’s private study. “The Book of Theranzathax speaks of using light to carve the world from darkness,” he said. “We think it’s time for the obscuring haze of lies to be burned away by the lantern of honest inquiry.”
 “Androkom,” Metron said, stepping to the table, placing his fore-talons on the heavy oak for balance as he leaned closer. “You must reconsider this reckless path you’ve chosen. I’ve known you for years. I’ve watched you rise through the ranks at a nearly unequaled pace. Why destroy the very title you’ve worked so hard to earn?”
 Androkom met Metron’s condemning gaze without blinking. He said, “I entered the ranks of the biologians seeking knowledge. It disturbs me that my role has become one of concealing truths, rather than revealing them. Too much of what’s taken as common fact by most dragons is merely carefully constructed fiction.”
 “Yes!” Metron hissed. “Carefully constructed! Designed by the most brilliant minds who ever lived to give dragons a grand destiny! You cannot brashly destroy the work of centuries!”
 “Metron,” said Shandrazel, “I will grant that you have only the best interests of dragons at heart. No doubt the most central myths of the dragons were crafted solely for the benefit of our kind. But we are not alone on this world . . . We share it. Would my father now be waging war against the humans if he knew the truth? The petrified skeletons that adorn our halls . . . these are not the remains of our ancestors. Our species is barely a millennium old. We owe our existence to humanity.”
 “We owe nothing to humanity,” said Metron. “I’ve studied the manuscripts they left behind. When they ruled this world, they poisoned it with their own filth. They were like yeast in a corked bottle, growing until they choked in toxins of their own making.”
 “So you support my father’s genocide?” Shandrazel asked.
 Metron felt the anger drain out of him at this question. His whole body sagged. “No,” he said softly. “No matter their past sins, I want to avoid the coming slaughter. In my studies, I’ve learned much of human ways. In their time of dominance, humans callously drove uncountable species into extinction. I would like to think that we dragons are above this.”
 “As would I,” said Shandrazel.
 “And I,” said Androkom. “So, it seems we have some common ground to build upon.”
 “Yes,” said Metron. “Still, you should not have shared our secrets, Androkom.”
 “I find your hypocrisy on this most intriguing,” said Androkom. “You would withhold the truth from Shandrazel, who’s known for his integrity. Yet you share our secrets with Blasphet, the Murder God?”
 Metron scowled. “Blasphet has learned many of our secrets against my will. Showing him tomes written by humans will tell him nothing he hasn’t already deduced.”
 Shandrazel said, “What Blasphet knows or doesn’t know isn’t important, in the end. Our course is clear. We must tell my father the truth about the origins of dragons. In light of the new information, he’ll halt the genocide and imprison my uncle once more.”
 Metron felt his jaw hanging open. “You . . . you really believe that?” he asked incredulously.
 “My father may be stubborn and stern, but he’s bound to listen to reason.”
 Metron shook his head. “My prince, you are too idealistic. The biologians at the College of Spires did their best to craft you into a being that respects truth and fairness, in hopes of shaping a future king. But I fear they’ve left you ignorant of the way the world actually works.”
 “No. Not ignorant. Educated. Once my father learns the truth, he will see the folly of his war on the humans and rescind the death orders. We dragons pride ourselves on being the highest product of the laws of nature, the rightful rulers of the earth, while the humans follow religions that tell them that they are separate from nature, and were created independently of it. All along, the opposite was true.”
 “He’ll never believe you,” Metron said. “Furthermore, you’ll never have a chance to make your argument. He’ll kill you on sight. He’ll throttle the life from you while you’re standing there like an idiot trying to appeal to his reason.”
 “That’s why we need a plan,” Androkom said. “And why we need your help.”
 Metron inhaled slowly, contemplating his next words. They wanted his help. Shandrazel, at least, was foolish enough to trust the king. Did he have the same faith in Metron’s own honesty and fairness? If so, Metron might still have a chance. Androkom’s books and equipment were sitting on the table. Blasphet would find these very useful.
 “We were thinking you could request a private conference with the king,” Androkom said. “Such is your right. Then—”
 “No,” Metron said, raising his claw, unable to believe his luck. “I know a better way.”
 “We’re listening,” Shandrazel said.
 THE SUN HUNG RED AND LOW in the sky when Jandra woke. From her resting place on the hill she could see the king’s castle casting a long, sinister shadow across the land.
 Bitterwood sat against a nearby tree, though it took her a moment to spot him. He sat so still that with his drab clothing and tanned skin he blended in against the tree trunk.
 She asked, “How long did I nap?”
 “Not long,” he said. “Perhaps an hour.”
 “I only meant to rest my eyes for a minute,” she said.
 “I don’t begrudge you the sleep. I know how hard it is to keep going with a head injury.”
 Jandra noticed that her head no longer hurt. She pressed the bandage that covered her wound with her finger and felt no pain. She pulled the bandage free.
 “It’s healed isn’t it?” she asked, reaching for her pouch of dust.
 “Yes,” Bitterwood said. “In less than a day. Yet you say you aren’t a witch.”
 “Even if I were, I couldn’t do this,” she said. She used the dust from her fingers to create a small mirror. For half a second she wondered who she was looking at in the mirror. She’d almost forgotten that she’d changed her hair color to black. Once past the mild shock of seeing a stranger’s hair, she pushed the hair back and studied her brow. She lifted her tiara slightly. There was no bruise. The skin that had been beneath the bandage was pale white compared to the tan she’d developed with all the time she’d spent outdoors. Aside from this there was no sign she’d ever been injured.
 “Healing is a skill I’ve yet to master,” she said. “I can do superficial stuff, things I can see and concentrate on, but internal injuries, especially head wounds, are more than I can handle. One misrouted artery can cause a stroke. This is Vendevorex’s work.”
 “He seems to genuinely want your forgiveness,” Bitterwood said.
 “He won’t get it.” She let the mirror crack and crumble back into dust. “At first, the lie hurt most of all, the idea that he had raised me while keeping such a secret. But more and more I find myself dreaming of the life I might have known. All my life, I’ve been an outcast. I lived among dragons but could never be accepted by them. When I go among people, I find that I don’t fit in either. Vendevorex robbed me of a normal life. I could have had a loving mother and father. Instead I was raised by a cold-hearted killer. He can never set things right between us.”
 “I understand,” Bitterwood said. “It’s good that you hate him.”
 Jandra wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly. Telling her that it was good to hate was so contrary to everything Vendevorex had ever tried to teach her.
 Bitterwood continued: “People will tell you that hate eats you from the inside. They tell you to let go of old pains, not to carry a grudge. Don’t listen to them. Hate’s all a person needs to get out of bed in the morning. Hold onto it. Hate is the hammer that lets you knock down the walls of this world. You see what happened to me when I let it go. I lost my way when I allowed my hate to wane.”
 “But now you’ve got something better than hate,” Jandra said. “You’ve got hope.”
 “Like you, I’m haunted by the life I might have had. Even if my family is alive, I’ve lost twenty years. There can be no forgiveness. If my family is alive then I regret only that I haven’t fought harder and killed more dragons to make a better world for them.”
 Jandra contemplated his words. All her life Vendevorex had given her cold and analytical advice. He normally advised her to set aside her emotions, especially the darker ones. How strange to be told to embrace them.
 Bitterwood nodded toward the castle which stood like a dark stony mountain in the sunset, casting a long shadow over the surrounding fields. “I’ve noticed a steady stream of dragons leaving the castle. The palace guards are heading for the Free City.”
 “Do you think we should go back?” Jandra asked. “If something’s about to happen we should try to save Zeeky and Pet.”
 “You’re free to go. My family must come first,” Bitterwood said.
 Jandra looked toward the Free City then back toward the castle. Lanterns and torches were being lit in the windows and balconies. She suddenly felt perversely homesick. Oddly, she didn’t feel as worried about the residents of the Free City as she thought she should. Deep in her heart she took comfort from a single fact: Vendevorex was inside the Free City and he was here to stop the genocide. Vendevorex wouldn’t be there without a plan.
 “Okay,” she said. “Fewer guards in the palace makes it easier for us,” Jandra said. “We might get the information you want before whatever is happening in the Free City unfolds. Are you ready?”
 “Yes,” Bitterwood said.
 Jandra rose and once more cast the circle of invisibility around them. They headed toward the castle where she had lived a lie for so long.
 JANDRA HAD NO PROBLEM leading Bitterwood past the handful of guards remaining in the castle and up the steps to the king’s hall. From here they could descend through the High Biologian’s door into the library.
 “Look there,” Bitterwood whispered as they passed near the throne pedestal.
 Following his outstretched arm, she could see a quiver of arrows and a bow hanging on the wall high above the throne. A few red feathers caught the pale moonlight.
 “That’s the bow Pet took from the armory,” Bitterwood said. “But those three arrows are mine. Where did he get them?”
 “I don’t know,” Jandra said.
 Bitterwood looked lost in thought. At last, he said, “When the sky-dragon tackled me in the window at Chakthalla’s castle, I lost several shafts. He must have found them. Perhaps this convinced Zanzeroth that Pet was me.”
 “Pet’s bought you a second chance,” Jandra said. “When this is done, you’ll help rescue him, won’t you?”
 Bitterwood looked at her, his brow furrowed. His voice gave no clue to his feelings as he said, “Let’s move on.”
 Jandra nodded. They moved toward the library door. She wondered if it was locked. The point was rendered moot as the door swung open at her approach. Whispered voices met them.
 “It’s time,” one said. “The dark will hide us.”
 “Lead on,” said another.
 Drawing the cloak of invisibility as tightly around them as possible, Jandra took Bitterwood by the arm and rushed forward past the three figures who entered the corridor. Even in the dark she could recognize Metron . . . and Shandrazel? Why was he here? She had never seen the third dragon. She and Bitterwood slipped into the library seconds before Metron closed the door. Quickly, they made their way to the rooms where the slave records were kept. Her heart sank as she stepped inside. So many rows of files. So many slaves.
 “It could take all night to search,” she said.
 “A night or a year, you’ve done your part,” Bitterwood said. “I’ll search alone if need be.”
 “No,” she said. She had made a promise and intended to keep it. “Let’s get started.”
 “ARE YOU SURE THIS IS WISE?” Androkom asked, slowing to allow Metron to catch up.
 “Positive,” Metron said, his voice strained with the effort of climbing the stairs. “Blasphet may be mad but I understand the source of his madness. He holds no grudge against us.”
 “Still,” Androkom said, “do you know how many dragons this monster has killed? It’s not like he’s ashamed of it. He calls himself the Murder God. This would argue against an alliance, I think.”
 “Monster or not, Blasphet is currently the king’s closest advisor,” Metron answered testily. “It’s not too late to turn back if you’re afraid.”
 “We’re not frightened,” Shandrazel said. “While I question the usefulness of this visit, my uncle is no match for me, physically, should he attempt to betray us.”
 At last they reached the main floor and the star chamber. Metron entered without bothering to knock.
 Blasphet awaited them, standing before a dying fire in the room’s lone fireplace. He stirred the orange coals with a long iron poker, then placed a heavy copper caldron onto the hook above the coals before turning to greet his guests.
 “Welcome, fellow conspirators,” Blasphet said, and bowed ceremoniously. “Especially you, dear nephew. My, you’ve grown in the years since last I saw you.”
 “Do not refer to me as a conspirator,” Shandrazel said. “I take this path out of love for my father and the kingdom.”
 “Ah! Nobility. I’m glad to see Albekizan’s bloodline has produced a scion that possesses a touch of my own idealism,” said Blasphet in a sincere tone. “You fill me with hope for the world, Shandrazel.”
 “I take it you received the note I sent you?” Metron asked.
 “Yes,” Blasphet said as he walked to the balcony doors. He closed them, sealing the room. “Now we can be assured of privacy.”
 “Is it true?” Androkom asked. “You have a poison that can temporarily paralyze a foe, but otherwise does no harm?”
 “Indeed,” Blasphet said. “Such a poison would be a perfect way to assure you of a captive audience from my brother, wouldn’t it?”
 “It’s not my preferred approach,” said Shandrazel. “But Metron insists it’s the only way to speak to my father without him immediately going for my throat.”
 Blasphet stared at Shandrazel, studying his eyes. Shandrazel didn’t turn away from the stare and met his gaze. Shandrazel noticed a family resemblance in the sharp, well-bred lines of his uncle’s face, despite Blasphet’s discolored hide and bloodshot eyes. It was like looking at some dark reflection of his father.
 Blasphet asked, “You still think you can use reason to persuade him?”
 “I hope so,” Shandrazel answered.
 “Truly, your idealism exceeds my own,” Blasphet said.
 “How is this poison delivered?” Androkom asked. “Via drink?”
 Blasphet shook his head.
 “The blood, then?” Androkom asked. “An . . . an injunction. Injection, rather.” The young biologian’s speech was slightly slurred.
 Metron swayed on his feet. He mumbled, “Blasphet, I . . . I . . .” The elder biologian raised his talon to rub his brow.
 “Yes?”
 “I feel . . . light-headed. The exertion . . . of the stairs—”
 “No,” Shandrazel said, noticing his own breathing growing shallow. “I feel it too.”
 Suddenly the High Biologian’s eyes rolled beneath his lids and he toppled sideways. Shandrazel moved quickly, reaching out to catch the aged dragon in his arms before he hit the stone floor.
 “The air . . .” Androkom said, leaning against a wall to steady himself.
 “Is it too warm in here?” Blasphet asked. “I would open a window but that would let the poison out.”
 “Betrayer!” Shandrazel shouted, letting Metron slide to the floor. He leapt toward his uncle, his claws outstretched. But the air seemed too thick, slowing him, as if he were moving through water. The room swayed and where Blasphet should have stood he found only a wall. Shandrazel collided face-first with solid stone.
 “Feeling a little disoriented, nephew?”
 Shandrazel turned around, his legs trembling.
 Androkom now sprawled across the floor, as unconscious as Metron. Blasphet had moved back to the fireplace, once more stirring the coals with the poker.
 Shandrazel rushed forward, fighting the fog in his mind to focus on the target of his uncle’s throat. He opened his jaws wide.
 Blasphet suddenly possessed supernatural speed. He drew the poker above his head, then chopped it down between Shandrazel’s eyes in a blur.
 There was a flash of light, a crash of drums, then darkness. The darkness broke with pale red light as Shandrazel opened his eyes once more. He was on the floor, looking across toward Metron’s slumped body. The High Biologian’s silver-tinted scales seemed surrounded by tiny halos. Why was Metron on the floor? Shandrazel’s head throbbed with distant pain. He braced himself with his claws and slowly rose. The floor was spinning as if on a giant turntable. He could vaguely hear someone saying, “You’re as hard-headed as your father.”
 Another crash and the floor raced up to meet him. Everything grew silent and still.
 “WAKE UP,” THE VOICE SAID.
 No. Shandrazel ached too much to open his eyes. He pulled the blanket of sleep more tightly around his mind.
 “Wake up!” the voice repeated, and this time the demand was met by a strong poke in Shandrazel’s gut. Shandrazel tried to twist away from the pain but couldn’t move. The rattling of chains provoked his curiosity more than the voice did. Then he remembered. Blasphet! His eyes jerked open.
 “Ah,” Blasphet said from somewhere near. “You’re back. Good. The dosage affected you more than I would have guessed. You barely stirred while I was strapping you in.”
 Shandrazel tried to turn his head toward his uncle’s voice but couldn’t. His head was held fast by cold, hard bars. He shifted his eyes and flexed his limbs. His whole body was trapped in a narrow cage in which he lay flat, his wings pinned behind him with crossbars trapping his limbs, allowing not even a wiggle. The cage was suspended so that he faced downward. Below him sat a huge pool of black liquid. He noted that the cage bars weren’t metal but were fashioned from thick rods of glass. He would have little trouble breaking them, if only he could get some leverage.
 To the side of the pool he could see a wheel around which was wrapped a sturdy chain. Blasphet stepped into his field of vision, standing beside the wheel, grinning. On the other side of the pool Androkom was chained to the wall, his body slumped over, a stream of drool dripping from his mouth.
 “I designed this for your father,” Blasphet said. “But you’ll do fine for practice. This way I can work out any kinks before I try it on my dear brother.”
 Shandrazel growled. He tensed and released every muscle of his body, struggling for even an inch of movement. The cage began to sway, but only barely.
 “I’d love to stick around,” his uncle said. “Alas, I’m pressed for time. With this device your death will take hours.”
 Blasphet turned the wheel. It clicked once and the cage dropped a fraction of an inch.
 “The pool beneath you is acid. This device allows me to lower you into the pool using precise measurements, then raise you to examine the results. I’ll do a detailed drawing at each step. It should make for fascinating reference material, as the interior of the body is revealed, layer-by-layer. Practicing on you will allow me to get the subtleties worked out for your father. I have this marvelous vision of dissolving his eyelids without touching the eyes,” Blasphet said. “It probably won’t work, but what is life without a dream?”
 Shandrazel kept silent, contemplating his possible actions. His silence prodded Blasphet into talking further.
 “This acid cauterizes wounds, so you could live for several hours once we begin. Who knows? I might spend days on this project. Will you still be alive when we reach your heart? Oh, the suspense!”
 Shandrazel relaxed his entire body. He tried to allow slack to build in the cage. Unfortunately, some mechanism took up the slack. He managed only to immobilize himself further.
 Blasphet looked disappointed. “This is the point where you’re supposed to scream, ‘You’re mad!’”
 “Will you prattle on like this the whole time?” Shandrazel asked. “If so, could you dissolve my ears first?”
 “I may be able to accommodate you,” Blasphet said. “For now, I must bid you farewell. Your father has some business cooked up at dawn, which fast approaches. I believe he plans to kill Bitterwood. I must attend. It’s important I remind him how shallow and meaningless his vengeance will be.”
 Blasphet raised his claw in a gesture of farewell, then turned and vanished from sight. A few seconds later, Shandrazel heard the rattling of a key in a door, then footsteps fading into the distance.
 When he was certain his uncle was gone, he said, “Androkom?”
 Androkom’s eyes opened and he sat up. “I’m awake,” he said. “I didn’t want him to know.”
 “Have you already thought of a way to escape?” Shandrazel asked him.
 “No. You?”
 “Not yet,” Shandrazel said, trying to turn his head. “My field of vision is limited. Tell me everything you see.”
 “You, mostly, the pool and the wheel. The chains holding me, of course. There are two pairs of manacles, one for my wings, one for my legs. They run through iron rings in the wall. They look well made. There are a few lanterns on the other side of the room. My tail’s free but I can’t reach anything of use.”
 To demonstrate, he pulled himself as far from the wall as the chains would allow and thrust his hips forward, his tail snaking between his legs and stretching out about a yard across the pool.
 “Can you touch my cage with your tail?” Shandrazel asked. “If we can get it swaying enough to bang the ceiling, perhaps we could break the bars.”
 Androkom stretched, but his tail failed to reach the cage by several feet.
 “Just as well,” Androkom said. “If we did break the bars, you’d only plummet into the acid. There’s not enough distance for your wings to catch the air.”
 Shandrazel stared into the acrid ebony fluid beneath him. The stench made his nostrils water. He rubbed his snout as much as he could against the cool, smooth glass. The motion pulled one of the delicate feathers that adorned his snout free. It drifted slowly downward. Against the perfect blackness of the pool, it seemed to fall forever, into a void, until it touched the surface. Then, with a hiss, it vanished into nothingness.
 “HERE!” JANDRA SAID, raising papers over her head. “I can’t believe it! After all these hours!”
 Bitterwood rushed to her side and snatched the papers from her hand. The cover page read: “An Inventory of Human Slaves Captured in the Village of Christdale.”
 The first page contained a list of male children. He recognized the names, but one name was missing. What had happened to Adam? He turned the page and saw a list of names of women, and beside each was marked their fate. The widow Tate: dead in transit. His neighbor’s wife, Dorla: sold to a noble dragon from the Isle of Horses. Then Recanna! Ruth! Mary! All had a “K” marked next to their names.
 “What does this mean?” he asked, pointing at the mark. “Please tell me it doesn’t mean ‘killed.’”
 “It means ‘Kitchen,’” Jandra said, looking over his shoulder. “They weren’t sold at auction, but were kept by Albekizan to be put to work in the kitchens.”
 She took a closer look at the names next to Bitterwood’s fingers. All this time they’d searched for the name of his village; he hadn’t told her the names of his family. Her mouth went dry.
 “You can’t mean . . .” Bitterwood’s face broke into a look of joy. “They’re here! My family is within these walls!”
 Jandra didn’t answer. She turned away from him. Perhaps the names were only a coincidence. Perhaps this was a different family. Perhaps . . .
 Bitterwood turned around, the smile falling from his lips. “What?”
 “It’s . . . I knew them,” Jandra said, still with her back to him.
 “Knew? What happened to them? Why won’t you look at me?”
 Jandra spun around. “Because they’re dead! Every human who worked in the palace is dead. Albekizan ordered them killed in retaliation the day after you killed Bodiel.”
 The papers dropped from Bitterwood’s hands, fluttering to the floor around him like dying leaves.
 ZEEKY WOKE TO THE SOUND of voices from below. She had run to the closest building she could find after the dragon dropped her, and spent the day hiding in the attic, waiting for things to calm down so that she could sneak back to the barn.
 But during the day, more residents had arrived in the Free City, and it was her bad luck that out of hundreds of empty buildings, some of the new arrivals had picked the building she hid inside to make their home.
 It was dark outside. What time was it? Something about the smell of the air hinted that it wouldn’t be long now before the dawn.
 The words of the men speaking in the room beneath her were difficult to make out until she heard a now familiar name: Kamon.
 “You can’t mean it,” the first voice said.
 “I saw him with my own eyes,” said the second. “I would have killed him then but he was surrounded by a dozen Kamonites.”
 “I’ll stand with you,” the first voice said. “As will my brothers. Kamon will pay for his poisonous lies.”
 The conversation was dropped suddenly as a loud bang shook the house. Someone had kicked in the door.
 “Humans!” a dragon snarled. “Wake up! You must go to the square! Albekizan will address you!”
 The men raised their voices in protest until a whip cracked, silencing them.
 Suddenly, the trap door to the attic flew open and the beaked head of an earth-dragon popped through, looking straight at Zeeky.
 “Get down here,” he commanded.
 There was no exit save for the hole the dragon was stood in. Luckily, she was small and dragons were slow. She leapt forward over the dragon’s shoulder, sliding down his spine as he uselessly grabbed behind his back, trying to catch her. She grabbed his tail, swinging her feet down to land in a running position. But her feet stopped just inches from the floor. The full weight of her body hung by her collar. She twisted around to see a second earth-dragon holding her at arm’s length, looking at her as if she were some awful bug.
 BLASPHET WHEELED over the scene below. It was early morning; the sun was just peeking over the eastern horizon. All of the residents of the Free City had been gathered in the square, packed in tightly by the guards that stood in thick columns in the adjoining streets. They looked groggy, disoriented. Blasphet’s research had taught him that humans were most sluggish and compliant in the predawn hours. Apparently, his brother knew this as well.
 Toward the front of the crowd, a large platform had been hastily erected overnight. The platform was surrounded by dark-green, heavily armored earth-dragons—nearly the entire unit of the Black Silences—separating the crowd from the platform by rows three dragons deep. On the unpainted boards of the impromptu stage stood Albekizan, looking too smug and satisfied for Blasphet’s comfort.
 Behind Albekizan stood Tanthia, her eyes dark and sunken with depression, a look that Blasphet found quite attractive in a female. A heavy wooden post protruded from the center of the stage next to the king; beside this stood Pertalon, who was laboring to chain the captive Bitterwood with his back to the post and his arms stretched high above his head. Bitterwood’s wrists were fastened to an iron ring, leaving his toes barely touching the platform. Completing the group on the dais were the hunter, Zanzeroth, and Kanst, dressed in his full ceremonial armor. With a turn of his wings and a rustle of scales, Blasphet dropped to the platform to complete the assembly.
 Albekizan didn’t acknowledge Blasphet’s arrival. Instead he checked Bitterwood’s chains as a leather strap was placed around the prisoner’s head. He then tied the strap around the post in such a manner as to ensure that the human couldn’t look away from the crowd.
 The crowd murmured in speculation. Blasphet noted one voice in particular in which he could recognize madness, always an interesting quality.
 “The prophecy!” the madman shouted. “It is as I foretold! Bitterwood must suffer this hour so that we can be free!”
 Small chance of that, Blasphet thought.
 “Well, Brother,” Blasphet said. “Today’s your big day. Tell me, do you intend to kill him quickly? Or perhaps make it last hours, as if that will bring release from these endless days of mourning he has inflicted upon you?”
 “His fate will be prolonged,” the king said. He moved behind the post and reached his claws around, placing them on Bitterwood’s face.
 “Do your worst,” Bitterwood said, though Blasphet’s trained ear could hear the deep current of fear flowing beneath his brave words. “I don’t fear death!”
 “Nor should you,” King Albekizan said. With his sharp claws he grabbed the skin above and below the captive’s eyes and forced them open. “For it is not your death we are here to witness. This is a public execution.”
 Blasphet felt the scales along his back rise.
 The king continued. “You’ll watch as my troops slaughter this mass before you, an unspeakable tableau of gore and agony. When this crowd is exhausted, we shall gather another, and another, and another, and all will die, day after day after day, because of you. Only when the last human in my kingdom has been killed will I grant you the surrender of death.”
 “No!” shouted Bitterwood.
 “No!” shouted Blasphet, rushing forward. He wouldn’t allow his brother to ruin his plans for the Free City by killing everyone before the experiment had even begun. Before he could reach the king, Pertalon jumped into his path and held him from his goal.
 As the two struggled, Bitterwood cried, “Kill me! My life for theirs! I’m the one who wronged you!”
 “Kanst,” Albekizan said, his eyes gleaming in the dawn light. “Give the command.”
 HEZEKIAH TWISTED HIS NECK from side to side as Vendevorex sat back, exhausted. The artificial man flexed his hands, almost like a human would flex a limb that had been asleep. “My mobility is restored,” Hezekiah said in a tinny, hollow voice. “I assume you’re done with me?”
 “You assume wrong,” Vendevorex said, handing the prophet his broad-brimmed hat. As Hezekiah donned the hat, Vendevorex lifted the heavy axe with a grunt. He held it to the artificial man and said, “You and I are just getting started.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
* * *
GO!
KANST LIFTED his gleaming ceremonial sword high over his head, then sliced it down in a swift arc. With his deep, booming voice, he shouted, “Kill them!”
 WHEN AT LAST Bitterwood spoke, Jandra could barely hear him.
 “What?” she asked.
 “Go,” Bitterwood whispered.
 “Not yet,” she said.
 “Go,” he repeated, more forcefully.
 “But—”
 “Go!” he screamed. “Go!”
 The look on his face—a twisted mask of distorted pain and anger—told her he would never listen to her words. Still she had to speak them.
 “Fine,” she said. “Blame yourself. Act as if nothing matters but your own guilt. Let Pet die in your place, let Zeeky rot away inside the Free City, let the whole world come crashing down. But I’m going to try to stop it!”
 Jandra turned and ran, not bothering to render herself invisible. She had been a fool to trust him.
 THE CROWD SCREAMED as the guards surged forward.
 Zeeky hadn’t seen or heard what had happened on the stage, for she was near the back of the crowd. She cried out, frightened, as the crowd pushed her about like a mouse batted by a dozen cats. “What’s happening?” she begged.
 Suddenly, the adults closest to her screamed louder, and the crushing pressure of bodies abated as the crowd parted. The people were fleeing from a snarling ox-dog, a whip-wielding earth-dragon mounted in the large saddle on its back. As the adults ran the gigantic beast locked its dark eyes on Zeeky’s small figure and bounded toward her, barking, its teeth bared, its tan neck hairs standing up like brush bristles.
 “Aw,” said Zeeky, in an instant forgetting the confusion of the crowd. Here was something she understood. “Aren’t you a big ‘un?”
 The ox-dog skidded to a halt before her, thrusting its face into hers, growling, its steaming breath foul with the smell of fresh blood.
 “You’re just a big puppy, ain’t ya?” she said.
 The ox-dog stopped growling. “Hrunmph,” it snorted.
 Zeeky reached out and scratched the dog above his big, wet, black nose. The hair on the dog’s neck relaxed. It showed gratitude for her scratches with a big, wet lick of its pink tongue.
 The dragon in the saddle lashed the beast’s flanks with his whip. “Forward, Killer! Attack! Attack!”
 The ox-dog’s right legs buckled and he rolled over, tossing the dragon from the saddle. As the dog rolled, he crushed the dragon with the whole of his massive weight before coming once more to his feet. The humans in the crowd scrambled to stay out of the beast’s way.
 “Damn you, Killer,” the dragon wheezed as he struggled to stand. He raised his whip. “I’ll thrash some obedience into you yet!”
 Killer opened his huge jaws and leaned forward, placed his maw over the dragon’s head, then closed his mouth.
 “Ret goo!” the dragon shouted, his voice muffled.
 The ox-dog shook his head from side to side, jerking the screaming dragon from his feet. Zeeky ducked as the dragon’s feet passed just over her head. It was too awful to watch, even if it was happening to a dragon.
 “Put him down!” she said, placing her hands on her hips and looking stern. “Right now!”
 The ox-dog paused, looking at her. Then he flipped his head to the side once more, hard, and let go. The dragon sailed for a few brief seconds of flight, his wingless limbs beating the air in a vain attempt to control his motion. Then he fell among the turbulent crowd of humans and was gone.
 The ox-dog again turned its attention to Zeeky, letting its foot-wide tongue hang from its mouth.
 “Good boy,” Zeeky said. Then her fear and confusion returned as the crowd continued to scream and mill about. Still, Zeeky was safe in a bubble that formed about ten feet around the ox-dog. Even panicked people steered clear of such a beast. All Zeeky wanted was to get away from here. She had to go to the stables to find Poocher then leave this terrible place forever.
 She grabbed the stirrup of the saddle and managed to pull herself up. From her new vantage point she could see dragons killing people all around her. Tears filled her eyes.
 “Get me out of here!” she sobbed.
 Killer woofed in agreement. The ox-dog wheeled around, racing forward toward a gap that opened as dragons fell over one another to get out of Killer’s way. Zeeky closed her eyes tightly and swore that if she ever got home, she’d never run away again.
 A QUICK, INVISIBLE FLIGHT gave Vendevorex a view of the catastrophe. He’d heard the soldiers moving through the streets before dawn, commanding the humans to the gathering, but he never anticipated the scene below. Albekizan was on the platform, standing behind Pet, holding the human’s eyes open. Behind the king a large black-scaled sun-dragon struggled with a sky-dragon. Blasphet?
 Kanst continued to bark out orders. Hundreds of dragons tore into the crowd. Vendevorex needed to think the situation over but there was no time. The only thing that offered a brief glimmer of hope was that a few of the humans had managed to overwhelm the earth-dragons with their numbers and now fought back with stolen arms.
 Vendevorex swooped back to street and called out, “Hezekiah! Come!”
 The black-robed figure emerged from the nearby building as Vendevorex landed on the dusty street.
 “Go to the square,” Vendevorex said. Until this moment, he’d hoped that the situation might be diffused without bloodshed. Now there was no time for subtlety. He gave the command he’d hoped to avoid: “Kill every dragon you see.”
 “Even you?” the artificial man asked.
 “No, except me.”
 “And other sky-dragons? Don’t kill them?”
 “Kill sky-dragons, except for me,” Vendevorex said, wishing he’d had time to do a little more sophisticated job on the logic loops. “Kill sun-dragons, too, earth-dragons, great lizards, and ox-dogs. Don’t hurt people.”
 “I will obey,” Hezekiah said. He turned, swung his axe up to rest on his shoulder, and marched off in the direction of the commotion.
 “Hurry!” Vendevorex said.
 Hezekiah began to run, streaking down the street with inhuman velocity. Vendevorex knew what Hezekiah was capable of. The automaton could kill every dragon in the Free City given time. Yet with each second that passed, dozens of humans died. Vendevorex needed to do something big to tilt the odds but felt a chill at the thought of making himself known. The presence of Albekizan and Kanst didn’t bother him. Unfortunately, Zanzeroth stood on the platform as well.
 BLASPHET WASN’T USED to physical confrontations and quickly found himself in the humiliating position of being pushed to his belly by the much more skillful Pertalon. The sky-dragon twisted Blasphet’s wings behind his back, causing him to cry out in pain. Blasphet whipped his tail up around Pertalon’s neck but couldn’t pull hard enough to dislodge his tormentor.
 “Zanzeroth,” Pertalon said. “Bring me chains.”
 Zanzeroth didn’t answer. The pressure on Blasphet’s wings shifted ever so slightly as Pertalon twisted around to see where the hunter had gone. With Pertalon distracted, Blasphet flicked the fake nail from his right fore-talon with his thumb, revealing the sharpened claw beneath, wet with poison. With his wrist twisted painfully, he could barely scratch his opponent, but the barest scratch was enough.
 “Wha—” Pertalon began, but never finished the syllable.
 The pressure on Blasphet’s wings ceased as the weight fell from his back. He rose and turned to the already dead Pertalon who lay twisted in pain. Blasphet kicked the corpse, angry that he’d been forced to waste one of his poisons on such an insignificant fool. Still, Kanst’s back was to him, for the general was busy shouting commands to the Black Silences that surrounded the platform. Zanzeroth had vanished, not that Blasphet had been overly worried about the hunter, still half-crippled from his wounds. As he’d expected, Albekizan was too busy laughing at the sea of carnage before him to pay any attention to Blasphet. Blasphet shuddered at the sound of elation in the king’s voice. He’d hoped to never see his brother this happy again.
 Then let him die happy, thought Blasphet. With a flick of his left fore-talon, his final poisoned claw was revealed.
 HIGH ABOVE, ZANZEROTH circled, looking through the seemingly endless field of faces below him. The real Bitterwood had to be among them. Ever since his nose had healed enough to restore his sense of smell, he’d known beyond all doubt that the prisoner Albekizan tormented wasn’t Bitterwood. He’d chosen the wrong man, no doubt due to his exhaustion and injuries. In retrospect, he couldn’t have planned events better. The intervening days had allowed Zanzeroth time to rest and recover a bit from his wounds. He wasn’t fully healed, but he felt strong enough to face any man, especially now that it would be he who held the element of surprise. Albekizan had his own victim to torment. This left the true Bitterwood as his prey alone. He need not share his revenge with anyone, not even a king. Alas, the carnage unleashed now threatened to steal Bitterwood once more from his grasp. He had to find the man, and quickly.
 Then he spotted a human attacking from behind the line of the dragons, tearing through the rear troops like a demon. Bitterwood? Zanzeroth swooped for a closer look. The man below was dressed in black and fought with an axe, and continued to fight even with three spears embedded in him. The man stood ankle deep in foul mud created by the blood and offal of slain dragons. The human wasn’t Bitterwood, but Zanzeroth was impressed nonetheless. Who was this?
 “NO! I’LL KILL YOU!”
 Blasphet didn’t have time to turn and face the female voice that cried out behind him. A wave of patchouli washed over him. Blasphet crashed once more to the rough boards of the platform as Tanthia threw herself against him, her painted claws digging into the skin of his neck.
 “You took my brother,” she screamed. “You won’t take my husband!”
 Blasphet twisted in her grasp, bringing himself face to face. Her cheeks glistened liked jewels from her tears. Tanthia was strong and his equal in size, but no more used to combat than he. He pulled her claws from his neck with ease, taking care not to prick her with the exposed poison.
 “Your devotion is commendable,” he said through clenched teeth as he twisted her wrists backward, using the pain to force her from him. “Now be a dear and go gather wood for the pyre, hmm?”
 “Murderer!” she shouted, and thrust her jaws forward, clamping her teeth deep into his shoulder.
 “Aiigh!” Blasphet shrieked. Enough was enough. Albekizan would have to wait. He ran the sharpened, poisoned claw along Tanthia’s slender neck. Her jaws slackened and she fell with a sigh.
 Blasphet looked back. Kanst still hadn’t noticed him. His attention was focused on a battle at the front of the platform, and he certainly couldn’t have heard the struggle over the deafening cries of anguish that rolled through the air like unending thunder. The roar now washed out even Albekizan’s mad laughter.
 Spotting Pertalon’s sword, Blasphet considered running his brother through from behind. But if his brother survived the blow, he’d fight much harder than Pertalon or Tanthia. The time had come to return to the tower for more poison. With luck, he would be back before Albekizan even noticed he was gone.
 HE HAD GONE MAD. He must be mad. Why couldn’t he go mad? Pet screamed and could barely hear his own voice over the crowd’s panicked shouts. The tears that blurred his vision rolled down his cheeks, across the sharp-nailed claws clamped upon them. Albekizan laughed wildly.
 He would go mad. He had to go mad. But he couldn’t. Pet could only watch through the teary mist as men, women, and children died before him by the uncounted hundreds, some at the hands of dragons, many more beneath the trampling feet of their fellow stampeding men.
 “Stop it!” he shouted. “Oh please, stop it!”
 “Your cries are music, Bitterwood,” Albekizan shouted. “You wanted to save them! You killed in their name! Look what you’ve done! Look what you’ve done!”
 Pet looked for he had no choice. However, he stilled his voice in his throat. He would not beg. Albekizan wouldn’t have that satisfaction, at least. Albekizan released his eyelids as he had every minute, perhaps to make sure he wouldn’t go blind. Pet clamped his eyes shut but to no avail. The king’s claws upon his cheeks and brow quickly pried them open again. His vision fresh once more, Pet looked upon the violence before him. He noticed some intense fighting immediately before the platform, where a group of men had wrested weapons from the Black Silences and now defended themselves fiercely.
 Tears robbed his sight of clarity before he could be sure of what he had seen. Could the men truly have been winning?
 JANDRA BURST FROM THE STABLES astride a dappled mare, knocking aside the earth-dragon stable hand. She dug her heels into the horse’s flank and raced toward the open gate. Even from this great distance she could hear the cries from the Free City. What was happening? Was she already too late to save Pet?
 Then she saw the glow towering above the walls of the Free City.
 “SIRE,” KANST SAID, placing his claws on the king’s shoulder. “We must go!”
 Albekizan turned his head, fixing a gaze like daggers upon Kanst.
 “What?” asked the king.
 “Sire, the guards around this platform can’t hold out. The sheer weight of the humans is crushing them. For every ten we slay, a hundred take their place. I warned you that—”
 “Kanst,” Albekizan said, “it is not your duty to warn me. It’s your duty to see that your soldiers fight on. Join the fray if you must, but do not interrupt me again!”
 “Sire, Queen Tanthia is dead,” Kanst said, revealing what he had discovered only seconds ago.
 “What?” Albekizan released Pet, spinning around. His jaw dropped open at the sight of his beloved queen, lying still, as if asleep. “How?”
 “I don’t know,” Kanst said. “Both she and Pertalon are dead without a wound on them. Zanzeroth is missing, as is Blasphet. I fear betrayal.”
 Albekizan looked dazed. Then he looked up, his eyes wide. Kanst followed his gaze into the glowing sky.
 ZANZEROTH COULDN’T RESIST. He might never find Bitterwood among the crowd, but there was no way he could lose the man with the axe. All his life Zanzeroth had craved hunting the most dangerous prey he could locate. Never had he seen a challenge such as this. Single-handedly, the human had broken an entire regiment, leaving a street cluttered with the bodies of a hundred dragons over which the humans now fled, spilling from the square like water surging through a hole in a dam. A few dragons fled before them, one mounted on an ox-dog—no, that wasn’t a dragon in the saddle but a child. And was that a pig in her lap? No matter. The axe-man chased down one of the remaining earth-dragons who tried to flee by climbing to the roof of a building. The man now stood on the rooftop as the soldier cowered before him, pleading for mercy. As the man raised his axe to kill his panicked victim, Zanzeroth made his decision. Here was the true test of his prowess.
 He braced his spear in his hind claws and folded back his wings, angling into a dive. He noted the light brightening behind him, like the sun coming from behind a cloud. His shadow touched the black-robed man who turned his head in time to see Zanzeroth, his spear tip now inches away.
 THE GLOW AROUND VENDEVOREX shifted, swirled, and coalesced as he mentally positioned the floating particles in the edges of the field. All below looked up, both men and dragons. Vendevorex activated the white plastic disk he’d removed from Hezekiah’s torso. Stamped on the outer edge of the plastic were the words, “Voice of God™.”
 “I AM VENDEVOREX!” he announced. His amplified words boomed like a clap of thunder and the din of voices beneath him lessened. He swooped within the sphere of light that surrounded him, careful to maintain the motionless illusion that he had created. Vendevorex had grown to a hundred feet in height, his eyes bright with flame, lightning playing about his outstretched wings. He decided on a last second improvement to the illusion, and suddenly his claws became the blue-gray of hardened-steel as they grew as long as swords. “HEED ME, O DRAGONS! DROP YOUR WEAPONS, OR FACE MY WRATH! THIS BATTLE IS OVER!”
 “THE HELL IT IS,” Pet heard a nearby man shout, and a dozen men joined him in a battle cry. The sound of blade against blade rung all around the platform.
 “Sire,” Kanst said behind him.
 “I’ve considered your advice, Kanst,” Albekizan said, his voice trembling. “I’ll return to the castle. Make sure your soldiers continue to fight. And kill that damned wizard! Do it personally!”
 “Of course, Sire,” Kanst said.
 The entire platform shuddered as Albekizan and Kanst leapt into the sky like sparrows before a cat. Alone on the platform, Pet struggled to free himself to no avail.
 ALIVE, THOUGHT ZANZEROTH as he heard the wizard’s voice. It was too late to turn back now. His spear struck the black-robed man squarely in the chest. Zanzeroth tilted his wings so that his great speed would cause him to swoop skyward, carrying the impaled human with him. Alas, the human proved too heavy for the maneuver; he was more like a mound of stone than flesh. The spear shaft snapped. The human was thrown to his back by the force of the blow but Zanzeroth’s momentum shifted as well. Instead of returning to the sky, he hit the rooftop hard. He slid across the wooden roof, splinters tearing away his bandages, until he collided with the brick chimney. His breath exploded from him in a pained cry.
 “DRAGONS!” Vendevorex shouted. “RETURN TO YOUR BARRACKS AT ONCE! FEAR MY VENGEANCE!”
 Alas, the dragons didn’t seem to fear his vengeance as much as he’d hoped. Below him, the fighting resumed once more, though the dragons now fought more defensively as the humans surged against their ranks. To stop fighting was to risk death. But perhaps there was another way to stop the battle. Albekizan had taken flight, as had Kanst who flew straight toward the illusion. If he could slay them here, in full sight of the troops, the war would be won.
 Kanst reached the edge of the illusion and struck with his spear, then spun off balance when the blow connected only with air. Vendevorex knew he’d never have a better chance. He shifted his concentration to his hind-talons, allowing the illusion around him to crumble as he formed a boiling ball of the Vengeance of the Ancestors. He hurled the flaming orb toward his target.
 Kanst recovered from the missed blow much faster than Vendevorex would have guessed. The general turned, steadying himself on outstretched wings, just in time to face the flame that raced toward him. He then did the worst thing possible from Vendevorex’s view. He thrust his chest forward, straight into the path of the flame, allowing the deadly plasma to splash against his iron breastplate.
 Iron. The one thing the Vengeance wouldn’t burn.
 ZANZEROTH SHOOK HIS HEAD to chase away the stars. There was the faintest vibration on the boards beneath him.
 Move.
 He rolled aside as the axe sunk deep into the wood where he had rested. He kept rolling, tumbling from the roof’s edge, letting the rush of wind catch his wings. He pushed himself higher into the air, noticing Vendevorex attacking Kanst. There was no time to give thought as to why the wizard was still alive. He wheeled in the air, bringing himself around once more toward the roof. The man stood, his axe tightly gripped in both hands, his legs braced, his eyes fixed upon Zanzeroth. Zanzeroth passed over the rooftop well beyond the man’s reach as he freed his whip from his belt with his tail, placing it in his rear talons.
 “Let’s see how formidable you are without that axe,” he said.
 The hunter climbed higher in the air then wheeled once more, diving straight at his opponent. The human raised the axe, preparing to strike. At the last second Zanzeroth pulled up as the human swung his axe forward. With a flick of his hind claws the whip snared the axe-shaft, ripping it from the man’s hands.
 KANST COULD SEE THE LOOK of consternation in the wizard’s eyes. He hurled the heavy spear he carried in his rear claws. Vendevorex folded up his wings and dropped from the spear’s path, then, spreading his wings once more, vanished.
 “Damn!” Kanst shouted, flying to the spot where the wizard had just been.
 “Lose something?”
 A sudden weight on his back sent Kanst listing sideways. The wizard had latched onto him, securing himself with his tail around the general’s waist and his claws on each of his wings, the only large expanse of Kanst’s body not protected by armor. In horror, Kanst watched flames burst from his exposed skin. The air rushing over his wings pushed the flames rapidly along their entire length.
 The weight on his back lifted as Vendevorex released him. Waves of excruciating pain swept over Kanst’s mind but failed to wash away the realization that he was going to die.
 But not alone‌.‌.‌.
 He swung his tail about, hitting the wizard’s leg. He constricted his tail with all his strength. Vendevorex struggled, but to no avail, as Kanst jerked him closer and clamped his rear claws into the wizard’s shin. Then Kanst simply closed his blistered wings to his side and fell. The wizard’s wings couldn’t support their weight. The ground was a long way down.
 ZANZEROTH LANDED, brandishing the axe. The weapon was heavy, even for a dragon, and slick with red-brown gore. Zanzeroth felt his hunting spirit stir at the familiar scent of blood and excrement. The black-robed man charged across the roof toward him, as expected. Zanzeroth was ready. He pushed his tail around in a rapid arc, catching the man’s legs while he was still two yards away. As his foe stumbled forward the hunter struck, bringing the axe down hard in the center of the man’s back, severing the spinal cord. His foe fell to the roof, face-first. Zanzeroth relaxed. That had been easier than expected.
 Then the human’s arms thrust forward, grabbing Zanzeroth’s ankle. Zanzeroth was startled more by the movement than by the pain of the man’s incredible grip. How could he fight with his spine severed?
 With a grunt Zanzeroth swung the axe against the man’s elbow, severing the arm. But the hand that held him didn’t release him. In fact, it squeezed harder still. With a sickening snap his ankle gave way and Zanzeroth toppled.
 The human rose to his knees. Zanzeroth felt panic rising in him and struck out in fear, swinging the axe with one talon and landing a solid blow against the back of the man’s head. His opponent ignored the blow and rose to his feet.
 Zanzeroth sat up, getting into a position to better defend himself. The hand that held his ankle released him, and scratched its way toward the blood-soaked man, who casually lifted it and placed it back in its proper place.
 “What are you?” Zanzeroth muttered.
 “His name that sat on him was Death,” the man said in a squeaky, hollow voice. He straightened the brim of his hat before advancing on Zanzeroth. “And hell followed with him.”
 VENDEVOREX COULDN’T BELIEVE Kanst’s will. Even with his wings engulfed in flames he wouldn’t release his grip. Vendevorex beat the air but to little avail. The general’s armored weight was too great. He was being dragged down into the crowd of humans below. From the corner of his eye he could see Hezekiah on a nearby roof, and Zanzeroth sprawled before him, looking seriously wounded. If only he could stay in the air long enough to guide the path of his descent, he could reach the artificial man who was more than capable of prying Kanst free.
 With a mighty effort he turned toward the rooftop. As he stretched his wings to their fullest to slow his descent, something in his shoulder snapped from the strain. They plummeted earthward.
 ZANZEROTH SAW THE BALL of flame that had been Kanst blazing toward the roof. The unkillable man stepped closer. Zanzeroth kicked out and up with his good leg, catching him in the crotch. No look of pain passed upon the man’s face, but the blow still had the intended effect, pushing his foe backward, straight into the path of the hurtling fireball.
 AT THE LAST POSSIBLE SECOND, mere yards from the roof, Kanst’s grip slackened. He’d finally lost consciousness. Vendevorex thrust his wings out once more, fighting the pain, pulling himself free of the sun-dragon’s body. He watched as Kanst plummeted to the rooftop, smashing directly into Hezekiah’s back.
 Hezekiah staggered forward, the Vengeance quickly racing across his skin, engulfing him. Vendevorex swooped closer, mentally willing the flames to cease. Hezekiah was built out of much more advanced materials than simple iron. Vendevorex had no clue how the Vengeance would react with these materials.
 The fire only brightened as chemical reactions beyond Vendevorex’s control raced through the body of the artificial man. Vendevorex decided he didn’t want to be around when the flames penetrated Hezekiah’s power supply. He raced upward, only to have the shock wave lift him faster than his wings could. A thunderous explosion deafened him. An unbearable flood of heat engulfed him, singeing his scales, burning all air from his lungs.
 A second wave of concussion slammed into him, then vanished. The atmosphere became too thin to support his wings, and he fell earthward once more, the world going black.
 “FIGHT ON!” a dragon on the platform shouted, but it was too late. The humans charged the remaining Black Silences, cutting them down with the weapons taken from their fellows.
 “Release the savior!” someone shouted.
 Pet felt the leather strap that held his head slacken. His heart leapt as the post that held him shuddered with a loud crack of a sword striking chains. Pet toppled forward but never reached the ground. Hands thrust in all around him, lowering him carefully to his feet.
 Pet recognized a few of the dozen faces before him from Chakthalla’s village. He was startled to see Kamon, the ancient mad prophet among them. How many men must have died to keep the old fool alive through all of this?
 Kamon raised his hands toward the sky as he cried, “It is as I prophesied! We have freed the savior from his bonds so that he may free us from ours!”
 “No!” someone shouted.
 The men turned to face another small crowd of men who had climbed onto the platform. They, too, were armed with weapons taken from the bodies of dragons. Their leader was a tall naked man with intense, angry eyes. His coal-black beard hung all the way down to his pubic hair. The only article of cloth on his body was a blood-red ribbon tied around his forehead, holding back a mane of dark hair that reached halfway down his back. He was thin yet well muscled, and tanned so darkly it seemed that his nakedness was a way of life. The naked man shouted, “I am the Prophet Ragnar! Bitterwood is the savior I prophesied! Release him, filthy Kamonites, and we’ll grant you swift, merciful deaths!”
 “We’ll fight your blasphemy to our dying breath!” Kamon shouted.
 “Then die, infidels!” Ragnar cried, brandishing his sword.
 “Stop!” Pet shouted. To his surprise, they did.
 “I don’t believe this,” Pet said. “The dragons are killing us by the hundreds and you fight among yourselves?”
 “These heathen dogs are undeserving to breathe the same air as you,” Kamon growled. “Let us remove their hideous faces from your sight.”
 Ragnar stamped his feet in anger. Purple veins bulged in his neck as he shouted, “They are the dogs! Kamon has tainted three generations of men with the false doctrine of compliance with dragons. He has brought this horrible day upon us!”
 Kamon shook his withered, age-speckled fist. “Fools! We were to obey the dragons until the savior arose! That day has come to pass, as I foretold! Now we must cleanse the awful stench of dragons from this world!”
 “Shut up,” Pet said, running his fingers through his hair in exasperation. “You think I’m some kind of mythic figure from prophecy? You’re wrong. I’m not your savior. All I am is mad as hell. Albekizan must pay for what’s happened today. If it’s dragon blood you want, follow me. I’ll fight until there’s no life left in my body! What we do this day may decide the fate of all mankind. Who’s with me?”
 “I am!” Ragnar shouted.
 “We are!” Kamon said.
 “For humanity!” Pet cried, grabbing the sword of a fallen dragon and lifting it high.
 All around him they answered, “For Bitterwood!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
* * *
DEATH
WRONG. IT’S ALL GONE WRONG . . . Blasphet could see his dreams crumbling from the tower balcony. Albekizan had fled, Kanst and Zanzeroth had fallen, and now the mad mob of humans threatened to burst through the lines of the remaining, dispirited earth-dragons. Damn Albekizan!
 And damn himself. All of this, he knew, was his fault for letting his brother live despite a thousand opportunities to slay him. His fatal flaw, he realized, was his love of torturing his victims. He was like a cat who played with mice, never quite learning that the mice too often escaped. But no more.
 Blasphet stormed down the stairs of the tower toward the dungeon. Before he went to find Albekizan, he would kill Shandrazel. Nothing subtle. Nothing fancy. He’d simply slit his throat. The thought made him giddy. He felt liberated.
 He turned the key in the lock and pushed the heavy door open, revealing the acid chamber. His jaw dropped at the sight. The glass cage lay in the pool with all but its uppermost bars submerged, revealing shattered glass at the joints where the iron chains had fastened. A slight mist hung over the pool bearing the scent of burnt scales and boiled flesh.
 Androkom still lay slouched against the wall.
 Blasphet stepped into the chamber toward the acid pool. Only one thing could have happened. He’d misjudged Shandrazel’s strength. The prince’s struggles must have shattered the glass bars, dropping him into the acid. Blasphet noted the wheel that lowered the cage hadn’t changed position. Wait. Something was missing. The long, iron handle that attached to the wheel had vanished.
 The scales rose along his back. He turned and saw the steel handle, wrapped in the sinewy fingers of a large red fist. Both traveled toward his snout at an incredible speed.
 WRONG. IT’S ALL GONE WRONG . . . Albekizan dropped from the sky toward the open doors of the throne room. He thought of the last time he’d seen his son here, his beautiful Bodiel, his feathers gleaming as if they truly were fragments of the sun. Such joy he’d known. Joy turned to grief so quickly. Shouldn’t grief turn to satisfaction, at least eventually? Didn’t he deserve this one small comfort?
 Perhaps it wouldn’t be too late, once Kanst disposed of that meddling wizard. He would wait for the news of Vendevorex’s death on his throne, surrounded by his remaining guards.
 “Guards!” he called out as he swooped through the wide doors and brought his feet down on the polished marble. The hall was gloomy, dark and shadowy, even in the early morning light. Then it struck him. The torches were all extinguished. The spirits of his ancestors were gone.
 “No!” he cried, and rushed forward, grabbing the charred stick of wood that sat in the golden holder beside the throne.
 “No,” he whispered, and touched the oily black tip, still warm. This faint heat was all that remained of Bodiel. His child of fire was gone forever.
 “No,” he said, dropping the dead torch, craning his head toward the ceiling. His body felt weak. His knees buckled, and he slid against the golden pedestal of his throne, knocking the silk cushions onto the floor.
 “No,” he said, though only the barest sound escaped his throat. But he knew, despite his protests, that it was true. Even the soul of his son was now dead.
 Albekizan trembled. He clenched his eyes shut and prayed that he, right then and there, would burst into flames. He willed himself to spark, to burn, to explode in a holocaust that would ignite the torches once more, would set the whole castle ablaze, and the forests beyond, and even the oceans would become fire!
 But it didn’t happen. It couldn’t happen. His powerlessness to make it happen burned at him more hotly than the heat of a thousand suns.
 He opened his eyes to the distant ceiling. He lowered his gaze along the shadowed wall above the throne, down once more to the blackened stick that lay at his feet.
 “Oh, Bodiel,” Albekizan whispered, his voice wet and weak. “Your father loved you.”
 Suddenly, the burning in his heart became a chill and he looked up once more to the wall above the throne, to confirm with his mind what his eyes had already seen. The wall was empty save for the decorative tapestries.
 The bow and quiver were gone.
 “Guards!” he shouted, his voice echoing through the halls of the castle.
 “They won’t answer,” someone said with a voice as cold as the winter wind. The last remnants of smoke from the dead torches swirled across the marble floor.
 “Who?” Albekizan said, rising, spinning around, looking all about the shadowed hall. “Who speaks?”
 “I, Bitterwood,” the voice answered, echoing in such a way that it could have come from any of the doorways leading into the room.
 “It can’t be! You’re in the Free City! You’re chained to the post!”
 “You captured only a man,” the cold voice answered. “I am the shadow on the stone. I am lighting striking forever against the earth. I am the Death of All Dragons, the Ghost Who Kills. I come this day for you, Albekizan. I do not meet thee as a man.”
 A faint whistle cut through the air.
 Albekizan pitched forward at the impact to his shoulder. He regained his balance and looked at the arrow shaft jutting through the muscle. Red feather scales crowned the shaft. The pain was distant, unreal. The flame once more flickered within Albekizan’s soul.
 “It is you!” His voice trailed off into a laugh. “Is this your best? You’ll never kill me!”
 “I have two more arrows,” the voice answered, mockingly.
 Albekizan turned. The arrow and the voice had to come from the hall leading to what had been Vendevorex’s tower.
 “Stand before me,” he demanded. “Kill me now, if you can.”
 He listened hard. The voice didn’t answer but Albekizan was certain he heard footsteps. He ran into the hallway in pursuit of the fleeing ghost. He found the body of a guard and blood pooled on the stone . . . and beyond this, a mark in the shape of the human’s boot. Any force of nature solid enough to wield a bow and leave footprints was solid enough to rip apart with tooth and claw.
 “FORWARD,” PET SHOUTED as his band of men rushed in pursuit of a squad of fleeing dragons. His forces had grown from two dozen to two hundred, as men gathered about him to serve the legendary Bitterwood.
 Pet knew it was rage against the day’s atrocities that gave the men the strength to fight, not his shouted commands. The men fought mercilessly, seeking vengeance against an oppressor who had held them beneath his heel their whole lives, only to have finally stumbled.
 The fleeing dragons—a force of perhaps twenty—reached a dead-end and turned to face their pursuers. Pet was left behind as the majority of his men rushed into combat with them. A small force of Kamon’s men stayed by his side, and they set to work on the dozens of dragon bodies that lay trampled in the street, liberating them of weapons and shields.
 “Hey,” one of the men said as he lifted the wing of a sprawled sky-dragon. “This one’s still breathing!”
 “Then make him stop,” Kamon said. Pet looked at the dragon and thought he looked familiar. The man above the dragon raised his sword.
 “Stop!” Pet shouted, recognizing the dragon.
 “What?” the man asked, looking confused.
 “Don’t you recognize him?” Pet moved forward and placed his arm on the man’s forearm, lowering the sword. “It’s Vendevorex, the wizard. He’s on our side.”
 Kamon sneered, his braided mustache twitching, and said, “We ally ourselves with no dragons. All must die.”
 “Look,” Pet said. “I’m Bitterwood. You’re Kamon. Which one of us is the unstoppable dragonslayer, the last hope of humanity; you or me?”
 The old prophet grimaced. “You are,” he whispered.
 “Then hold your tongue and fetch some water. Let’s see if we can revive him.”
 Kamon’s wrinkled face turned red, but he turned around and headed for a nearby rain barrel.
 Pet knelt next to the wizard, checking the pulse in his throat. It was weak and unsteady. Except for a few scorch marks and some nasty gashes in his legs, Vendevorex was nowhere near as bloodied and torn as he’d been the last time Pet had seen him. If he’d survived what happened in Chakthalla’s hall, he’d survive this. Or would he? His body had footprints all over where men and dragons had trampled him. Who knew what injuries bled deep inside him?
 “Help me,” Pet said to one of the nearby men.
 Together they turned the wizard onto his back, then carried him onto the closest porch. Vendevorex’s breath came in wet gasps. Blood drooled from his limp jaw. His silver skullcap was missing. Pet noticed how quiet the Free City was becoming, with distant cries and the occasional clash of steel on steel growing ever more rare. They had won this battle, but at what cost? For every dead body of a dragon he counted, he’d counted two humans, mostly women and children. After this day, things could never be as they had been. Albekizan had to be removed from the throne, and he was the only one left to do it, unless the wizard could be revived. He wondered what Jandra would say if she could see him now.
 Jandra. Had she, too, died among the crush of bodies? What use was it to turn invisible when death touched you from all sides? He couldn’t help but hope she still lived. She was the most resourceful woman he’d ever met.
 Kamon brought him a dirty rag, sopping with water.
 “Thank you,” Pet said, dabbing at the fallen wizard’s brow. “Now, I have a new task for your men. I have reason to believe that somewhere in this city is a woman with long brown . . . Rather, make that short black hair. Her name is Jandra. Go through the city and call out her name, and bring her to me when you find her.”
 “Yes,” Kamon said. “At once. But where will you be?”
 “Right here,” said Pet, taking Vendevorex’s fore-talon into his hand and squeezing it. “If he’s going to die, I’m not going to let him die alone.”
 THE HALL FLOOR was slick with blood. The horrified look on the severed head of the guard that lay before him told Albekizan that his foe had passed this way. How terrible Bitterwood must be to look upon.
 The door to Vendevorex’s tower lay battered from its hinges. Bloodied footprints led over it and into the absolute darkness beyond. Without warning, the second arrow streaked toward him.
 “PET!”
 Pet looked toward the woman’s voice. At a nearby corner he saw a horse, its reigns held by one of Kamon’s men who led it toward him. On the back of the horse sat Jandra.
 “You’re alive!” he shouted, releasing Vendevorex’s talon and running to meet her.
 “I’ve come to rescue you,” she said, her voice full of jest. Then a horrified look passed over her face. “I’m sorry. How awful to make jokes at a time like this. I’m happy to see you again, but . . . all these people dead. I never imagined anything like this was possible.”
 Pet reached for her arms and helped her down from the horse.
 “I understand,” he said. “And you may rescue me yet. These men want a revolution. We’ve won this battle, but not the war. Albekizan must pay for this. He’ll die much quicker if we can save Vendevorex.”
 “Save him? What happened? I was riding toward the Free City when I saw the light in the sky. I saw something that looked like him—”
 “He was magnificent,” Pet said. “He appeared in the sky, a hundred feet tall. He looked like a god. His appearance alone put Albekizan to flight, and then he slew Kanst single-handedly. The sight broke the morale of the dragons. But Vendevorex vanished after that, until now. We found him but he’s not well.”
 “Take me to him,” Jandra said.
 BLASPHET FELT THE COLD TOUCH of manacles around his wrists and ankles, a familiar sensation from so many years waking from troubled sleep in the dark bowels of Albekizan’s dungeon. The cold was great, greater even than he remembered.
 He opened his eyes. Shandrazel stood before him assisting Androkom, wrapping fresh bandages around the blunt stub of the biologian’s tail.
 Blasphet rattled the chains, testing them. They held him securely but the locks wouldn’t hold him for even a second. He reached to his legs, for the lock-picks hidden amidst his scales. He suddenly found out why he was so cold.
 “Looking for those?” Shandrazel said, pointing toward the mound of translucent feather-scales. “I remembered your nasty reputation for hiding poisoned needles. I didn’t want to take any chances.”
 Blasphet felt his face burn at the indignity. Still his curiosity was greater than his embarrassment. “How did you escape?”
 “It cost noble Androkom his tail, yet another crime for which you will be brought to justice. He reached the acid pool with his tail tip, soaked it, and then brought it back to eat away the iron chains which held him.”
 “It took many soakings,” Androkom said. “Fortunately, after the first few, the nerves burned away. You may be interested to know that the acid cauterized the wounds, just as you predicted. Still, you’re lucky to have been apprehended in Shandrazel’s presence. I would have tossed you into the pool without a second thought.”
 “We do have laws in this kingdom,” Shandrazel said, “even if my father seems to forget them.”
 “You fool!” Blasphet laughed. “Albekizan is the only law. I’m too valuable to him. As long as he’s king, I will be free!”
 “You’re right,” Shandrazel said. “Which is why he cannot remain king.”
 JANDRA CRADLED Vendevorex’s head in her arms and closed her eyes, concentrating. The tiny machines that swam in Vendevorex were controlled by his mental commands. If he had lost consciousness before willing the molecular engines to heal him, they wouldn’t do so. Jandra wished she knew the skills needed to mend damaged tissue, to knit together once more the ruptured blood vessels. She couldn’t bear to lose him. All that had happened today, all the death, all the sorrow, had made her understand the lesson of Bitterwood. Holding onto hate, even for the most-deserved cause, would kill your soul. Hate would grow until there was no room for anything else. She couldn’t let that happen. Vendevorex had to live, not to kill Albekizan, not to fight to save mankind, but simply so she could tell him she forgave him.
 Unfortunately, Vendevorex was unlikely ever to wake. His breathing grew even more labored, his pulse weaker with each beat. She began to cry as a wave of convulsions wracked his body. If only she could tell the machines what to do, she could‌.‌.‌.
 Of course. Her head wound. Vendevorex had commanded the machines in her blood to heal her head wound. Not even a full day had passed—they might be active still.
 “Give me a knife,” she said to Pet.
 Pet handed her a blade, shining and sharp. “What are you doing?” he asked.
 “Quiet. I need to concentrate.”
 She cut a gash across her palm, releasing a ribbon of red. She took her mentor’s talon and did the same, then placed palm against talon and squeezed.
 “Go,” she whispered. “Heal him.”
 A long time passed as the sun grew ever higher in the sky. Pet gave orders to Ragnar and Kamon, telling them to gather together the men remaining in the Free City and prepare them for the coming battle. Jandra couldn’t allow the clamor to distract her. With sweaty concentration, she guided the active machines into Vendevorex’s blood. There weren’t enough of them. She told the machines to multiply themselves and, to her relief, they did.
 As they spread, she blocked the outside world, listening only to the reports of the microscopic explorers in Vendevorex’s body, plotting, in her mind’s eye, a map of her mentor’s wounds. After a time, she could see the extent of his internal injuries, as if her eyes could see through skin. She willed the machines to knit his ruptured blood vessels back together, and they obeyed. She found a clot of blood choking Vendevorex’s right lung. As she willed it, the tiny machines began to eat away the blockage. There was too much fluid pooling around his heart. She stimulated his kidneys and opened his bladder to remove the excess fluid. She’d never concentrated on anything more intently. She trembled from the effort, sweat soaking her clothes. His wounds were closing but was she doing it right? Was she doing him more harm in ways she couldn’t guess?
 As if in answer, Vendevorex arched his back in pain and coughed blood. A blood vessel leading to his heart had ruptured.
 Despite all her sweat and work and will, his heart fell silent. His body went limp. Jandra looked up at Pet who stared at her, his eyes reflecting her anguish.
 The porch shook as someone ran onto it. It was one of Ragnar’s men. He carried a metal bowl, dented, covered in mud. Its silver edge glinted in the light. Jandra gasped. It was Vendevorex’s skullcap.
 “I found this where he fell,” the man said. “I thought it might be important.”
 ALBEKIZAN WAS FINISHED. The bandage he made from the tapestry torn from the wall had finally stanched the loss of blood from the wound of the second arrow that hit his right thigh. Albekizan pulled himself back to his feet, steadying himself against the wall to compensate for the loss of strength in the leg. The arrow had sunk deep, hitting bone. As he stepped forward the pain was sharp and focused, in contrast to the dull numbness of the wound in his shoulder.
 “You look weary, Albekizan,” the ghostly voice said from somewhere in the gloom.
 Albekizan looked up the spiral stairwell heading to the tower’s roof, high above. The voice had come from there but he saw no hint of movement in the shadows.
 “Two arrows and already you’re dying,” the voice mocked. “It took so many to lay Bodiel low.”
 “I’ve strength enough to kill you twice!” Albekizan yelled. As his voice echoed throughout the tower, he listened to the words as though a stranger spoke them. Such bluster. Such boast. Was this all he’d become? Then he swallowed, and said, “Just as you killed my son twice, taking both body and flame.”
 “Then we have something in common,” Bitterwood answered.
 His voice seemed closer now. Albekizan limped forward. He clenched his teeth to beat back the pain, then climbed the stairs in pursuit of his tormentor.
 “My family died twice as well,” Bitterwood said from somewhere just ahead. “We killed them together, you and I, just as together we killed Bodiel.”
 Albekizan climbed faster now, driven by the nearness of the voice. He expected to catch sight of his foe any second.
 “Hurry!” Bitterwood taunted. “Faster!”
 “Cease your prattling!” Albekizan commanded.
 “Soon enough,” the voice said, trailing into the distance.
 JANDRA PLACED the misshapen helmet on Vendevorex’s scalp. She placed her hands upon it, closing her eyes. The helmet was the interface between Ven’s mind and the nano-machines. It was sensitive to his every thought. Could it allow her to reach into the last traces of his mind?
 “Wake up, Ven,” she said. “I need you.”
 “Jandra,” he answered, his voice as strong as ever. “You’ve come back.”
 Jandra opened her eyes, expecting to see her revived mentor. But Vendevorex still lay lifeless and limp in her lap. Had it only been her imagination?
 “No,” Vendevorex answered, the voice coming not from his lips but from inside her mind. “Not your imagination. The skullcap is responding to my last flicker of life and relaying my thoughts to you. My soul stirred when I heard your voice. I’m so happy you’ve returned.”
 “I had to tell you, Ven,” she said, blinking back tears. “I . . . I forgive you. You were right. Fifteen years of kindness and devotion do pay the debt of a single horrible decision. I love you, Ven. I had to let you know.”
 “Thank you,” he said, his mental voice fading. “There’s something I should say to you.”
 “Save your strength,” she said. “Heal yourself.”
 “It’s too late. You did good work, but my body was too torn. I may have only seconds remaining. I must say this. You’ve grown to be a good, strong, willful woman, Jandra. I’ve always thought of you as my daughter. Seeing the woman you’ve become fills me with pride.”
 “Oh, Ven,” she said, squeezing his talon, searching his face for any flicker of life.
 “I will always love you, Jandra,” he said, his voice faint, distant, vanishing, at last, into static.
 ALBEKIZAN PRESSED ON, lifting himself up the stairs one step at a time, knowing that soon the stairs would end and his opponent would have no place to go.
 “Do you hear it?” Bitterwood said, so near, so near. “The Angel of Death hovers above. He grows weary of waiting. The children are all dead, and the sins return to the fathers.”
 Albekizan found a gray cloth stretched over the open trap door leading to the flat, circular roof of the tower. He pulled it aside and squinted as bright sunlight chased away the shadows.
 He pressed the cloak to his nostrils. It bore the same scent as the cloak Gadreel had fished from the watery tunnel.
 Albekizan rose through the door, and on the tower wall facing him stood a man, his hair gray, his eyes dark. His cheeks were moist with tears. So great was the grief etched in his features that Albekizan actually found his vision fixed upon the face, rather than on the bow held before it, and the red-feathered arrow aimed at him.
 “You’ll only live long enough to kill me,” Bitterwood said, slackening the hand that held the bowstring.
 The arrow flew home, catching in Albekizan’s throat.
 He tried to scream but managed only a gurgling hiss. In silent rage he leapt at his foe who made no move to avoid him. Albekizan closed his outstretched jaws around the human’s belly. Momentum carried them over the wall, and Albekizan stretched his mighty wings to the onrushing wind.
 He couldn’t breathe. The man in his jaws grew limp and Albekizan flew on, driven by the emotions piercing him more deeply than arrows. He was dying, and in that was fear. Bitterwood was dying but without a struggle, and in that was frustration. But the frustration gave way to joy as he looked at the earth below. The fall forest had turned bright red, the treetops swaying in the wind like flames dancing, and he was falling, falling, falling toward his eternal pyre, with all the world ablaze.
 BITTERWOOD FELT the king’s jaws slacken as they spun toward the distant ground. What Albekizan’s teeth hadn’t ripped from his body, the ground would. Bitterwood could see the broad, deep river beneath them now, and found a song Hezekiah had taught him passing through his mind.
 Shall we gather at the river?
 With a splash the water took them, and Bitterwood fell through darkness.
 Still alive.
 Could nothing kill him? Could nothing end this?
 “You can end this,” she said.
 Bitterwood looked toward the voice and saw a distant light, and in the light she stood, her body aglow, her hair floating around her in a breeze Bitterwood couldn’t feel.
 “Recanna,” he whispered.
 “You can end this,” she said once more and turned toward the light.
 Bitterwood tried to chase her but his feet had nothing to push against.
 “Recanna!” he cried.
 She glanced over her shoulder. Her face bore a cryptic smile. “You cannot follow me, not yet. But we may still be together,” she said, as the light around her faded. “You can end this.”
 “Recanna!”
 She was gone. All was dark. Bitterwood opened his eyes. Sunlight flickered on the water’s surface far above him, bubbles rising from where he had shouted her name. His shirt was snagged in Albekizan’s jaws as the dragon sank to the bottom.
 With a single movement of his hand, he could rip the shirt free and fight back to the air above where each breath promised further pain. Or he could sink lower and stop his struggles, and be free of pain forever.
 The light grew ever dimmer.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
* * *
JUSTICE
“FATHER!” SHANDRAZEL’S VOICE echoed throughout the throne room. Shandrazel felt his heart sink when he saw the dead torches throughout the hall. He didn’t truly believe these torches carried the spirits of his ancestors, but it still filled him with sorrow to see them extinguished. Who would have done such a thing?
 “Father!” Shandrazel shouted once more. He approached the throne. His nostrils twitched at the scent of blood. He knelt before the throne, spotting a dark, sticky splatter. The blood was now hours old. Perhaps it came from one of the guards? By this time they had discovered a score of corpses.
 “No one’s here,” Androkom said, looking around the chamber, sounding a little spooked.
 Then, to contradict the biologian’s observation, a familiar voice said, “I’m here. Your father won’t be answering, Shandrazel.”
 “Show yourself,” Shandrazel said, looking around the hall.
 “I didn’t mean to hide from you,” the source of the voice said, stepping from behind a pillar. It was Metron, looking especially frail and weary as he hobbled toward them. “I wanted to be cautious. I escaped from Blasphet and returned here to report our plight to your father. I arrived to find everyone dead. I heard your father’s voice and followed it to the roof where I saw him flying off with a human held in his jaws. The king crashed into the river and never came back to the surface.”
 “You lie,” Shandrazel said.
 “No,” Metron said. “My words are truth. You’re king now. You must respect the words of the High Biologian . . . Sire.”
 “So I shall,” Shandrazel said, with a nod of agreement. “However, I’ll not be listening to you.”
 “What do you mean?”
 “On this day, I accept that I am king. Though I do not intend to remain so for long, I will take advantage of one of the privileges by appointing a new High Biologian. Androkom is my choice.”
 “But,” Metron protested, “you may not appoint a new High Biologian until my death.”
 “Or until you are convicted of treason. And who is the final judge in such matters?”
 “The king . . .” Metron said.
 Shandrazel held forward a slip of paper. “The note you sent Blasphet informing him of our visit and asking him to dispose of us. The penalty, as decreed by all previous kings, is death.”
 “But—”
 “But,” Shandrazel said, “I’m not like previous kings. Your sentence shall be exile.”
 “You must reconsider,” Metron said. “I’ve faithfully served this kingdom for generations. I have nothing but the best interests of all dragons in mind. You cannot do this.”
 “I can. Now, speak the truth. Where is my father?”
 “I did speak truth in this matter, Sire.”
 Shandrazel stood silently for a moment, realizing that Metron was being honest, in this at least.
 “So . . .” he said, sighing deeply. He moved toward the open door of the chamber to gaze upon the clouds beyond. “On this day, I have lost both father and mother, for Blasphet boasts of slaying her as well.”
 “I’m sorry,” Androkom said.
 “Thank you for your sympathy.” Shandrazel sighed. “I fear I have no time for my own sorrow. Later, I will mourn. But now, I must prepare myself.”
 “For what?” Metron asked.
 Shandrazel looked out toward the Free City, and the ragged mob that marched from it, headed toward his door.
 “For the future,” he said. “If there is to be one.”
 THE SUN HUNG LOW behind the castle yet seemed reluctant to set, on this, the longest day any man had ever seen. Pet felt the weight of the eyes upon him, the eyes of a thousand men, every man of fighting age who had survived the Free City. He looked to Jandra who smiled at him. She’d shown remarkable strength since Vendevorex had passed, moving among the injured, healing those she could. With her help Pet had assembled the men into something not quite an army, yet something more than a mob.
 Pet climbed onto the wagon resting at the base of the palace walls. He raised an open hand and the men before him fell silent.
 “Today,” Pet said, “we’ve lost almost everything.”
 He watched their faces, saw the anger showing in the eyes of many, the emptiness in the eyes of most.
 “Thousands dead. Wives. Children. Fathers. Mothers. Not a man stands among us who hasn’t lost someone he loves.”
 The men in the crowd nodded in silent acknowledgement of this fact.
 “We’re far from home,” Pet said. “We don’t know if those homes even still exist. We have little food. We’re weary from battle. We stand under a burden of grief more heavy than a mountain.”
 Pet paused, letting his words sink in. “Everything is lost but hope.”
 The men looked at him, hanging on his words.
 “We’ll never bring back the dead,” Pet said, clenching his fists. “Revenge will never bring us relief. But justice, aye, justice shall surely bring us hope. We attack this castle tonight not in the name of vengeance, but in the name of justice! King Albekizan will be brought low, and his kingdom will pass forever from this earth. In its place shall stand a new civilization, a land of truth and kindness, where atrocities like this day’s will never happen again!”
 Pet thrust his fists into the air. The crowd let out a loud cheer. “Justice!” Pet cried.
 “Justice,” shouted the crowd.
 Back and forth the word was called out until suddenly, a voice shouted down from the walls above, “Agreed! There will be justice!”
 The army began to talk among themselves and point to the top of the wall. Pet looked up and saw a huge sun-dragon standing over him.
 “It’s Shandrazel,” Jandra said. “He can be trusted, Pet.”
 Pet called out, “Bring us King Albekizan!”
 A man in the crowd cried out, “Bring us his head!”
 “Albekizan is dead,” Shandrazel said. “We will drag the river for his body, but I won’t allow its desecration. The war is over.”
 “Never!” someone in the crowd cried. “Not until we have our justice!”
 “Yes,” Pet said. “It’s not over simply because he’s dead.”
 “No,” Shandrazel agreed. “It’s over because I will not fight you. But I do not come to surrender. I come instead to help you create your kingdom of justice.”
 “We’ll never live under a dragon’s thumb again,” Pet shouted. The crowd of men cheered.
 “So you now intend to be the thumb?” Shandrazel asked, snaking his head down the wall so that his voice could be better heard. He looked into Pet’s eyes and said, calmly, “If you seize the throne by force, the dragons will not consent to your rule. There will be further war.”
 “We’ll be ready,” said Pet.
 “There is another solution,” Shandrazel said. “A compromise is possible. Will you listen to my proposal?”
 Pet looked at the mob of men he led. He doubted they were in the mood for compromise. But Pet felt the responsibility of the role he played. He knew that his words could launch a war far bloodier than what he’d witnessed today. But was it possible that he could lead these men to peace? Would they accept him as a leader if he weren’t marching them to war?
 “We aren’t in the mood for compromise,” Pet said. “What can you possibly have to offer us?”
 “I propose,” Shandrazel said, “that both a human and a dragon shall rule jointly, though neither as a supreme power. The age of kings is passing. If we wish to move forward, we will need new forms of government; a government where laws are based on reason rather than on the whims of a king. A government where courts make decisions based on truth and fairness rather than tradition and prejudice. I have many ideas, though this isn’t the proper place to discuss them. I invite you to join me in the castle, that we may peaceably discuss the creation of a new government. What say you?”
 “Never!” someone shouted. Pet recognized the voice.
 “Kamon,” he said, “come forth.”
 The old man left the crowd, marching as boldly as his frail limbs would carry him. Pet helped him rise to the platform.
 “Everyone knows me,” Pet said, “but you may not know Kamon. He was one of the men who freed me from the platform. I owe my life to this man. But we are of different minds on many things, I find.”
 “You dare to talk with this dragon?” Kamon said, his small body producing a surprisingly vital voice. “Human blood has been spilt this day, and the earth itself cries for vengeance!”
 The crowd shouted in agreement, raising their weapons. Even Ragnar and his followers, long foes of Kamon, seemed ready to follow the aged prophet into battle.
 They were ready to fight. Pet could see it in their eyes. If he gave the word, every last man before him was willing to put his life on the line to storm the castle.
 As he stood in silence, considering his options, the crowd lowered their weapons and grew quiet, waiting for him to speak. At long last he took a deep breath. There was only one thing to say.
 “Friends, earlier today, I said much the same thing as Kamon. I wanted to see dragon blood on my sword as badly as any of you. But the day has been long. It may be that I’m weak. Or it may be that I’m tired of death. I want justice, but I also want peace, and I’m willing to talk to anyone, man or dragon, to get it.” Pet took the sword that hung from his belt and handed it to Kamon. He said to the aged man, “If you want blood, I won’t oppose you.” Then, to the crowd, “No one has made me your leader but yourself, and no one can stop you if you want to follow Kamon into this castle and kill every living thing you find. If I’m to remain your leader, put down your weapons and wait while I speak with Shandrazel. By dawn, we may have our victory without further blood being spilled.”
 “You can’t mean this,” said Kamon.
 “I can,” Pet said. Then, addressing the crowd, “Now, choose. Kamon or Bitterwood. Vengeance or justice. Which path will you follow?”
 Pet looked at Kamon, who glowered at him, looking ready to run him through with the sword he’d just been handed. Yet, something stayed his hand.
 “Bitterwood,” someone in the crowd mumbled.
 “Bitterwood,” another said.
 “Bitterwood,” the crowd shouted, as the last embers of the sun faded away.
 And at the edge of the mob, Ragnar and a handful of followers marched away, weapons still in hand, glancing back toward Pet with a look of abject scorn.
EPILOGUE
* * *
HOME
KILLER GROWLED, causing Zeeky to stir from her sleep. Poocher squealed as the ox-dog began to bark furiously. She rubbed her eyes. Zeeky scanned the darkness around them but saw no one. The air carried the smell of the last embers of the fire she’d built earlier in the night.
 Killer continued to bark into the dark voids among the surrounding trees.
 “Is that thing going to eat me?” a man said.
 Zeeky recognized the voice.
 “It’s okay,” she said, and Killer stopped barking.
 “Come on, Hey You,” she shouted.
 The old man emerged from the darkness as the moon slid from behind the clouds. He walked stiffly and sort of tilted to one side. His left arm hung limply, swaying as he moved. Bandages had been wrapped around his chest.
 Yet, as awful as he looked, Zeeky was happy to see him. She jumped up and ran to him, giving him a hug, though not a hard one, as he looked like he might not be able to take it.
 He placed his right hand on her back and said, “You don’t need to call me Hey You anymore.”
 “So what should I call you?”
 “Bant will do.”
 “Okay.”
 Bant grimaced as he lowered himself to the ground. She helped him sit then sat beside him.
 “I’m glad you’re alive,” she said. “After the—”
 “Shh,” he said. “Let’s not talk about what happened back there. Let’s talk about tomorrow. Where you heading to?”
 “Home,” said Zeeky.
 “You aren’t an orphan?”
 “I hope not.”
 “Didn’t think so,” Bant said. “Bet your dad was going to kill that pig ’cause it was a runt, so you ran away with it.”
 “How’d you know?”
 “I was young once. A long time ago.” Bant shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll be young again one day.”
 “Where are you going?” she asked.
 “Don’t know,” he said. “If you want me to, I’ll stick with you for a while. I’m guessing you don’t know how to find your way back.”
 “No,” Zeeky admitted. “I’m so lost.”
 “So am I,” Bant said. “But home’s out there somewhere. Maybe, together, we’ll find it.”
DRAGONFORGE
For Laura Herrmann
DRAGONFORGE CONTENTS
Chapter I: THE SUBTLE ART OF FALLING
Chapter II: FRAYED THREADS
Chapter III: MAD IN THE TIMELESS DARK
Chapter IV: LAUGHTER SPITTING BLOOD
Chapter V: HEX
Chapter VI: JUDGMENT BY SWINE
Chapter VII: MAGICAL GIFTS
Chapter VIII: BURKE’S TAVERN
Chapter IX: FEVER DREAMS
Chapter X: THE BATTLE OF DEAD SKUNK HOLE
Chapter XI: UNHEALTHY PHILOSOPHIES
Chapter XII: TRACES OF KINDNESS
Chapter XIII: UNSEEN MOUTHS WHISPER
Chapter XIV: ENCOUNTERS IN THE NIGHT
Chapter XV: BROKEN SKY
Chapter XVI: MERCIFUL
Chapter XVII: ATTRACTIVE SOULLESS MONSTERS
Chapter XVIII: BIG PROBLEM
Chapter XIX: PRODIGAL SON
Chapter XX: ONE DAY LOVE
Chapter XXI: THE LAST EASY KILLS OF THE NIGHT
Chapter XXII: COGS IN A VAST MACHINE
Chapter XXIII: CLICK CLICK CLANG
Chapter XXIV: LONG SLOW FALL
Chapter XXV: GIFTS OF MONSTERS
Chapter XXVI: YOU KNOW WHAT I HAVE DONE
Chapter XXVII: BAD WOMAN
Chapter XXVIII: ZING!
Chapter XXIX: AT DAWN, AS THE DRAGONS CAME
Chapter XXX: STOMACH FOR BRUTALITY
Chapter XXXI: REVELATIONS
Chapter XXXII: THAT STRANGE LAND TO WHICH WE MUST JOURNEY
Behold, I have created the blacksmith
who fans the coals into flame
and forges the weapons of destruction.
I have created the waster to destroy.
Isaiah 54:16
CHAPTER ONE
* * *
THE SUBTLE ART OF FALLING
1100 D.A. (Dragon Age), the 1st Year of the Reign of Shandrazel
GRAXEN SKIMMED along the winding river, the tips of his wings teasing the water with each downbeat. The sunrise at his back cast a shadow dragon before him, a phantom companion that swooped and darted across the rippling current. The elms and maples along the riverbank had shed their leaves, papering the earth with rust and gold. In the crisp morning air, Graxen’s breath billowed out in clouds that rushed back along his scaled body, forming a wispy trail.
As Graxen journeyed west, the river grew rockier, with patches of white water. He welcomed a rare mirror-smooth stretch of river. He opened his toothy jaws and scooped up a quick gulp to refresh himself. He glided upward as he savored the icy drink, gazing down at the pink-white sky reflected on the still water. Graxen was a gray blur against this pastel backdrop. Unlike other sky-dragons, he lacked even a single blue scale. Some trick of birth had robbed his hide of the azure hue that other members of his species wore with pride. Graxen’s body and wings were painted by nature in a palette drawn from storm clouds.
Graxen knew the area below him only from his study of maps. The river he followed meandered in a serpentine path among low mountains. Soon he would arrive at the dam, an imposing structure dating from ancient times. Beyond this, a body of water known as Talon Lake filled long, twisting valleys. His destination was the Nest, an island fortress just beyond the dam. Sometimes, on the edge of sleep, Graxen could see himself as a fledgling perched on the Nest’s rocky shores. His earliest memory was of watching small fish dart about in a shallow pool as he waited for the biologians to take him away.
As an adult male sky-dragon, he was forbidden to return to the Nest. Only a select handful of males were invited to those hallowed shores. Graxen was forever excluded from those ranks by the color of his scales. Under other circumstances, he would have no chance of admittance. However, the world had changed in recent days. Graxen had a satchel slung over his shoulders, the long strap allowing the bag to hang near his hips. The contents of this satchel gave Graxen the courage to journey to a place where only his imagination had been allowed to travel.
As he tilted his wings to follow the river north toward the dam, his sharp eyes spotted dark shapes flitting high above. Valkyries, three of them. The dam was hidden by one more turn of the river, but Graxen calculated that the valkyries were circling above the structure. He wondered if they’d spotted him. His drab color against the stony river might provide some camouflage.
He negotiated the final bend and closed in on the dam, barely a mile distant. The dark shapes suddenly wheeled toward him. The valkyries were the guardians of the island, female sky-dragons trained from birth in the warrior’s art. Save for his first year of life, Graxen had never seen a living female of his own species. He knew them only from books and sculpture. Now, they seemed like creatures of myth as they hurtled toward him, their silver helmets gleaming in the sun. The polished steel points of the long spears in their hind-talons twinkled like stars in the morning sky.
Graxen spotted a dry rock rising in the midst of the river, barely large enough for him to land on. A few other rocks jutted nearby, natural landing spots for this trio of guards. He could see a strategic advantage to having this encounter take place on land. He tilted his hind-claws forward and lifted his wings to drift to a landing. He raised his face toward the valkyries and held his empty fore-talons open to show he carried no weapon.
The valkyries closed fast. It didn’t look as if they intended to land. Graxen held his ground. He was breaking no law by standing on this rock. The land outside the lake was the property of the sun-dragon king. He was as free to stand upon this stone as he was to stand by the fountains at the College of Spires.
He studied the lead valkyrie as she raced toward him. At first glance, the differences between a male and a female sky-dragon were trivial. Some primal layer of Graxen’s brain, however, was busily cataloguing the subtleties that identified the valkyries as a member of the opposite sex. Sky-dragons had heads that resembled goat skulls covered in scales, with a fringe of long feather-scales rising from the scalp and trailing down the neck. The leader’s helmet concealed some of these scales, but those that showed were a deep sea-blue, with tips that trailed off into a pale white, a pattern unique to females. The leader was also slightly larger than a typical male. Male sky-dragons had wingspans averaging eighteen feet; the leader’s wings easily stretched twenty. Her torso was chiseled from life in the sky, while most male sky-dragons possessed the softer bodies of scholars.
The valkyries unleashed powerful war cries, fierce primal shrieks that tightened Graxen’s intestines. The leader aimed her spear to drive it into Graxen’s chest. Graxen stood still as stone. He noticed that the leader had a large silver bell attached to her belt, the clapper covered with a leather hood. An alarm device to call reinforcements, no doubt. Five yards away, she lifted her neck and beat her wings. She zoomed over Graxen’s head, the tip of her spear missing his face by no more than a foot. The wind of her wake washed across his cheek. He could smell a faint aura of blackberries.
The second valkyrie darted past, then the third, close enough that he could see his gray eyes reflected in the large silvered plates that studded her leather breast armor. A pair of iron manacles dangling from her thick belt threatened to clip his cheek. He tilted his head a fraction of an inch, allowing the chains to pass without touching. Graxen possessed a keen mind for spaces and vectors. In contests of speed and reflexes he had no peer. Yet was he known as Graxen the Swift? Graxen the Nimble?
“Graxen the Gray!” the lead valkyrie shouted as she circled, coming to rest on the stone that jutted from the river before him. “Your kind has no business here! Begone!”
“I am a representative of the king,” said Graxen, half-surprised she recognized him, half-fatalistically accepting it. As the only gray-scaled sky-dragon ever to survive birth, he had little hope of anonymity. “I come as a courier of important news. I’m charged with delivering this message to the matriarch herself.”
A second valkyrie landed to his right. “We care nothing of your mission,” she growled. “The king’s domain ends at the lake’s edge.” Graxen noted this valkyrie was younger than her companions, perhaps still a teen. Despite the normal female advantage of size, Graxen judged himself taller.
“Fortunately, I haven’t reached the lake’s edge,” said Graxen. “I ask that you read the scroll I carry before you judge the importance of my mission.”
The third valkyrie, the one with the manacles on her belt, landed to his left. She was larger than her two companions and, to his eyes, more relaxed. The other two stood in stances that indicated they were prepared to defend themselves from a sudden attack by Graxen. This last valkyrie didn’t look concerned.
He turned his attention back to the leader as she spoke once more. “If the message is important, give us the scroll and be gone. We will see it reaches the matriarch.”
“The king would be disappointed if I failed to speak to with her personally.”
“Would the king be disappointed if your body was discovered on the rocks downriver?” the young valkyrie to his right asked. “Perhaps he could take comfort in knowing that we found your satchel and delivered the scroll without you.”
A silence fell as the valkyries allowed the implied threat to settle into Graxen’s mind. Graxen studied the youngest valkyrie. Her eyes were full of scorn, with perhaps a touch of fear. She looked ready to run him through with the long spear she carried in her fore-talons. He turned back to the leader. Her face was a cool mask, impossible to read.
He tilted his head to study the final valkyrie. Her eyes were cold little slivers of copper. Graxen caught his breath as he noticed a slight discoloration against her cheek. A single scale of gray, the color of fresh-cut granite, sat below her left eye like a tear. The rest of her hide was flawless; she seemed sculpted from sapphire, her lean and well-muscled body sporting graceful lines and symmetry that rivaled the statues that adorned the College of Spires. This valkyrie continued to regard him with a look that approached boredom.
With one guard showing disinterest and another looking prepared to run him through, Graxen knew his best course of action was to win the leader over to his cause. He said, “As a commander, you are obviously a dragon of proven judgment. Perhaps you should examine the scroll yourself.” Graxen reached into his satchel and produced the scroll. He stretched his wing across the watery gap to offer the message to the leader. Her fore-talon brushed his as she took the rolled parchment. This brief touch was his first adult contact with a female. He found the experience . . . unsatisfying.
The leader unrolled the scroll. She tilted her head and furrowed her brow, attempting to decipher its jagged calligraphy. The message had been scribed by Shandrazel, a sun-dragon. With talons twice the thickness of a sky-dragon’s nimble digits, sun-dragons seldom earned praise for their penmanship.
“What does it say, Arifiel?” the youngest valkyrie asked, impatient.
“Quiet, Sparrow,” said the dragon with the teardrop scale. Graxen guessed that Sparrow was a nickname. It was rare to encounter a dragon whose name corresponded to something in the physical world. All sky-dragons names were drawn from the Ballad of Belpantheron. The two-thousand-page poem was the oldest document verified to have been drafted by a dragon. Unfortunately, it was also a document that had defied ten centuries of scholarly attempts to decipher its mysterious language. Tradition held that it told the story of how the young race of dragons slew the older race of angels. Less poetically inclined scholars speculated that the work was schizophrenic babble granted sacred status by the passage of time.
“It does say he is to be given safe passage,” Arifiel said, rotating the scroll to a thirty-degree angle as she puzzled out the script, “but, this isn’t Albekizan’s mark.”
“Albekizan is no longer king,” said Graxen. “He died at the hands of Bitterwood following an uprising of humans in the Free City. His scion, Shandrazel, charged me with this mission.”
Arifiel tilted the scroll in the counterclockwise direction. “I guess that could be an ‘s.’ That’s probably an ‘h’ and an ‘a.’ Shandrazel is . . . plausible. However, all that’s here is the order of safe passage. I see no further message.”
Graxen raised his fore-talon to tap his brow. “I have the message up here. It’s too important to be entrusted to mere parchment. This is why you should provide me with an escort for the rest of the journey.”
“I see,” said Arifiel.
“Shall we grant him passage then?” asked the teardrop valkyrie, still relaxed.
“No,” said Arifiel. “Last I heard, Shandrazel was banished.”
“Who cares if Shandrazel is king now?” Sparrow growled, directing her words toward Arifiel. “Male law ends at the lake’s edge. Whatever transpires in the outside world is of no concern to us.”
“True,” said Arifiel, rolling the scroll back up. She eyed Graxen even more skeptically than before. “My gut tells me this is a trick. Desperate males try far more clever schemes to reach the Nest in the hope of mating.”
“This is no scheme,” said Graxen. “I’m marked by birth as one who will never breed. No female would ever submit to my touch.”
“Desperate dragons will attempt to breed by force,” said Arifiel.
“If I were here to resort to violence, why would I wish to journey into the heart of the Nest?” Graxen asked. “Wouldn’t a desperate dragon attempt to ambush valkyries on patrol, away from the safety of the fortress?”
“Perhaps that’s your plan,” said Sparrow. “Perhaps you didn’t expect to be outnumbered.”
Graxen found Sparrow’s tone grating. He felt that if she would only be quiet, he might have hope of convincing the Arifiel. He said, “Arifiel, do you always allow the dragons in your command to abuse guests so?”
He expected Arifiel to order Sparrow to silence herself. He didn’t expect Sparrow’s face to suddenly twist into a mask of rage as her muscles tensed, ready to strike with her spear.
“Abuse is all a freak like you deserves!” Sparrow shouted.
“Sparrow, halt!” barked Arifiel.
It was too late. Sparrow lunged. Graxen shifted his weight back on the rock, swinging his tail around for balance as he pulled his shoulders back. The spear pierced the air before him. The weapon was twice Sparrow’s height. Graxen calculated that avoiding the thrust might lead to tragedy. Sparrow was off balance, falling forward. If she toppled, her spear would reach all the way to the valkyrie with the teardrop scale. Perhaps her armor would deflect the blow, but could he take that chance?
Graxen grabbed the shaft of the spear, using the full weight of his body to halt its forward path. He jerked the spear backward. Sparrow let go, her hind-talons skittering on the wet rock. Before she could spread her wings to steady herself, Graxen jabbed the butt of the spear between her legs, tripping her. She landed in the water with an angry shriek.
Arifiel, perhaps mistaking his act of protection for an attack, released the scroll and readied her own weapon. Graxen dropped the spear, crouched, and then sprung into the air, whipping his tail forward to knock the falling letter upward before it hit the water. He grabbed the document in his hind-claws as he beat his wings, climbing into the sky with all his might.
“Stop!” Arifiel shouted, drawing back to throw her spear.
“Stop me,” Graxen called back, climbing higher.
Arifiel grunted, hurling her weapon, but Graxen didn’t bother to look down. The weapon had been designed for a thrusting attack, not for throwing. He was practically straight over her, fifty feet up. The anatomy of a sky-dragon’s wings simply wouldn’t allow the weapon to reach him. Seconds later, he heard the spear clatter against the rocks. He kept flapping, turning the fifty-foot gap into a hundred feet, two hundred, more.
He glanced down to see Arifiel and the dragon he thought of as Teardrop chasing after him. Teardrop proved as strong as she looked, and was leading Arifiel by several body lengths. Indeed, if she weren’t slowed by her leather breastplate and heavy spear, Graxen had every reason to think she might have gotten close to him. After a minute, Graxen judged he was over a hundred yards above her, and half that distance again above Arifiel. Graxen grimaced as he saw that Arifiel was no longer chasing him. Instead she was drifting in a circle as she used a hind-talon to free the hood on her alarm bell.
Graxen folded his wings back and held his body straight, plunging toward Teardrop. It was time to show these valkyries what he knew of the subtle art of falling. Teardrop looked up, her eyes wide as he shot toward her. She drew her body back, raising the spear she carried in her hind-talons to catch Graxen.
As Graxen hurtled down, the wind felt like water. His feather-scales were a thousand tiny paddles with which he pushed the current, controlling the angle of his fall. At the last second, Graxen curved his tail in a gentle arc, steering away from a collision. Her spear point flashed past his eyes. For a lightning instant he glimpsed the valkyrie’s face with its single scale of gray, then her long serpentine neck flickered past, then her armored torso, and then there was her belt. In his right hind-talon he held Shandrazel’s letter of passage. With his left, he snatched the manacles, ripping free the metal hook that held them. The sudden jolt threw Teardrop into a spin. As she flapped her wings for balance, Graxen shifted his tail once more to delicately adjust his fall. Off to his side, on a parallel course, a bright gleam caught his eye—a spear point. Teardrop had dropped her weapon. The spear now fell toward Arifiel on a path that would run her through. He kicked out with the manacles and clipped the tip of the spear, knocking it into a path that would do no damage.
By now Graxen had reached terminal velocity, words that possessed a double meaning. He could fall no faster, but if he collided with Arifiel at this speed, it would kill them both. He opened his wings into twin parachutes, tilting his hind-talons down. He dropped the scroll and craned his neck to catch it in his teeth as it flew upward. In the space of a heartbeat the distance between Arifiel and himself vanished as his hind-talons reached her left wing.
Graxen grabbed Arifiel’s fore-talon, the three-clawed hand that sat at the middle joint of her wing. In a fluid motion, he snapped the first cuff of the manacle around her talon. The impact caused his body to flip, as his legs tarried at her wing while his head snaked downward. He reached out his fore-talons and grabbed her left hind-talon. She tried to kick him free.
Arifiel’s sharp teeth sank into Graxen’s thigh, but the awkward angle of her bite kept her from doing real damage. She growled and shook her head as they tumbled, free-falling a hundred feet in a blur of gray and blue. She opened her jaws, perhaps in search of a more vital body part. Graxen spread his wings and darted away, leaving Arifiel with her left wing manacled to her left leg.
For a sun-dragon, this would have been a death sentence. Fortunately, sky-dragons were masters of the air. Arifiel spread her free wing to its maximum capacity and pulled her body into a tight ball. She became a blue whirligig, descending toward the forest in a dizzying spiral. Her landing wouldn’t be delicate, but she’d survive.
Graxen tossed away the bell he’d stolen from her belt, the leather hood once more covering the clapper. From the time he’d started his dive to the time he’d shackled Arifiel, no more than ten seconds had passed.
Something fell past him, barely glimpsed from the corner of his eye. At first, he had difficulty identifying it as it tumbled. Then a silver disk flashed as it caught the sun. It was a valkyrie’s empty breast plate. He looked over his shoulder to find Teardrop barely ten yards behind him. She’d shed her armor, even her helmet, leaving her groomed for speed. Her breast muscles moved like mighty machinery beneath her scales. Graxen’s heart beat joyously. He always enjoyed a good race.
Graxen turned away from his pursuer and dove once more, aiming for the river. He pulled from his dive to skim along the surface. The spray from the whitewater moistened his face in welcome relief. If not for the letter in his teeth, he would have risked a quick drink. He banked toward the forest, the jagged tree trunks looming before him like a maze. Beating his wings for a further burst of speed he plunged into the woods. Flying above the treetops was one thing. Flying amid the branches of an unfamiliar forest was a feat most dragons would regard as suicide. His eyes tracked every limb and shadow as momentum carried him forward. He beat his wings to stay aloft in the gaps between the trees. The tips of his wings knocked away twigs and vines. A whirlwind of dry leaves followed in his wake.
Ahead, he spotted a bright patch on the forest floor—a clearing three times his body length. With a sharp, hard burst of energy he zoomed heavenward, flitting back above the trees. Only now did he allow himself to glance over his shoulder. He was certain the valkyrie had been stubborn enough to follow, even though her longer wings would have made the feat impossible. He hoped she hadn’t injured herself too badly when she snared in the branches.
To his astonishment, she was still in flight, now many yards behind, about to reach the clearing. He watched, slack-jawed, as she found the open space and rose back over the treetops, her gaze still fixed upon him.
Very well. If he couldn’t outfly her, he’d have to cheat.
He banked in a sharp arc as he reached up with his hind-claws to the leather satchel. With a violent grunt, he yanked the bag so hard its strap snapped, freeing it. He darted back toward Teardrop with all the speed he could manage. His eyes locked on hers. Their paths would intersect in seconds. She showed no fear as the space between them closed.
At the last possible instant, Teardrop lowered her head to dodge, passing beneath his body. Graxen snapped the bag in his hind-talons, opening the satchel wide. With a satisfying shudder, the leather ripped from his claws as the makeshift hood slipped over her head.
He bent his whole body in the air, heading once more for the dam. He glanced back to find Teardrop whipping her head, trying to free the hood, obviously disoriented. Instinctively, she was climbing slowly, as any temporarily blinded dragon would do. Graxen was relieved she showed no sign of injury. The high-speed hooding had carried the risk of snapping her neck.
Leaving his last opponent far behind, Graxen raced toward the dam, rising quickly over its massive stone wall. He found himself over the deep silver-blue waters of the mountain lake. The Nest, an impressive fortress of stone and steel, jutted from the waters like a racial memory. He knew this place in his blood. He’d been born within its walls. The air smelled like dreams as he breathed in great heaves through his nostrils.
There were dark shapes dashing all over the sky now. A dozen valkyries had spotted him. None were closer than half a mile. Unless there was another among them as swift as Teardrop, none could intercept him before he reached his goal. He darted upward as he reached the outer wall of the fortress, rising above the iron spikes that edged it. The Nest would be a bad place to fall. Every surface was covered with sharp metal shafts pointed skyward to discourage any males who might wish to land. Ahead, the central bell tower began to clang out an alarm. He heard a command shouted somewhere below: “Get clear! The gates are closing!” A rumble came from deep beneath the island as ancient gears slipped into service.
He aimed for the tallest spire of the fortress and a balcony that jutted from it. As he rose above the lip of the balcony, he saw the open door to the chamber beyond. A metal grate was sliding down to seal the room, like the jagged teeth of some great beast. He hoped that the marble floor beyond was as smooth as it looked. He flattened his body, slipping beneath the teeth. He slammed against the marble, sliding forward. He snaked his tail into the room as the grate clanged shut. He spun and pivoted as he slid, spreading his wings to lift himself back to his hind-talons, his sharp claws splayed out, desperate to halt his forward slide. He skidded to rest inches from the opposite wall.
He opened his jaw and let the scroll drop. He caught it with his fore-talon as he spun around. The scroll was damp with spittle. He held his wings in a gesture of surrender as countless valkyries rushed into the room, spears pointed toward him.
“Greetings,” he said, in as calm a voice as he could muster. “I have a message from the king.”
The valkyries drew into a half circle around him as he pressed his back against the cold stone wall.
“Your kind is forbidden here!” one growled.
“We should gut you where you stand!” snapped another.
“We should,” said a firm voice at the back of the room. “But not yet.”
Graxen looked over the wall of valkyries to see an aged sky-dragon, the weight of her body supported by a gnarled cane. Her body was stooped but her eyes were bright. Her face was lined with an aura of dignity that made her instantly recognizable. The matriarch!
“He’s made it this far with his precious message,” she said, her voice raspy with age, yet still firm with authority. “We shall allow him his say.”
“Thank you, Matriarch,” Graxen said. He cast his gaze over the guards. “I’ve been ordered speak to you privately. Would you dismiss your attendants?”
“Do you think we’ll fall for this trickery?” a valkyrie snarled, jabbing her spear to within a whisker of Graxen’s ribs.
“Lower your spears!” the matriarch commanded, drawing closer, studying Graxen with a cool gaze. “We’ve nothing to fear from this pathetic specimen. He’s no more than an overly large carrier pigeon.”
“I prefer to think of myself as an ambassador for the new regime.”
“Ah yes, the new regime. Rumors travel more swiftly than you, Graxen. I’ve already heard of Albekizan’s death. Shandrazel is king.”
“For now, yes,” said Graxen.
“A strange choice of words,” said the matriarch.
“An appropriate choice for strange times.”
“Explain yourself.”
“I shall,” he said, looking back over the guards. “If we may have privacy.”
The matriarch waited a long moment, her golden eyes fixed on his face. He saw himself reflected in her gaze, a gray dragon against gray stone. He tried to see any emotion in her eyes, any hint of . . . Of what? What did he wish to see? Remorse? Tenderness? Hatred? Love? He’d not set eyes on the matriarch since infancy. He’d imagined this meeting almost every day, practiced what he would say in his mind, but now that it was happening, he felt utterly unrehearsed and awkward.
The matriarch sighed. “You shall have your private audience. Valkyries, leave us.”
Graxen relaxed, lowering his wings. Until this moment, he hadn’t known if he’d live through this meeting. The valkyries were notoriously unmerciful toward interlopers. He hadn’t known if he would be treated any differently. There was every possibility he could have been treated worse, given his family history.
“I was worried you would hate me,” Graxen said to the matriarch as the last valkyrie left the room. The guard closed the door with a final glance back, her eyes full of murder.
“I hate you with all my blood,” the matriarch said, shaking her head sorrowfully. “You’re my greatest mistake, Graxen. I curse the decision not to snap your neck as an infant. It gives me nothing but pain to see you again.”
Graxen nodded, no longer feeling awkward. These were also words he’d heard many times in his imagination. He was a freak of nature, a mockery of the careful breeding and birth lines the sky-dragons had labored for centuries to maintain. Of course the matriarch, whose sole duty was to protect the integrity of those lines, would despise him.
“I . . . I’m sorry,” he said.
“Of what use is your sorrow?” spat the matriarch. She shook her head, and sighed. “Your sorrow cannot mend my grief. I gave birth to four daughters, and two fine sons. Their offspring should number in the dozens by now. Yet fate snatched them all in their youth, one by one, through disease and accident and treachery. All dead . . . all save the accursed seventh born.”
Graxen lowered his head, unable to find the words that might ease her pain. Part of him felt pity for the aged dragon, part of him shared her grief. Yet, underneath it all, he bristled at the injustice of her scorn. It wasn’t his fault that he’d been spared the misfortunes of his siblings. How was he to blame for having been her only surviving child?
CHAPTER TWO
* * *
FRAYED THREADS
GRAXEN FOLLOWED THE MATRIARCH down a winding staircase, leaving the tower far behind as she led him to the heart of her domain, the fabled Thread Room. The enormous round chamber, nearly a hundred yards in diameter, was like an interior forest filled with thick granite columns supporting the fortress above. Elaborate, colorful tapestries covered the walls of the room, depicting in glorious detail scenes from the Ballad of Belpantheron. Bright crimson sun-dragons savaged golden-winged angels in their bloody jaws at the climax of a battle that raged for decades.
The valkyries were masterful engineers; while the chamber sat beneath the surface of the lake, the room showed no traces of leaking or flooding. Mirrored shafts were set in the ceiling twenty-five feet overhead, funneling sunlight into the room. Despite the radiance, the room was still beset with a cave-like chill and dankness. The cloying incense that rose in wispy tendrils from silver sconces lining the room couldn’t quite hide the underlying scent of mildew.
The matriarch walked through the chamber without looking back at Graxen. The only sound in the room was the tap of her cane as she hobbled across the tiled floor. She had not spoken, or even glanced at Graxen, since they’d left the tower. Graxen wanted to speak but feared disturbing the sacred air of this place. The tapestries of the Thread Room were priceless. Underlying the visible representation of battle, the threads themselves were woven in an elaborate code. For the matriarch and others initiated in their lore, each thread of these tapestries told a story. Thicker lines represented the lives of individual sky-dragons, every one born in the Nest through the centuries. Thinner threads ran parallel, representing desired genetic traits. The web of lines intersected in elaborate patterns as every mating, every birth, every death of a sky-dragon were recorded in minute detail.
Centuries earlier, it had been decided that the genetic destiny of the sky-dragon race was too important to be left to mere chance. Males and females were not allowed to mingle or mix according to whim or desire. Each mating represented a careful decision made by the matriarch and her predecessors. Many pairings were planned generations in advance. Others would arise after a sky-dragon demonstrated a novel trait—superior intelligence, for example, or a well documented resistance to disease—and it was the matriarch’s duty to capture these desirable mutations through careful interweaving with a receptive bloodline.
On the far side of the room a black section of the wall stood devoid of tapestries. The matriarch moved toward this area, a single smooth slab of slate, twelve feet high and four times that length, covered with lines of colored chalk and countless scribbled notes. The matriarch paused, studying the board, as if she had forgotten Graxen’s presence and resumed her normal duties of steering the fate of the species. She leaned her cane against the board as she lifted a thick finger of chalk in her fore-talon.
As often happened in older dragons, the colors of the matriarch’s scales had faded, tinting white the frill of long scales that ran down her neck and along her spine. The once jewel-like sheen of her scales had dulled, as if muted beneath a lifetime of dust.
Graxen cringed as the matriarch brought the chalk to the slate and drew a long, screeching line from top to bottom. To the left, hundreds of scribbled notes in a rainbow of colors were surrounded by circles, with lines and arrows connecting them. He didn’t recognize any of the names save one. In a large yellow oval, surrounded by pink question marks, in thick, capital letters was the name VENDEVOREX. There were no lines connecting his circle to any other.
To the right of the line she had drawn, the board was fresh and black. She wrote in neat, balanced letters despite her trembling talon: “World order, post Albekizan.”
Without facing Graxen, the matriarch asked, “Is it true the so called wizard is dead?”
“Yes,” said Graxen. “His funeral pyre is to be lit tonight.”
The matriarch drew a bold white X across Vendevorex’s name. “The ‘master of the invisible’ has been a burr under my scales for fifteen years,” she grumbled. “He was bloodless, a beast without history. I never learned where he came from. I’m happy to know he’s gone. Ash in an urn is the only appropriate fate for an . . . aberration.”
The way she said “aberration” gave the word mass, making it a solid thing that struck Graxen in the chest.
She did not give him time to dwell upon the blow. “Shandrazel now wears the crown. He fancies himself a scholar. Metron will control him with ease.”
“Shandrazel is a free thinker,” said Graxen. “He won’t be anyone’s puppet. He definitely won’t be a pawn of Metron.”
“Metron was able to control Albekizan,” said the matriarch. “The high biologian will be more than a match for his son.”
“Your informants have failed you,” said Graxen. “Metron is no longer high biologian.”
“What?” She jerked her head around to fix her eyes on Graxen for the first time. She quickly turned her gaze away, looking distraught over this news. “Is he dead?”
“Banished,” said Graxen. “Metron allied himself with Blasphet. Androkom is the new high biologian.”
“No!” The matriarch looked as if the news caused her physical pain. She walked along the tapestries, her fingers tracing from thread to thread. “Androkom is a dreadful choice. His bloodline is one of genius, yes, but also carries a risk of madness. Look here!” She pointed her gnarled talon at a dark red scale on the cheek of a sun-dragon. “Shangon, his second seed removed—”
“Second seed removed?”
“What the less educated might call a grandfather,” she grumbled, sounding angry at the interruption. “Shangon was a brilliant scholar. At the age of thirty he earned the right to breed. Unfortunately, as sometimes happens, the experience shattered him. He went insane and tried to return to the Nest. The valkyries were forced to end him. Until five generations have passed, members of Androkom’s bloodline must be kept from positions of authority. To make him high biologian is an absurd risk!”
“It’s a risk Shandrazel is willing to take,” said Graxen. “He appreciates Androkom’s boldness of thought, his willingness to value reason over tradition.”
The matriarch traced a black thread from the second seed removed to another red scale that represented Androkom. No black lines radiated out from it. Androkom was relatively young, not yet eligible for breeding. The matriarch hooked a needle-sharp talon into the tapestry and tore at the threads that formed the scale, fraying them.
“No further,” she said, her voice cold. “I cannot undo his past, but I have just undone his future.”
Graxen shuddered as he understood the harshness of her judgment. “Androkom may become the greatest high biologian known to history,” he protested. “You would end his bloodline now, in a moment of anger? How can you know what the future holds?”
The matriarch’s eyes narrowed. “I do not know the future,” she said, coolly. “I create it.”
“But—”
“Save your breath, Graxen. You cannot understand the burden I bear, the responsibility of ensuring the strength of our race for eons to come. You haven’t the capacity to judge me.”
“Why not?” asked Graxen. “Presumably, as your child, I was designed to inherit your intelligence.”
He studied the tapestry that bore Androkom’s bloodlines. Was the thread of his own life marked somewhere upon this canvas? “What’s more, I presume my father must have possessed many desirable traits to have been chosen as your mate.”
“You are so transparent, Graxen,” the matriarch said. “You will not learn your father’s name from me.”
“Why?” Graxen asked. “Other sky-dragons know their heritage. Why has the identity of my father been kept secret from me?”
“His bloodline ended with the production of an unfavorable aberration. His identity is no longer of any importance. You are his only offspring. When you pass from this world, the danger he represented will be at an end.”
“I could have passed from this world at my birth,” said Graxen. “Other aberrations have been drowned in the lake. Why was I allowed to live?”
The matriarch lifted her fore-talon in a dismissive gesture. “What a pointless question. You are alive now; you have a purpose in life, however menial, of messenger to the king. So far, you have shown an appalling lack of competence in carrying out your duties. What was Shandrazel’s message?”
“I bring an invitation. Shandrazel is convening a summit in three days. He wishes to invite leaders from throughout the kingdom to discuss the end of the era of kings, and to help design a new era of equality and justice for all races.”
The matriarch released a barking noise that Graxen at first took as a cough, but then realized was a laugh. “Equality? There is no equality in this world and never will be. The earth has produced four intelligent species, it is true, but it is self-evidently absurd to think they are equal.”
“Shandrazel feels differently. When you hear him speak on the matter, I believe you will find his arguments compelling.”
“I hope you find it compelling when humans are marching with dragon heads atop their pikes,” the matriarch grumbled. “They are merely tall and talkative monkeys, with baser urges unchecked by reason. Their animalistic breeding practices mean they outnumber us by a thousand to one. Granting them freedom is dangerously irresponsible.”
“I’ve had little experience with humans. If they’re truly as primitive as you say, what threat can they pose?”
The matriarch shook her head at Graxen’s ignorance. She sighed. “This is only one more crisis to be managed. Fly back to Shandrazel. Tell him I will send an envoy to his summit. There must be someone there to serve as the voice of reason.”
“Thank you,” said Graxen.
“You’ve delivered your message,” the matriarch said, turning her back to him once more. “Now take your leave.”
“I’ve had a long journey,” said Graxen. “Isn’t it customary to offer a messenger of the king time to rest, to partake of food and water?”
“You have said Shandrazel doesn’t respect custom,” said the matriarch. “He could have sent a member of his aerial guard. Why send you, if not as deliberate taunt?”
“Shandrazel has no interest in the bloodlines of sky-dragons. I don’t believe he knows I am your son.”
“I am to believe it is only coincidence he chose you?”
“No. When Shandrazel was banished by Albekizan, he sought shelter at the College of Spires. Chapelion sent him away. But I felt pity for Shandrazel and followed him. I served as his messenger in exile. Now, I serve him openly. Still, you are correct. My presence here isn’t chance. I asked for this mission. It was my one chance to ask . . . to ask . . .”
“Don’t stammer,” she snapped
Graxen felt as if the simplest words were almost impossible to utter. He stared at the frayed threads that had been Androkom, and suddenly grew aware of hundreds of similar threads representing the conclusions of bloodlines. He knew he was one of them.
“I want to mate,” said Graxen. “It grieves me to think that your thread ends with me. The color of my hide is only a superficial flaw. In every other way, I believe I am an excellent candidate to carry on your bloodline. I’m strong, I’m studious, I’m—”
“Get out,” she said.
“But, if you’ll—”
“Valkyries!” she shouted.
The tapestries on the wall bulged outward. A score of valkyries emerged from hidden passageways, spears readied. Graxen’s gut twisted as he realized they must have been listening to his every word. Sky-dragons were supposed to be creatures of intellect, devoid of the lusts that fouled lesser beings. His shameful confession of the desire to breed had no doubt been heard by all these warriors.
“I’ll go,” he said.
“You arrived with great speed,” one of the valkyries growled. “Let your departure match it.”
Grinding gears vibrated through the stone walls as Graxen climbed the steps from the Thread Room back toward the tower he’d entered. Arriving at the high chamber, he found the iron bars now raised. Valkyries stood in twin rows, forming a living hallway through which he passed. He lowered his eyes as he walked, unable to bear the icy stares of the females.
As he leapt to the balcony rail and spread his wings, he heard a muttered word from one of the guards behind him: “Freak.”
He tilted forward, falling toward the spikes below. Rust and moss and damp sand scented the air that rushed across his face. His feather-scales toyed with the air, pulling him out and away from the spikes in a gentle arc, until, an instant before he dashed against the rocky shore, he flapped his wings and shot forward, then up, into a bright winter sun that failed to warm him.
A moment later he passed over the edge of the dam. The sky in all directions was thick with valkyries. He felt a stir of grim pride that he was sufficiently threatening to justify such a force.
He followed the river once more, adhering to its twists and turns, lost in thought. What did it matter that he wouldn’t be allowed to breed? There were hundreds of dragons who shared his fate. More, there were male dragons who refused the chance even when offered. Many prominent biologians believed that any mingling of the sexes would muddy the mind; they dared not risk the damage even a single night of passion might cause to their intellect. The fact that Androkom wouldn’t be invited to breed would perhaps not bother him at all. Metron, the former high biologian, had famously refused an invitation to the Nest with the words: “I would rather history judge me by my works rather than the quality of my biological debris.”
As he flew, Graxen’s musing about breeding slowly gave way to thoughts of food. The king’s messengers traveled light, relying on the hospitality of those they were sent to speak to. Fortunately, his next destination wasn’t far. The town of Dragon Forge was no more than thirty miles distant.
The terrain changed as Graxen neared the town. The nearly pristine forested mountainsides that surrounded the Nest gave way to rolling hills, many of them stripped of trees. Giant mounds of rusting metal dotted the landscape, and ragged shanty towns sat beside muddy stream banks. Humans in rags trudged along, hauling carts full of rusting scraps. These were gleaners, men who made their living by scouring the landscape in search of relics from a previous age, incomprehensible artifacts crafted from steel that had long ago decayed into rust. Yet, even rust had value—the gleaners sold their wares to the foundries of Dragon Forge, where immense furnaces melted down the scraps of metal, freeing the ores, which were then refined and cast into the armor and weapons used by the armies of the dragons. The humans below were fueling the engines of their own oppression.
Three plumes of smoke rose in the distance. Graxen's nose wrinkled as the stench of the foundries reached him. He traced a wide arc around the town, looking for a good landing spot. The earth-dragons below looked like small beetles from this height, as they hurried across the packed-earth streets of their town. Nowhere within the fortress was there any hint of vegetation. The surrounding hills were nothing but rust-colored clutter and weeds, with a few bare and scraggly trees here and there. Earth dragons weren’t known for their appreciation of beauty.
At the far side of his arc, glancing back through the smoke plumes, Graxen caught a glimpse of sparkling light. Continuing in his orbit, he discovered the light was the gleaming helmet of a valkyrie a few miles distant. Was he being pursued this far from the Nest? Or was it mere coincidence? Valkyries must do business with Dragon Forge—all the steel grates and spikes that turned the place into a fortress must come from somewhere.
He slowed his flight. The valkyrie continued toward him. Was this some messenger from the matriarch? Perhaps she’d changed her mind? The instant he had the thought, he dismissed it, and was embarrassed by his heart’s willingness to hold onto hope.
Graxen decided to meet the valkyrie head on. He adjusted his path to match hers and the distance between them rapidly closed. As they drew within a hundred yards of each other, he was struck with recognition. It was Teardrop, the dragon who’d given him such a chase. She’d once more donned her armor, though she wasn’t carrying her spear. Was she pursuing him out of some desire for revenge? If so, why come unarmed? She began to glide in an arc and he joined her in a counter path, so that they traced a large circle through the air. They looked at each other across the gap as they glided leisurely in their orbit.
“You dropped your bag,” she said, the hint of a smirk showing in her eyes. Graxen noted the leather satchel hooked over her belt where her manacles had once hung. She flicked her tail forward and knocked the sack free. It fell slowly, dancing in the wind. Graxen dove and snagged it in his hind-claws. The bag felt heavy—something was inside. He jerked his head up. Had this been a ploy to distract him from a sneak attack? The valkyrie continued in her slow circle, looking toward him with an expression devoid of malice.
“Thank you,” he said, flapping his wings to reach her flight level once more.
“I’m sorry Sparrow attacked you. She should never have been allowed on that patrol.”
“She was only doing her job.”
“Our job is to defend the island, not to abuse innocent messengers.”
“I’m used to hostility,” said Graxen.
“It’s left you with remarkable reflexes,” she said.
Graxen wasn’t used to complements. He found himself unsure how to respond. There was a long moment of silence.
Teardrop took his quietness as an invitation for further explanation. “Sparrow only became a valkyrie a year ago. On her first patrol, she and two more experienced guards were ambushed by a band of tatterwings.”
“Oh,” said Graxen. The only thing lower in the ranks of the sky-dragons than a freak was a tatterwing. These were criminal sky-dragons whose wings had been slashed as punishment. Forever condemned to the ground, tatterwings survived by begging or by banditry. It sounded as if Sparrow had fallen victim to the latter kind.
“The elder valkyries were killed. Sparrow was . . . abused. She only recently returned to duty. Her attack on you was an attack upon the ghosts that haunt her. And, of course, she is from the lineage of Pachythan. So, she perhaps felt an extra obligation to be tough with you.”
Graxen wasn’t certain what her lineage had to do with anything. Pachythan was the younger brother of Metron. Was she saying Sparrow was more diligent due to being the niece of such a prominent sky-dragon?
She added, “I didn’t want you to think ill of all valkyries. Most would never have attacked you unprovoked.”
“I’m glad you don’t think of the events that followed as a provocation,” Graxen said.
“If you’d been near when I freed myself, I would have gutted you. But, I bear no grudge. You simply outflew me. I won’t be such an easy opponent should we meet again.”
“Noted,” said Graxen. “Although, it seems unlikely we will meet again. The matriarch has vigorously uninvited me from the Nest.”
“As is her duty,” said Teardrop. “Fly far, Graxen the Gray. Go with the knowledge that you’ve earned my respect.”
“I’m honored,” he said. “May I ask your name?”
She banked away, flapping her wings, her body aimed for the Nest. She glanced back, then called out, “Nadala.”
Graxen drifted in a slow gyre, watched Nadala grow smaller as she flew away, until she was only a speck, then only a memory.
Graxen returned his attention to Dragon Forge. He dropped down into the city, toward a broad avenue that ran near the central foundries.
In unison, thousands of earth-dragons were filing into the street chanting,
“Yo ho ho!
The slow must go!
Yo ho ho!
The slow must go!”
The verse lasted all of five seconds, with the “yo ho hos!” rising in tone, and the “slow must goes” falling. The verse was then repeated, and was then repeated, and was then repeated, until Graxen was struck by the intense urgency to complete his mission here and move on. He dropped the bag in his hind-claws just before landing. Coming to rest, he retrieved the satchel and slung it over his shoulder. He again noticed the weight, but before he could examine it he was nearly run into by an earth-dragon marching straight toward him. Earth-dragons were squat, wingless creatures, resembling the unholy union of a human, a turtle, and an alligator. Most stood little more than five feet high, and were almost as broad due to their powerful musculature. Their green, beaked faces resembled the heads of turtles. As a species they were notoriously nearsighted, which could explain why the one that approached him was only inches away from collision before he stopped, looking befuddled.
Graxen figured this creature was as good a guide as any, and said, “I’m here to see Charkon. Can you tell me where to find him?”
The earth-dragon looked at him dully, as if trying to fathom what Graxen might be saying. Earth-dragons varied a good deal in intelligence. None were as smart, on average, as sky-dragons, but many managed something approximating human intelligence, and most were smart enough to obey commands and hit the things they were told to hit. Still, a fair number weren’t smart enough to talk. Graxen wondered if he’d grabbed one of these by mistake, even though the earth-dragon was still tonelessly repeating, “the slow must go, yo ho ho . . .”
Finally something sparked in the dragon’s eyes.
“Charkon’s our boss,” he said.
“Right,” said Graxen. “I need to find him. Is he around?”
“It’s hatching day,” the dragon said.
Graxen was about to give up and try another dragon when this one said, “Follow me.” Graxen fell in behind the creature, taking care not to step on the dragon’s thick, alligatorish tail as it dragged in the dirt.
Graxen joined a crowd of earth-dragons heading for the center of town. All the human gleaners he’d spotted earlier had vanished. The crush of earth-dragons at the town square was worrisome. Though Graxen stood taller than anyone in the crowd, even the smallest earth-dragon outweighed him four to one. Graxen had a grim vision of being crushed by these horrid creatures. What were they all here for anyway? And would they never tire of that damn song?
Fortunately, his guide proved to be quite effective at moving through the crowd. The earth-dragon simply pushed ahead, knocking down and trampling those before him, occasionally pausing to bite a particularly slow moving obstacle to encourage it to move more quickly. Graxen mumbled apologies as he hopped over the dragons pushed down by his guide.
Finally, they reached the center. A large mound of red clay was piled here, resembling an ant hill ten feet high and twice as wide at the base. The clay was cracking and crumbling, giving it a surface resembling shattered flowerpots. It looked as if it was being wracked by small earthquakes.
Next to the mound stood a figure that Graxen instantly recognized as Charkon, though they had never met. Charkon was old for an earth-dragon, nearly eighty. Earth-dragons continued to pack on ever denser muscles as they aged, giving Charkon arms and legs thick as tree trunks. But it was his face that identified him. Charkon was a veteran of the southern rebellion, and at one point had found his face on the wrong end of a battle axe. A large jagged chunk of his left beak was gone, and where his eye had been there was now only a nasty bulb of scars. Yet, despite Charkon’s hideous visage, his remaining eye gleamed with a savage intelligence, and he stood with a bearing that was as close to noble as an earth-dragon could ever hope to be.
Charkon gave Graxen a nod, then waved him closer.
“You’re Graxen the Gray,” Charkon said, shouting to be heard above the chanting crowd. “I thought I’d be seeing you.”
“Shandrazel has sent me to—”
“I know,” said Charkon. “He wants me at the palace. I’ll set out tomorrow. The dragons of the Forge have served sun-dragons for centuries. It will be an honor to confer with Shandrazel.”
“Oh,” said Graxen, leaning in closer so he could better hear over the deafening singing. “I was hardly needed here at all, was I?”
“I’ve stayed alive this long by listening to the right voices,” said Charkon. “Don’t feel bad. Gleaners constantly bring me rumors. I have a good instinct at picking which ones are right.”
“I see,” Graxen shouted back. He cast an eye toward the red clay mound, which was now positively trembling. “What’s happening here?”
“It’s hatching day!” said Charkon. “I’d take to the sky if I were you. Now!”
Though he didn’t understand what was going on, Graxen recognized wise advice when he heard it. He leapt skyward, climbing into the air with sharp, rapid strokes. Below he heard a cracking sound, and the crowd roared: “The slow must go!”
He looked down to see the mound disintegrate in a cloud of red dust. Tens of thousands of mouse-sized earth-dragons spilled out of the crumbling clay. Though they looked like turtles, the hatchlings hopped and darted with the speed of rabbits, dashing off in every direction at once. Instantly, the crowd of earth-dragons surged forward, falling to their hands and knees, slapping at the hopping creatures, cramming those they caught into their beaks.
Charkon’s beefy fingers reached out and snatched three of the infant beasts, then tilted back his head and opened his disfigured beak wide. He dangled the tiny dragons above his maw, their stubby tails trapped between his digits, before dropping the critters down his gullet one by one.
Despite the crush of bodies, or perhaps because of it, many of the hatchlings escaped between the legs of the assembled dragons, or leapt over the crowd, from head to head, before vanishing into gaps in the walls of nearby buildings, or burrowing into the bins of coal that sat next to the foundry.
Graxen wasn’t completely ignorant of earth-dragon biology. He knew that, unlike the winged dragon races, they were egg-layers, and they hatched their young in community mounds. He’d also heard they were unsentimental in winnowing out the weaker members of the hatch. He just hadn’t expected them to be so enthusiastic about the process.
Graxen rose up through the foundry smoke and soon found his bearings, locating the Forge Road, which he would follow back to Shandrazel’s castle. He flapped away from Dragon Forge, eager to leave behind the foul air and brutish inhabitants, and especially eager to get beyond the range of that damned song. Still, this was twice today he’d delivered a message and not been offered food, drink, or shelter. Messenger of the king was proving to be an unrewarding job.
Once he was out of range of the smoky air and had cleared the barren hillsides where the gleaners lived, Graxen alighted in the upper branches of a tall tree. He was weary from his flight. As he landed, the shifting weight of his satchel reminded him once more of its mysterious contents. He opened it.
Within was a loaf of dark-crusted bread and a ceramic flask of water, sealed with a cork. Four dried trout were wrapped in a sheet of oily parchment, and beneath them sat two apples, red as rose petals.
Graxen drank half the jug, the cool liquid feeling like life as it flowed into his body. He bit into one of the trout and found the flavor smoky and salty. It was a fine meal, fueling his spirit and his body, giving him the strength to fly further. Yet he didn’t move from the tree branch for many hours. Instead he looked back in the direction of the Nest, watching the sky, contemplating the restorative power of unexpected kindness.
CHAPTER THREE
* * *
MAD IN THE TIMELESS DARK
THE BURNING GROUNDS lay in the shadow of Shandrazel’s palace. Winged dragons honored their dead by cremation, releasing the spiritual flames that remained trapped within the body. In the aftermath of the battle of the Free City, the pyres of the Burning Grounds had burned every night from dusk to dawn. Tonight, Vendevorex, the sky-dragon who had served as Albekizan’s wizard for fifteen years, would be placed upon the flames.
A choir of sky-dragons sang, their eerily high voices echoing the ephemeral nature of flame. Jandra stood stoically at the base of the pedestal of logs on which the wizard would be burned. A human female sixteen years of age, Jandra had been raised by Vendevorex almost as a daughter. He had trained her in his arts. She alone knew the secrets of his powers, although there were many more secrets he had carried with him into death.
Beside her stood Pet, a human male nearly ten years older. Jandra didn’t welcome his company. Though Pet was hailed by other humans as the leader of the rebellion in the Free City, Jandra knew that the true Pet was a shallow opportunist. Even now, standing next to her, he was living a lie. Everyone believed Pet to be the legendary dragon-slayer Bitterwood. Pet looked the part of a hero: tall, broad-shouldered, square-jawed, with long golden locks and pale blue eyes. He’d been trained in the theatrical arts, and could deliver inspirational speeches at a moment's notice, summoning grand words from among the countless plays and poems he’d memorized. But behind those lovely words, Pet was, she knew, a coward and a scoundrel.
Pet placed an arm around her shoulders and pulled her near as a band of earth-dragons carried the coffin that held Vendevorex’s remains to the Burning Grounds. It was a gesture of tenderness that surprised her. She would have preferred to watch the cremation alone, but, as he gently rubbed her shoulder with his strong hand, she found herself welcoming the consoling touch. Perhaps he was capable of compassion and empathy after all.
“I can only imagine the grief you feel,” he whispered.
“I feel numb, mostly,” she whispered back. “Everything in my life turned upside-down so fast.”
“I know,” he said. “Hopefully things will turn again, for the better. Shandrazel genuinely wants to improve the lives of humans. You and I are well positioned to be granted considerable power in his new world order.”
Jandra stiffened. “I’d rather not be discussing politics now,” she said.
“I understand. Sorry.” He gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze.
The earth-dragons walked up the wooden ramp toward the top of the piled logs.
“I don’t want power,” she said. “I just want Vendevorex back. I miss him. I wish I hadn’t been so mean to him in the weeks before his death.”
“I don’t think you were mean,” said Pet. “Just confused. He gave you good reason to be angry.”
“I know,” she said. “But I’ve barely slept since he’s been gone. I just keep running the words I should have said over and over in my head. I keep imagining the things he still had left to tell me.”
The earth-dragons lowered the coffin onto the pine logs. The new high biologian, Androkom, climbed onto the platform to deliver his eulogy. Androkom was a young sky-dragon, still in his twenties, the youngest dragon ever to hold the post of high biologian. He looked weary. Since the fall of the Free City, multiple funerals had been held each night, and all required his presence.
Pet took Jandra’s hand as the earth-dragons pried open the lid of the coffin. Many days had passed since Vendevorex had fallen. He’d been placed in the coffin as his body began to decay, but it was customary for a dragon to be cremated with his body exposed to the open sky.
“You know,” Pet whispered, leaning closer, “perhaps you shouldn’t sleep alone tonight. You could stay with me.”
Jandra rolled her eyes. “Are you trying to seduce me at a funeral? Have you no self control at all?”
“I assure you, my self control is legendary,” he said, with the hint of a grin. “I was merely trying to comfort you. The fact that you interpreted this as seduction perhaps reveals something about your unspoken desires?”
She would have slapped him, but it wasn’t the appropriate setting. At least one human at this ceremony should possess a sense of decorum.
She looked back to the platform. Androkom was staring down into the coffin, looking confused. The earth-dragon pall-bearers were all shrugging, looking equally bewildered.
Jandra ran to the platform, up the rough-hewn logs that served as a makeshift ramp.
“Jandra,” Androkom said, looking spooked as she approached. “I’m sure there’s some logical explanation—”
“What?” she asked, drawing near the coffin. She looked down into the long wooden box, expecting to find the worst.
Save for a few blood-encrusted feather-scales, their sky-blue hue shining amid the shadows, the coffin was empty.
PET CHASED JANDRA as she bounded up the stairs to the tower. She proved remarkably swift for someone wearing a long black dress more appropriate for mourning than running.
“Jandra, wait!” he called out as she scrambled up the steps. Jandra had grown up in the palace and knew all its shadows. Pet worried that if he lost sight of her he wouldn’t find her again.
“Leave me alone!” she shouted as she reached the top of the stairs.
Pet followed her into a star-shaped room. The room was large, built on a scale to accommodate a sun-dragon. The chamber was empty save for a bed, a wardrobe, and a few other pieces of furniture sitting within one of the arms of the star. The human-sized furniture in the midst of the giant open space looked lonely. Jandra ran toward the bed, falling to her knees as she reached it. As the foot of the bed sat a heavy oak chest sealed with an iron lock. Jandra grabbed the lock with shaking hands.
“What’s so urgent?” Pet asked as he drew closer. “If Ven was alive enough to get out of his coffin a week ago, he’s probably still alive now.”
“He was dead!” she snapped as the lock clicked open. “We both saw him die!”
“He was magic. He could cure the sick with his touch. He survived a gutting by Zanzeroth! Why is it so hard to believe he came back to life?”
Jandra threw the lid of the chest open. She dug her hands into the carefully folded garments inside, tossing them wildly around the room. The light from the lantern by the bed glinted on something silver. Jandra lifted it from the chest—a skull cap. Pet had seen it before. It was the head gear Vendevorex had always worn.
“Pet,” she said, “it’s too complicated to explain right now, but Vendevorex and I don’t control magic. Vendevorex didn’t believe in magic.”
“He could set things on fire with his mind,” Pet said. “He could turn invisible! You turn invisible! How can you say it’s not magic?”
“Vendevorex trained me my whole life and I never figured out how to do half the stuff he did,” Jandra said. “I can’t explain our powers to you in five minutes, or even five hours. Ven used to say that ‘magic’ would be acts that violated physical laws. We don’t have supernatural powers. What we have is possession of an advanced technology that looks like magic to those who don’t understand it. Vendevorex controlled that technology with this.” She held up the skull cap. It was beaten and bent in the aftermath of Vendevorex’s violent end. “If the skull cap had been gone, I might have believed he was still alive. Since it isn’t, someone stole his body.”
“Why would anyone do that?” Pet asked.
“Maybe they thought he was supernatural and there’s some power to be derived from possessing his bones. It was probably humans. They believe the dumbest things.”
“Hmm,” said Pet. “Might I remind you that you’re human?”
“Am I?” Jandra asked, sagging back against her bed, the skull cap resting in her lap. She looked very small in the oversized room. She normally projected a defiant strength that Pet found irresistible. Now, the tragic events of recent weeks had finally caught up with her. She looked like a lost little girl, with no hope of ever finding her way home. Pet wanted to take her hand, but knew she would only see it as another attempt at seduction. Which it could lead to, he supposed. All women succumbed to his charms eventually. She sounded on the verge of tears as she said, “Why am I only comfortable around dragons? Why does every human I meet make my skin crawl?”
“Do I make your skin crawl?” he asked.
“You especially,” she said.
These weren’t words Pet was used to hearing from young women. “You know, I’m the reason humans won their little uprising in the Free City. They rallied around me. Now I’m going to be standing up for all of humanity in this conference Shandrazel is holding.”
“What is your point?” Jandra asked.
“Just that you are proving to be especially difficult to impress.”
Jandra sighed. “If you want to impress me, figure out who took Ven. Or help me find the real Bitterwood.”
“That crazy old man? What do you want with him?”
“Things happened so fast the last time I saw him,” she said. As she spoke, the look of vulnerability faded from her features. Pet noticed that when there was something she wanted to do, she always summoned the strength to do it. “One second, I was trying to help Bitterwood find his lost family. The next, he was shouting at me to go away. I never got the chance to tell him something that he needs to know.”
“Which is?”
“Bitterwood thought his family had been killed by dragons. But I think his son, Adam, might be alive. He wasn’t listed in Albekizan’s slave records. I knew Bitterwood’s daughters, and they told me that their grandmother had taken their baby brother when the dragons raided their village. She jumped into the well to hide. They didn’t know if Adam survived the raid, but they knew he wasn’t taken captive.”
“Don’t you remember how callously Bitterwood treated us?” Pet asked. “He left us to die. Why do you owe that monster anything?”
“Bitterwood wasn’t entirely a monster. There was a little girl with us when we were captured. Her name was Zeeky. He treated her in a kind and fatherly way. And while you take credit for the victory in the Free City—a victory I believe you actually owe to Vendevorex—Bitterwood is the one who really won the war. He’s the one who killed Albekizan.”
“And no one has seen him since,” said Pet. “Just because they didn’t find his body when they searched the river doesn’t mean he’s still alive.”
“He’s alive,” she said. “I’ve asked around. Some of the people in Richmond saw an old man and a little girl riding an ox-dog west along the river. I’m positive it’s them.”
“Assuming it was, if Bitterwood’s lived this long without knowing his son might be alive, he can wait a bit longer. Don’t go off chasing some man who doesn’t want to see you again. I need you here by my side, Jandra.”
“Pet, I’m not going to sleep with you. Just give up.”
“No,” he knelt in front of her, so she could better see his face. All his life he was acting, but now he wanted the masks he wore to slip away. He tried to project sincerity as he spoke. “I mean, yes, I’ll give up trying to seduce you. I want you here because you’re smart and you’re brave and you’re tough. Maybe you don’t feel like a human, but you’re a better human than me. I need you beside me at the summit.”
“Aren’t you up to the job?”
Pet took a long, deep breath, then shook his head. “No,” he said. “We both know I’m a fraud. You’re right—I did nothing to win the battle of the Free City. Two prophets, Ragnar and Kamon, rallied their followers to fight for me; they did all the work. And, you’re right about Vendevorex. We would have been slaughtered if he hadn’t shown up. My sole contribution to the battle was to stand before the crowd and look heroic.”
“Yeah,” she said. “You do look the part.”
Pet grinned. He couldn’t believe she’d finally given him a compliment! He returned to his attempt at sincere confession. “We both know I’m the worst person imaginable to have at that table. I’ve spent my life trying to please sun-dragons. I’m worse than a slave. I’ve lived as a sun-dragon’s pet.”
Jandra shook her head. “I’m no better,” she said. “I grew up feeling like the daughter of a dragon. I’ve never known any human family. I’m told my parents are dead, but does that mean I’m all alone? What if I have sisters, or a brother, or even grandparents still alive? The horrible thing is, I wouldn’t know what to say to them if they found me. Look at my wardrobe. I dress in gowns with fabrics that resemble the scales of dragons. I braid feathers into my hair to look like the neck fringes of sky-dragons.”
“A very fetching look, may I say,” Pet said. “You grew up in a palace. You can’t be expected to dress in burlap sacks.”
“I know. But it’s my dreams that frighten me. In my dreams, I’m a dragon. I dream constantly of flying.”
“Ah,” said Pet. He was bonding with Jandra at last, and he did know something about her particular condition. He reached out and took her hand, cupping it gently with his. “Dreams of flying are usually dreamt by women who are still virgins. They’re a symptom of sexual frustration. Perhaps—”
“Perhaps if you leave right now I won’t slap you,” she said, jerking her hand away.
From the look in her eyes, he could tell she meant it. He stood up, stretching his back. “You can’t blame me for trying.”
“Just leave,” she said, looking down once more at the skull cap. “I was actually starting to feel a little sympathy for you. I should have known it was only another seduction ploy.”
Pet turned and walked across the vast and empty room. Flattery hadn’t worked on Jandra, lies hadn’t gotten him anywhere, and now the truth had failed. For a brief instant, a new and strange thought flickered across his mind: perhaps, if he wished to have her by his side, he should be prepared to accept her as a friend. Instead of constant attempts at seduction, he should simply value her for her fine qualities and welcome her into his life as an equal, or even a superior, rather than as just another conquest. He truly did want her to stand beside him at the upcoming summit. He honestly admired her courage and her convictions. He glanced back across the lonely room. She was standing now, studying herself in a full-length mirror. She was beautiful, slender and virginal, and once more had that vulnerable lost look upon her face. He wanted to say something, but couldn’t find the words. When he saw her again, he would work on winning her as a friend. Perhaps then she’d be easier to seduce.
AS THE DOOR to the star-shaped chamber closed, Jandra looked back over her shoulder. She almost felt like chasing after Pet. He wasn’t the best of company, but being alone in this room was painful.
For as long as she could remember, this tower had been her home. Once, its walls had been lined with thick, leather-bound tomes and countless parchment scrolls. The interior had been a forest of tables covered with vials and beakers and magnifying lenses of the finest quality.
“The world thinks of what we do as magic,” Vendevorex had told her. “Their ignorance is an important source of our power. We do not manipulate supernatural forces. We move matter and light according to inalterable rules, using tools that must remain invisible to others.”
In this room, she’d learned to understand the building blocks of the material world, and the countless ways these blocks could be pulled apart and placed back together. Using her “magic” was an art, a kind of sculpting on the finest scale imaginable.
Of course, all of the tools of teaching were gone now. The king’s wicked brother Blasphet had taken command of this tower after he’d been released from the dungeon. He’d turned the room into a torture chamber. Earth-dragons had since cleaned, mopped all the dried blood and gore, and returned Jandra’s possessions to their former positions. Now her every step echoed in the vacant chamber. Moonlight seeped through the high windows, painting the marble floors with ghostly shapes. Not that Jandra believed in ghosts. Vendevorex had raised her as a strict materialist, and had always been dismissive of the spiritual world.
“There are indeed realities in this world that cannot be seen,” he had said. “We move through a world of fields and forces. We control machines too small for the eyes to discern. We are masters of an unseen world—but the invisible is not the same as the supernatural.”
Jandra studied her face in the mirror. In her old life, when she’d looked into this same glass, she’d been staring at the face of a naïve and innocent girl. She’d been through so much since then. She’d nearly died. She’d felt her life slipping between her fingers in warm gushes. What’s more, she’d learned to kill. She’d heard the gurgling, wet gasping breaths of a dragon dying by her hands. She closed her eyes, and all the violence of the recent months washed through her mind. She’d learned to fight when she had no strength to fight. She’d learned to live for days in clothes caked and clotted with blood.
She opened her eyes—and found she was still looking into the face of a girl, but a girl who was no longer innocent. She lifted her chin and studied the thin pale line where her throat had been slit. She looked with sorrow at her shoulder-length hair—once it had hung the full length of her back. She’d been forced to cut it to disguise herself. She brushed away the fringe of hair across her scalp that concealed the metal band she had once worn as a tiara. This was a smaller version of Vendevorex’s skull cap, a device that allowed her to communicate with the unseen machines that floated by the millions in the air around her. She’d changed her hair to hide it when she’d been a fugitive.
She removed the tiara and placed it on the table.
There was no longer any need to hide who she was.
Indeed, now it was time to proudly announce to the world her true heritage.
She lifted Vendevorex’s skull cap and brought it to her brow. Her eyes were locked on their reflection. They were cool hazel circles, devoid of sorrow or joy or hope or fear. They were the same sorts of eyes through which Vendevorex had looked upon the world. She was the inheritor of Vendevorex’s power. And, she hoped, she was the inheritor of his wisdom and strength.
She lowered the skull cap onto her head, willing the metal to drape like cloth over the contours of her scalp. She closed her eyes to concentrate on the way the metal felt as it formed a helmet that matched her head and hers alone. Then, with a thought, she willed the malleable metal once more into solid silver.
She opened her eyes, expecting to find herself transformed. Instead, her mouth fell open as she let out a gasp. Behind her in the mirror, his golden eyes gleaming in the dim light of the room, stood Vendevorex.
BLASPHET, THE MURDER GOD, woke to the familiar blackness. Since the fiasco of the Free City, Blasphet had been locked in the lowest chamber of the dungeon, his wings, legs, neck, and tail shackled to the bedrock. A dragon with a less vital mind might have been driven mad in the timeless dark. Blasphet philosophically accepted his confinement as an opportunity to contemplate the error of his ways, free from normal distractions.
Unfortunately, Blasphet still had a few abnormal distractions. When Shandrazel had captured him, he’d known of Blasphet’s reputation for concealing poisoned needles and small tools among his feather-scales. He’d unceremoniously plucked Blasphet like an oversized chicken. Now his scales were growing back, with an itch surely unprecedented in all history. To lie in tomblike stillness and be aware of each new feather-scale seeping from its follicle, like a billion tiny insects burrowing from his hide . . . Was it possible his hatred of Shandrazel was even greater than his hatred of Albekizan?
Albekizan had been the central focus of his hatred for half a century. As those years passed, Blasphet had enjoyed a thousand enticing visions of how his brother might suffer. Over the years, his schemes had grown in complexity. Once, he’d imagined sawing off his brother’s limbs, then hooking his mouth to a tube and force feeding him for months until Albekizan was a bloated blob. Then he would starve his brother, melting off the fat, reducing him to little more than a skeletal torso draped in an enormous sheet of flesh. Finally, he would cut Albekizan open, breaking and rearranging his bones, wiring and pinning them into the shape of a throne. Blasphet would rein over the kingdom from the living throne of his brother, leisurely looking down upon the former king’s plaintive eyes, reveling in the despair he would find in them!
He sighed at the memory, and reminded himself that he was here to learn the error of his ways. His biggest error, he knew, was his need to torment his enemies rather than simply kill them.
For Shandrazel, there were no visions of elaborate torture thrones. He would simply close his jaws around the bastard and rip his throat out! The thought filled him with a warmth that defeated the chill of the bedrock.
Above, Blasphet heard the creak of a door. Once a day, guards would come to feed him gruel and muck up the pool of filth that Blasphet had excreted since their last visit. Blasphet hadn’t yet killed any of his guards, though he had thought of a dozen possible ways. Perhaps today he would indulge himself. A faint light seeped through the darkness. The acrid odor of an oil lamp reached his nostrils as the guards descended the stairs.
Something was different. Blasphet cocked his head to better to catch the guards’ footsteps. The sound was wrong. Whatever approached wasn’t as heavy as earth-dragons. Humans? Perhaps coming to take revenge? It seemed so unfair. Human genocide had been Albekizan’s vision; Blasphet had taken up the challenge only out of intellectual curiosity. He bore no hatred of mankind, as a whole. Humans had been the only species ever to grant him proper respect. Humans once worshipped him as a god—the Murder God. It hadn’t been hard to convince an army of assassins and spies of his divinity. Humans believed in gods with the same obvious certainty with which they believed in weather. It was simply in their nature. At the height of his power, before Albekizan had crushed the cult, Blasphet’s worshippers had numbered in the thousands.
Keys rattled in the lock of the iron door. Tendrils of light glowed around the edges of the frame. Slowly the door groaned open, pushed by a half dozen earth-dragons, their legs straining. A single earth-dragon should have been more than strong enough to open the heavy door.
Blasphet tilted his head to watch as the earth-dragons marched into the cell. Four more followed, carrying a man-sized bundle of canvas bound tightly with coils of rope. Silently, the earth-dragons advanced, rings of keys jangling in their fists. The six who had opened the door went to the shackles that held him. Without a word of explanation they crouched, slipped the keys into the locks, and turned them. Iron clattered on the stone floor as they pried the shackles loose, grunting with the effort—in the damp dungeon air, the shackles were already beginning to rust.
Blasphet had been staked to the floor on his back. His limbs felt weak, nearly paralyzed, but through sheer will he rolled to his side. The earth-dragons helped him to his belly, then stood back as Blasphet rose on trembling, unsteady legs. He stretched his wings, shaking them, loosening the damp grime that coated them.
As one, the earth-dragons knelt and lowered their tortoise-like heads until their brows touched the ground, their arms stretched before them in a position of prayer.
“You’re humans, aren’t you?” Blasphet asked, his voice raspy. His throat felt sore and raw where the shackle had been. “The motions of your bodies betray you.”
One guard rose, looking up at Blasphet with dark, cloudy eyes. Certainly, they looked liked earth-dragons, and smelled like them as well, but these eyes weren’t natural . . . they looked more like lifeless glass than a living organ of sight. The earth-dragon placed both hands upon his gray-green head, gave his skull a twist, and lifted it from his shoulders.
A human’s head was revealed where the dragon’s head had been. It was a young woman, her head shaved, a black tattoo of a serpent coiling above her right eye, writhing across her scalp, then snaking down her neck and shoulder. The other earth-dragons stood and removed their heads as well. Ten women, all in their teens, all with shaved heads. Even their eyebrows were missing.
“We are Sisters of the Serpent,” the first one said, bowing her head. She spoke in a soft, reverential tone. “We are your humble servants, O Murder God. I am Colobi, serpent of the first order. Our disguises were never meant to deceive you.”
“Of course,” said Blasphet, flexing his fore-talons, feeling the blood flowing into them with a pleasant tingle. “What’s in the bundle?”
“We knew you would be hungry for proper nourishment,” Colobi said. “We kidnapped Valandant, Kanst’s youngest.”
Blasphet nodded, his eyes wide with admiration. Kanst was dead now, but he had been Blasphet’s cousin, so Valandant was his own kin, albeit somewhat removed. Kanst had also been commander of Albekizan’s armies. His widow and family would still be well-guarded. These Sisters of the Serpents were promising. It pleased him that his worshipers showed such initiative and competence.
They carried the bundle forth. It struggled feebly. Valandant was only two years old, little bigger than the girls who carried him. Of all the dragon races, only sun-dragons formed family units. The death of a child this young, following so soon on the deaths of Kanst and Albekizan, would cause grief of unimaginable sharpness for all his family.
The humans unrolled the canvas. The young dragon struggled but his wings were pinned behind his back by an iron ring that pierced the skin just inside the wrist joint at the fore-talons. His legs were tied together by a thick cord of hemp, and his snout was shut by a similar cord. Valandant whipped his tail around wildly, causing the humans to jump back.
“Shhhhh,” Blasphet said, leaning over the frightened dragon. In the lamp light, Valandant’s red feather-scales glistened like blood. His wide eyes were damp with tears.
Suddenly, thirst ripped Blasphet from snout to belly. He opened his jaws wide, took Valandant’s slender neck between his teeth, then clamped down, piercing it. Hot salty gushes spilled across his tongue. The fragrant iron-tinged tang of blood filled his nose. He grabbed the still struggling dragon and lifted him over his head, upending him like a jug of wine. He drank from the now limp body, blood dribbling down his neck and falling in hot drops upon his belly until his thirst was quenched.
Blasphet tossed the emptied corpse aside. He rubbed in the blood that coated his scales with his fore-claws, luxuriating in its warmth. He looked at his blood-soaked claws. For a moment, the gore made it seem as if they had reverted to their natural red coloring. However, as he licked the blood away, he found his scales had once more grown in clear, leaving the black hide beneath showing through. Once he had speculated that it was lack of sunlight that leached the color from his scales. Now, he wondered if it wasn’t some long-term side effect of the poisons he’d ingested over the years. He was pleased with the look of his new scales—they were bristly, even spiky. It made his skin look angry.
The Sisters of the Serpent stared at him in awe. The fresh blood inside him burned like liquid fire in his belly. Murder God, they had called him. It had been too long since he’d heard the words from human lips.
“Your gift pleases me,” he said. Then, he randomly pointed to five of the sisters. “You will come with me. We shall go to my temple. I assume you’ve built a temple?”
“Of course, my lord,” said Colobi.
“You five,” he said, eying the others. “You won’t be coming home. I’ve hidden poisoned knives throughout the castle. I will tell you where to find them. Then, I want you to charge forth and kill as many creatures as you can, in celebration of my return. Dragons of all species, humans, horses, ox-dogs, rats . . . if it breathes, make it stop. Kill with no regard for your own safety. Kill until something kills you. If you kill everyone in the castle, kill each other. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, O Murder God,” the five said in unison, their eyes fixed upon him as if he were the most precious thing in the universe.
CHAPTER FOUR
* * *
LAUGHTER SPITTING BLOOD
“VEN!” JANDRA SHOUTED, spinning to face her mentor. “You’re alive!”
“No,” Vendevorex said. “I’m almost certainly dead.”
Jandra paused, confused. Vendevorex had died in her arms, it was true, but she couldn’t ignore the plain evidence of her eyes. Vendevorex was alive. His sky-blue chest expanded and contracted with each breath. His scales nearly shimmered. From the strong, sharp lines of his shoulders to the well-formed legs that held him with such balance and poise, Vendevorex was the picture of health.
She ran forward to embrace him, throwing her arms around him, then through him. His body fluttered like smoke.
She jumped back, her voice catching in her throat; some primitive part of her mind felt certain she was in the presence of a ghost. Quickly, the more rational part of her brain deduced the truth.
“You’re an illusion,” she said.
“Correct,” Vendevorex answered. “An interactive recording stored within the skull cap. I don’t know the circumstances of my demise, Jandra, but you are the only one with the proper training to have triggered my helmet when you donned it. The fact you’re seeing me shows that the helmet is functioning. As the device continues to adapt itself to your brain, you will discover it to be a much more powerful tool than your tiara. Unfortunately, this increased power comes with increased risks.”
Jandra raised her hands and ran her finger along the rim of the helmet where it rested against her forehead. More powerful? She’d always assumed that Ven’s skull cap and her tiara were equally functional. Were different capacities the reason Vendevorex’s abilities had seemed so advanced?
“Just as the helmet will adjust itself to better interface with your brain, it will adjust your brain to better interface with it. In the coming days, the helm will expand the range and sensitivity of your senses. You may find this disorienting. In time, you will adapt.”
Jandra held her breath, trying to discover if she could hear anything new or different. It didn’t seem so.
“The helmet provides an interface between your mind and the outer world, but your true abilities lie in the training and knowledge within you. The helmet will gently restructure your neural pathways to make them more efficient, allow you finer control over your memories. Most of this will happen as you sleep, but there may be some carry over into your waking life. This may result in hallucinations. Be careful . . . you may injure innocents by attacking threats that exist only in your imagination. Conversely, you may hesitate in the face of genuine danger. This effect will fade after a few years as your brain reaches its most efficient structure.”
“A few years?” Jandra said, her heart sinking. Her mind felt adequate already. What could possibly be worth years of not being able to trust her own eyes?
“Finally,” said Vendevorex, “I must warn you of the most serious threat. I’m not the creator of the helmet. It is a tool from the hidden city known as Atlantis. You may have wondered why, given my abilities, I took a subservient position in the court of Albekizan, and seldom used my power to truly alter the world.”
Jandra had often been frustrated by her mentor’s reluctance to use his powers more aggressively.
“The helmet wasn’t a gift from the Atlanteans. It was stolen. Take care to avoid their attention. You may think that after so many years the Atlanteans are no longer searching for their property. Unfortunately, time is no obstacle to the Atlanteans who are, for all practical purposes, immortals. I have no doubt they will come for the device. It may even be that they were simply waiting for my death to reclaim it. You may be in grave danger. Use utmost caution should you encounter an Atlantean. Their powers will exceed yours by an unimaginable factor. However, this doesn’t mean they can’t be defeated. Atlanteans possess one flaw that may prove fatal should you choose to exploit it. All Atlanteans—”
Vendevorex’s voice was drowned out by a shout from below, a cry of rage that sounded violently torn from the shouter’s throat. It was followed by the voice of an earth-dragon screaming, “Stay back!” Though the voices originated several floors beneath her with layers of thick stone to muffle them, the words sounded almost as if they had been spoken in the same room.
As she thought about the voices, images flickered through her mind. The faces of thousands of earth-dragons she’d met flashed before her in an instant. A heartbeat later, the images were gone, and a single face remained in her memory, that of a guard named Ledax. She barely knew him, having only heard him speak once in all the years he carried out his duties around the palace. Yet, she somehow knew it was his voice that had shouted the warning to stay back. She also knew, with equal certainty, that the first shout she had heard had come from the lips of a human woman.
Below, Ledax let out a pained grunt. The woman’s gurgling scream transformed into a satisfied, eerie giggle.
Jandra ran for the steps, slowed somewhat by her heavy funeral gown. She wished it was shorter. As she moved, the gown inched upward to her knees. The fabric pleated into a loose skirt, allowing her legs greater freedom. She leaped down the stairs, taking them three and four at a time. She could hear the chilling laughter growing closer. She burst into the room, freezing as she took in the gory scene. Vendevorex’s warning of hallucinations suddenly seemed relevant.
Ledax was splayed limply on the floor, blood oozing from a gash in his shoulder. Crouched over him was a naked girl, younger than Jandra, her breasts and belly painted with blood. Her lips were spread wide in an evil grin. Dark red saliva streamed down her chin as she giggled. Black, serpentine tattoos decorated the skin of her scalp and neck. Similar inkings coiled down her thighs and arms. In her right hand, she held a long dagger, its black blade glistening. The girl’s eyes made Jandra hesitate, wondering if she’d slipped into a nightmarish hallucination. The girl’s pupils were vacant black circles set in bloodshot pools of pink. Jandra had faced killers before. She’d stared down tatterwings, locked eyes with earth-dragons, and stood defiant in the gaze of sun-dragons. Nothing prepared her for the empty void of the girl’s eyes, the hollow, unblinking stare of a fanatic transformed into an instrument of death.
While Jandra was frozen by her doubts, the girl suffered no such paralysis. With a grunt she leapt, swinging her dagger in a high overhead chop aimed at Jandra’s face.
Jandra raised her hand to catch the girl’s arm. The black blade sank into Jandra’s palm, puncturing it. Droplets of blood splashed against her face. Instantly, her hand numbed; with her next heartbeat, her whole arm went limp. The girl drew back, still grinning. A third heartbeat numbed Jandra’s entire torso. There was no fourth heartbeat. Her lungs no longer drew breath. In serene silence, her body lifeless as a doll, Jandra crumbled to the cold floor. She tried to blink and couldn’t. She could only watch, suffocating, as the girl leapt over her.
In her dying, paralyzed body, Jandra listened helplessly as the girl laughed her way down the hall, in search of more victims.
PET GLUMLY WALKED through the palace, lost in thought. When he’d been the companion of the sun-dragon Chakthalla, he would amuse himself in the evenings by stealing out to visit young women in the nearby village. He’d not been with a woman since he met Jandra, mostly due to spending the majority of his time as Albekizan’s prisoner. Still, he was free now. The human town of Richmond wasn’t too far away. Yet he found himself unable to imagine the company of anyone but Jandra. What was wrong with him?
He found himself heading to the courtyard with the heated baths. One of Albekizan’s ancestors had built giant pools whose waters were warmed by a system of pipes that ran through hidden furnaces. Pet thought it would be comforting to sink into those warm waters and let his worries melt away.
Alas, as he stepped into the brick courtyard, he discovered it was already occupied. Shandrazel was sitting in the main pool. Shandrazel was the heir of Albekizan. The sun-dragon’s blood red scales glistened in the flickering torchlight surrounding the bath. Beside him in the pool was Androkom, the high biologian, apparently taking a moment to relax in the aftermath of the fiasco of Vendevorex’s funeral.
Pet turned to leave, but Shandrazel shouted out, “Ah! Bitterwood. Come join us.”
Pet looked around, wondering where Bitterwood was, before remembering that he was now Bitterwood. He’d claimed the name as part of a ruse to save the villagers near Chakthalla’s castle. As a consequence of his deception, he’d been branded with the identity of Bitterwood by King Albekizan himself before thousands of his fellow humans in the Free City. By all rights, Shandrazel should have treated him as a mortal enemy. Yet, either Shandrazel didn’t believe Pet’s ruse, or else Shandrazel was completely drunk on his dream of launching a new age of peace and justice, and willing even to forgive a man famous for killing dragons.
Pet gave a charming smile as he approached the pool.
“We were just discussing the upcoming summit,” said Shandrazel. “We would love to hear your thoughts.”
“Okay,” Pet said, loosening his belt. He slipped out of his clothes unselfconsciously. He’d never been embarrassed by his own nudity. He held his breath and leapt into the water. The pool was quite deep, built for the comfort of a sun-dragon, creatures that stood over twice the height of humans. The water was uncomfortably hot, almost scalding. Pet rose to the surface with a gasp. He noticed an oily film on the water. Fish were a major component of the diets of dragons, and the oil coated their scales as they preened themselves. Pet would require a bath after this bath.
“So,” he said, bracing himself against the edge of the pool. “What did you want my opinion on?”
It was Androkom who answered. A sky-dragon with vivid blue scales, Androkom looked uncomfortable in the water, since he was forced to cling to the sides of the bath as Pet was. Androkom said, “We were thinking that true reform cannot take place without a change in our vocabulary. For the last half century, the lands from the mountains to the eastern sea have been called the Kingdom of Albekizan.”
“I guess that should change now that he’s dead,” said Pet. “The Kingdom of Shandrazel?”
“No,” said Shandrazel. “I am the king who will end the age of kings. I will not rule this land—I will serve it. I make no claim to its wealth. Instead, the land is the common wealth of all, dragons and humans. Which is why I propose we call it the Commonwealth of Albekizan.”
“Hmm,” said Pet. “I notice the name Albekizan is still in there.”
“While I did not approve of my father’s tactics, it is pointless to dispute that his conquest of smaller, warring states created one united territory that has largely existed in peace for decades. In a sense, my father created the Commonwealth that we all share. Leaving his name on the land recognizes historical reality and pays tribute to the opportunity for true justice he created.”
“I guess that makes sense,” Pet said, though it didn’t.
Shandrazel’s eyes brightened. He looked pleased at Pet’s acceptance of the idea.
Pet was familiar with the look. His life had been devoted to making sun-dragons happy. It was his calling in life. As a result, he’d lived a life of comfort other humans couldn’t dream of. Perhaps it would be best if he continued doing what he knew how to do well, and simply accepted everything Shandrazel suggested. Shandrazel was kind hearted. Things would work out, wouldn’t they?
“Excuse me,” Pet said, pinching his nose and sinking beneath the steaming waters. Here, weightless, surrounded by water as warm as a womb, he felt free to think.
What he thought about was that horrible day he’d stood on the platform of the Free City, with Albekizan looming over him, taunting him as the dragon armies warmed into the square to slaughter the assembled humans. Of course, the king’s plans had gone wrong. The humans had fought back. Was he now going to surrender their lives back into the control of dragons? Was this the reward those countless unknown soldiers would pay for his survival?
His lungs at the point of bursting, he popped back above the surface of the oily water.
“No,” he said.
“No?” asked Shandrazel.
“No what?” asked Androkom.
“No, I don’t like having Albekizan’s name appearing on new maps of this land. If we truly wish to form a new government, we should cut ties with the past. Simply call it the Commonwealth and nothing more.”
Shandrazel raised a fore-talon to stroke his scaly chin. “There is wisdom in your words,” he said. “So much injustice in this world exists as an artifact of history. Grudges and grievances planted centuries ago blossom as today’s violence. Very well. The Commonwealth.”
“I like its brevity,” said Androkom.
“It’s bold in its simplicity,” Shandrazel mused. “It says that we have closed the book on history, and now take a quill to fresh pages to write the world anew.”
Androkom said something in response, but Pet didn’t hear it. There was a disturbance in the castle, near the chamber door that led to the bath. It sounded like women screaming, high pitched shrieks that trailed off into cackling. Pet was something of an expert at deciphering the shouts of women. Despite the laughter, these women sounded out for blood.
Androkom and Shandrazel got out of the pool. The wave created by Shandrazel’s sudden motion was enough to lift Pet to the pool’s edge. As he stepped out, an earth-dragon attendant came toward him with a big white cotton towel. The towel was meant for a sun-dragon, as big as a bed sheet. Pet draped it over his shoulder to form a toga. He rubbed his hair dry, wrinkling his nose at the fishy odor that clung to him.
“I wonder what the commotion is,” Androkom said, sounding nervous.
In answer, an earth-dragon soldier stumbled into the courtyard. He collapsed on the brick, his own spear jutting from his back.
“What—” said Shandrazel. Before he could finish the thought three women burst from the shadowy doorway, leaping over the guard’s body.
The women were naked, their pale bodies young and limber, as they charged across the room toward Pet and the dragons. Normally, Pet welcomed the presence of nude young women throwing themselves at him. The fact that these women were soaked with blood and waving long black daggers over their tattooed heads made him think their visit would not be a pleasant one.
“Shandrazel!” Androkom shouted, leaping into the sky. “Save yourself!”
Androkom beat his wings and rose into the air, unsteady. Sky-dragons used their tails for balance in flight; Androkom’s tail was little more than a stub after his escape from one of Blasphet’s deathtraps.
Shandrazel didn’t follow his smaller companion into the air. As the women charged, one of them threw a volley of darts. The darts struck the earth-dragon attendant who stood near Pet. The dragon shivered, then fell to the ground, no longer breathing.
A second woman threw her darts at Shandrazel—the biggest target in the room. Shandrazel responded by sweeping his wings forward, creating a powerful gust that knocked the darts off course. Two of the women continued to charge the sun-dragon while the third picked Pet as her target. An unearthly shriek erupted from her bloody lips. She hacked the air before her with her dagger as if she were stabbing at a swarm of invisible bees.
In the course of a decade of carousing, Pet had bedded, if his math could be trusted, a total of three-hundred seventeen women. Some of the more heartbroken ones had physically expressed their displeasure at his faithlessness. Which is to say, Pet had experience in dealing with young women trying to sink a knife into his chest. He danced aside at the last second, allowing the assassin’s knife to slice only air. He kicked out his leg and caught her by the ankle, tripping her, sending her splashing into the hot pool.
He turned to see if Shandrazel needed any help. The sun-dragon seemed to have little to fear from the two girls. He swung his long tail around in whipping motion, catching the first attacker in the belly, folding her in two. The momentum of the blow sent the girl flying, crashing into one of the marble pillars that decorated the courtyard.
The last woman leapt at Shandrazel, attempting to plant her dagger in his thigh. He caught her in mid air, sinking his teeth into her shoulder. She squealed as she thrust the dagger up with both hands, burying it to the hilt in Shandrazel’s jaws.
Shandrazel’s face went limp. The girl fell to the ground, a vicious row of red puncture wounds dotting her left shoulder. Shandrazel stumbled backwards, knocking over a large clay pot filled with shrubs. He clawed at the blade with his fore-talon, freeing it. It fell to the bricks with a clatter. Shandrazel lowered his head and stared at the blade with unfocused eyes. He lurched drunkenly then toppled, his tail whipping about as if it had a mind of its own. The wounded girl darted forward and grabbed the blade, then turned toward Pet. The assassin who had smacked into the marble column was also on her feet, limping toward him, her blade held in a trembling hand.
Behind him, he heard the splashes of the first woman climbing from the pool.
“Ladies,” he said, raising his hands, backing away, turning in a slow circle. No matter which direction he looked, there was always one just out of sight. “I’m sure we can talk this out.”
The women responded with laughter, spitting blood.
JANDRA COULD HEAR her killer in the outer hall. More guards had come in response to the commotion. One by one, their armored bodies crashed heavily to the ground.
If only she could have known the poison they were using, perhaps it wasn’t too late to command the microscopic machinery that swam in her blood to form an antidote. At the thought, a single molecule came into focus before her, enormously magnified. The years Vendevorex forced her to study chemistry proved useful. She recognized the molecule as an organic alkaloid. The long chain of atoms was coiled like a serpent about to strike. The poison was made of dozens of carbon and hydrogen atoms, tangled together with a few oxygen and nitrogen atoms. Just two nitrogens, in fact. The molecule would be easy to break at these points. In her mind’s eye, one of the tiny machines that swam in her bloodstream darted forward and snapped the molecule in two with its infinitesimal claws. She imagined the action being repeated through her body.
An instant later her heart beat. It was a feeble flutter, faint at first, but it grew stronger. Air gushed back into her lungs. The fingers of her left hand wriggled. Her right hand, which had taken the knife thrust, remained limp and useless. She sat up, woozy, and found herself staring at Ledax’s lifeless body.
Or was it lifeless? Was he paralyzed as she had been, slowly suffocating? She saw the puncture wound in his shoulder. She jammed two fingers into the hole. It was as if her fingertips were covered by a million tiny eyes. She found the same poison in his blood, which now lay stagnant inside him. She willed the microscopic machinery within her to leach from her pores to attack the poison inside Ledax. Nothing happened as the seconds ticked by. Her own blood had been full of the devices necessary to fight the poison. The earth-dragon lacked this advantage. She knew she should give up, abandon him, and go in search of the assassin. Yet, there was a look in the earth-dragon’s desperate eyes that told her that some spark of life still burned within him. Her heart leapt as those eyes blinked. Ledax gasped as his lungs stirred back to life.
Confident that her devices were working to save Ledax, Jandra struggled to her feet. Her dizziness was fading but her right hand was still limp. She studied the wound. Her eyes focused on such fine detail she felt as if she was examining her hand under a magnifying lens. She could see how each side of the puncture wound fit together, skin cell to skin cell, nerve to nerve, with each torn blood vessel having a perfect mate across the gap. Willing the matched cells to reconnect, the wound closed over in less than a minute, leaving a ragged scar. She wriggled her tingling fingers. She liked this new helmet!
With a killer in the castle, there was no time to dwell on her new-found powers. She chased down the hall, listening for any clue. She found the still bodies of two earth-dragon guards as she turned a corner. There was perhaps still time to save them, but if she tarried, how many more dragons would the assassin reach? Clenching her fists, she made the bitter determination that it was a higher priority to stop the assassin than to heal the dying. She ran faster, her strength fully restored, all traces of the poison gone.
She raced around one more corner and found the assassin surrounded by the bodies of three more guards. It looked as if one had gotten in a blow, for the tattooed girl was bleeding profusely from a gash across her ribs. As Jandra ran toward her the girl looked up, her eyes still full of the same dark hatred. Yet now something new flashed within them: confusion.
“Ah ough ah ill ooo,” the girl grumbled.
“You thought you killed me?” Jandra asked, drawing up short, her eyes focused on the deadly blade. Jandra no longer feared the poison, but she wasn’t anxious to be stabbed again. It was time to attempt a feat she’d witnessed Vendevorex perform many times. She dipped her fingers into the pouch of silver powder that hung at her side, then flicked her fingers toward the girl. She waited several seconds as she and the girl circled each other, their eyes locked. The girl seemed wary, as if she were facing a ghost.
The microscopic dust settled over the dagger. Vendevorex had been able to command the particles to instantly decay matter. Jandra reached out with her mind, willing the dagger to crumble to rust.
The dagger glowed with an internal fire, then began to crack and crumble. The fire didn’t stop at the dagger, however. The girl dropped the weapon and wailed, shaking her hand as if it were in terrible pain. As she shook, the skin of her hand unraveled, the flesh falling away in damp nuggets until she was waving fingers of bone.
Blood gushed from her wrist as Jandra watched in horror. The glow continued up her arm. Jandra reached out, trying to find all the particles with her mind, commanding them to stop. The girl fell to the floor, her right arm now nothing but bone. The flesh of her shoulder bubbled, but the girl had stopped screaming. Jandra finally brought the reaction under control, but it was too late. The girl was dead, with a good portion of her right rib cage exposed. Jandra turned away, sick to her stomach, as the girl’s blood pooled across the floor. She slumped against the wall, welcoming the coolness of the stone. The sound of the girl’s dying agony still echoed in her ears. Only, as she listened closer, she realized it wasn’t the girl’s death cry she was hearing. Another girl was screaming, several of them in fact. There was more than one assassin in the castle.
There would be time to feel sick later. Now, she clenched her fists and ran toward the noise.
PET WEIGHED HIS ODDS. He was confident he could deal with any given girl. It was just a question of how quickly the other two would move to attack when he acted. The two that Shandrazel had fought were wounded. The bitten girl grew paler with each step as her wounds trickled wet red ribbons across her breasts and belly. The other girl was limping after her collision with the column. So, the greatest threat was the girl he’d tripped. He tilted his head to see her movements from the corner of his eye. She was growing closer . . . closer . . . and then, she leapt.
Pet whirled, slapping the knife from his attacker’s hand. Before she could react he swung his fist in a roundhouse punch, catching her on the chin, putting his full weight into it. The blow numbed his arm. The girl spun backward, stumbling, her arms flopping limply. He was certain he’d knocked her out. Unfortunately, she stayed on her feet and turned around to face him, her eyes full of hatred. She stood next to one of the decorative marble columns and placed one hand on it to steady herself. She used her other hand to wipe the blood from her mouth. Pet’s eyes flickered over the bricks. Where had her knife flown to? If he turned his back on her . . .
Suddenly, a heavy flower pot dropped parallel to the marble column, crashing into the girl’s head, smashing into a hundred fragments. The girl toppled sideways, her legs twitching.
Pet looked up. Androkom perched atop the marble pillar, his eyes wide with fear. “Watch out!” he shouted.
Pet spun to find the limping assassin barely a yard away. Her blade cut the air as Pet jerked away, the tip missing his throat by inches. His feet carried him backward, trying to open some space between him and the girl. Unfortunately, the enormous towel he was wrapped in wound up under his feet and he tripped, falling to his back. The girl loomed over him, raising her blade high.
Then, suddenly, her blade was gone, along with most of her hand. She lowered the stump of her wrist, staring at the blood jetting out with each heartbeat. She grew white as Pet’s towel as her eyes fluttered up in her head. As she fell, Pet saw a familiar figure behind her.
“Jandra!” he yelled out. “There’s a third one! Be careful!”
“Where?” said Jandra, her eyes scanning the room.
“She’s behind that column,” Androkom yelled, pointing with his wing.
Jandra crept toward the marble pillar as Pet found his footing. He cinched the towel up higher as he, too, approached the column, his eyes alert for any movement.
Rounding the column at a respectful distance, Pet found the final assassin sitting with her back to the marble, her legs splayed before her, her arms hanging limply by her side. She was shivering, and her skin had taken on a bluish cast. She held the black dagger loosely in her right hand.
“Drop the knife,” Jandra said.
“She’s dying,” Pet said.
“I see that,” Jandra said, sounding annoyed. Then, to the girl once more, “I can save your life. Just put down the knife.”
The girl cocked her head toward Jandra, fixing her vacant, dying gaze upon her. A smile played briefly upon her lips. Her mouth moved as if she was saying something, but no sound came out, only a gush of fresh blood. With a final burst of strength, the girl raised her blade, grasped it with both hands, and plunged it into her left breast, burying it to the hilt.
Her head drooped as her arms fell to her side, a final sigh bubbling from her lips.
“These were servants of the Murder God!” Androkom shouted from his perch. “Suicide assassins! There could be a whole army of them!”
“Let’s hope there’s just the four,” Jandra said, running to Shandrazel. “How long since he was stabbed?”
“Only a few minutes,” said Pet. “Four assassins? I counted three.”
“I killed one upstairs,” she said as she ran her hands over Shandrazel’s hide. “Where was he stabbed? I need to touch his blood.”
“He was struck in the jaw,” Androkom called out.
Jandra ran her hands along the line of his long, crocodilian jaw. “Found it!” she shouted as her fingers wriggled into the stab wound. “He’s still alive,” she said, seconds later. “I’ll need a moment to find all the poison.”
Pet stood over her, looking at himself reflected in her silver helmet. “This is a new look for you,” he said. “I liked the tiara more. But the skirt does show off your calves.”
“Can we discuss my wardrobe another time?”
Pet shrugged, then went back to check on the other two assassins. The girl who’d been hit by the flower pot was obviously dead, the top of her skull dented in. He moved to the second one, kneeling beside her. Blood no longer spurted from her wrist. He placed his fingers on her throat, feeling for a pulse. Nothing. She’d lost too much blood.
“Too bad we didn’t take one alive,” said Pet. “We could have found out what they’re here for.”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Androkom said. “They’re here to free the Murder God! Damn Shandrazel! I told him to kill that monster.”
Shandrazel mumbled, his jaws barely moving, “I will . . . consider your counsel.”
There was a commotion in the hall, the heavy slapping sound of earth-dragons running at full speed, their weapons and armor clattering. Two of them burst into the courtyard, shouting, “Sire! Sire!”
Shandrazel raised his head slowly, an effort that seemed to require all his strength. Jandra, her fingers still in his wound, looked almost as if she moved his head like some oversized puppet.
“Hold still,” she grumbled.
“Sire,” the first guard said, skidding to a halt in front of Shandrazel. “Blasphet is no longer in his cell!”
“I knew it!” Androkom said, vindicated.
“We found these,” the second guard said as he reached Shandrazel. He held out his arm and opened his claw. In the palm sat several pale lumps of torn flesh. Pet stepped closer, then recoiled when his eyes finally solved the puzzle of what he was seeing. The dragon was holding severed human tongues.
“They cut out their own tongues so they couldn’t talk if they were captured,” Androkom said.
Pet looked back at pale pink lumps in morbid fascination. Many tongues had been in his mouth over the years. He doubted he could ever kiss anyone again without thinking of this. Then he realized that the silent tongues had one more bit of information to confess, as he counted them. “There’s one more assassin,” he said. “We’ve killed four, but there are five tongues.”
A large shadow fell over the room. Pet looked up to see a sun-dragon descending in the moonlight, his wings spread wide to catch the air as he glided toward the courtyard. Pet didn’t recognize this dragon, but he instantly recognized what the beast carried in his hind-talons. A human girl, nude, tattooed . . . the final assassin.
A foot from the brick, the dragon dropped the girl’s limp body. He spread his talons out to land. Once he was firmly on the ground, he placed a talon over the girl’s still form, trapping her.
“Hex!” Shandrazel shouted, excited.
“Hex?” Pet asked, looking at Jandra.
Jandra shrugged, not recognizing the name either.
“I heard you were king now,” Hex said. He nodded toward the woman he’d pinned. “Looks like our uncle has sent a gift for your coronation. I found her on the roof. I took her alive, in case you wanted to question her.”
“That’s useless,” Androkom said, his eyes darting about the courtyard, searching for more assassins in the shadows. “They’ve cut out their tongues.”
Jandra took her hand from Shandrazel’s throat and moved to the earth-dragon who held the tongues. She took one and walked toward Hex and his prisoner. She dropped to her knees and pried open the girl’s limp jaw. With a determined look on her face, she put her fingers into the girl’s mouth, exploring. A moment later, she shook her head.
“Not hers,” she said, tossing aside the tongue. “Hand me the next one. She’s going to be in for a surprise when she wakes up.”
CHAPTER FIVE
* * *
HEX
PET RETRIEVED HIS PANTS as Jandra stuffed the third tongue into the girl’s mouth. His clothes lay near the dagger he’d swatted away from the girl he’d thrown in the pool. After he pulled on his pants and boots, he carefully picked up the dagger. The blade was full of pores, black venom oozing slowly from them. He shook the weapon gently and heard fluid sloshing in the handle. Up close, the poison stank, an odor somewhere between sour milk and boiled cabbage.
He jumped as Androkom dropped down beside him, an empty flower pot clasped in his fore-claws.
“Here,” Androkom said, motioning for Pet to put the weapon inside. “When Graxen returns, I’ll send the blade to the College of Spires. They’ll want to catalogue this toxin.”
Pet dropped the blade into the pot. He looked back over Androkom’s scaly blue shoulder to the newly arrived sun-dragon. Most humans, no doubt, thought all sun-dragons looked alike. All were enormous, with forty-foot wing spans and jaws nearly a yard in length. All were red as a ripe chili pepper, with green eyes and black claws. Pet, however, had lived among sky-dragons long enough that he could spot their individual differences. What had struck him as most unusual about this new dragon were the features he shared with Shandrazel. The dragon was older, a bit heavier, but the shape of his face, the normally unique bumps and ridges along the snout between the eyes and the nostrils, were a close match with Shandrazel.
Leaning closer to Androkom, he asked quietly, “Who’s that?”
The new sun-dragon proved to have excellent hearing. He turned his head toward Pet and said, “I am Hexilizan, eldest son of Albekizan.”
“Oh,” said Pet. “I didn’t know Shandrazel had any surviving brothers.”
“Hex is the only one alive I know of. The fate of two remain mysteries,” said Shandrazel.
“I was bested in the contest of succession nearly thirty years past and have dwelled ever since upon the Isle of Horses in service to the biologian Dacorn,” Hex said. “He met an untimely death not long ago, and I’ve been occupied settling his affairs. I’ve returned due to rumors I’ve heard of my brother’s plans.” Hex turned toward Shandrazel. “Is it true you intend to overthrow centuries of tradition and implement radical new ideas of governance?”
“We live in dark times if concepts such as justice can be defined as radical,” said Shandrazel.
“Dark times indeed,” said Hex. “As long as we speak of justice, I must ask about the second rumor: Father died at the hands of Bitterwood?”
“His true assailant is unknown,” said Shandrazel. “Bitterwood was in the Free City at the time, fighting for his life.”
It took Pet half a second to remember they were talking about him. He cleared his throat. He searched for words that a fabled dragon-slayer might say about the king’s death, something that would be defiant without being provocative. “Albekizan was responsible for the deaths of thousands. It was only a matter of time before someone sought revenge.”
“Agreed,” said Hexilizan. “Father was a tyrant. I do not mourn his passing.”
“Hex!” said Shandrazel.
“Shan,” Hexilizan said, coolly. “After my defeat, father treated me as if I were dead. I’ve spent decades in servitude due to the old ways. If you intend to overthrow all the laws and traditions that have shackled this kingdom for centuries, I applaud you.”
“I do not wish to overthrow all laws,” Shandrazel said. “Indeed, I want to launch an age where laws are respected as upholding the common good. I intend to draft new laws that treat all sentient beings equally.”
“Do as you wish,” said Hex. “But I have pondered the matter for many years and now believe all laws to be fundamentally unjust. Laws exist only for the benefit of the strong; they unfailingly justify the oppression of the weak.”
“I vigorously disagree,” said Shandrazel. “Laws can serve to protect the weak from the strong.”
“Under your new government, if a sun-dragon were to murder an earth-dragon, how would your law respond?”
“The sun-dragon would be captured, of course, and punished.”
Hex looked smug he listened to his brother. He said, “Don’t you see the act of capturing and punishing another being is an act of force? It’s impossible to enforce laws without violence. Some authority always wields the power to arrest, to imprison, and to execute. The sole purpose of law is to provide a moral gloss for the use of violence to bend others to the will of a higher authority.”
Shandrazel furrowed his brow, looking uncertain how to respond to this.
Androkom diplomatically ended the argument by saying, “Hexilizan, you’ve obviously given a great deal of thought to these matters. Perhaps you should participate in our summit; your ideas will no doubt lead to a more lively debate.”
Hex shook his head. “I have been confined to the Isle of Horses for too long. Now that I’m free, I wish to travel and see the world. The thought of sitting for weeks at some summit debating governance holds no appeal. You now know my full opinion on the matter. All law is unjust.”
“Without law, there would be anarchy,” said Shandrazel.
“Anarchy isn’t such a bad thing. There is no law in the forest. There is no law in the sea. Let the world run wild,” said Hex. “There is no injustice in nature.”
Pet cared little about the philosophical debate, but Hex’s scorn for the law suddenly placed a dangerous idea in his head. He walked back toward the two sun-dragons.
“Hexilizan—” he started.
“Call me Hex,” the sun-dragon said. “It’s what my friends call me.”
“Okay, Hex,” Pet continued. “Isn’t it a little suspicious that you show up talking about the unfairness of imprisonment on the very night that Blasphet escapes? Aren’t you his nephew?”
“Yes,” said Hex, swinging his head down to Pet’s level. He brought his jaws to within inches of Pet’s face, then said, calmly, “So’s Shan. What’s your point?”
Pet’s familiarity with sun-dragons meant he wasn’t easily intimidated by them. Still, with Hex’s carrion-scented breath washing over him, Pet somehow lost his train of thought.
“My brother had nothing to do with Blasphet’s escape,” Shandrazel said. His tone made it clear there would be no further speculation on this point.
Pet nodded. “Right.”
“Of course, it would be the fifth tongue,” Jandra muttered. All eyes turned to her as she stood, stretching her back. Jandra, standing next to the captive, said, “I’m going to wake her. I guess we should tie her up first?”
“I’m pretty good at that,” Pet said, glad that another of his talents would be of use.
JANDRA CROUCHED next to Pet as he wrapped the slumbering assassin in the oversized towel. She reached out to touch the white nappy fabric, wiping away the blood and saliva that coated her fingers after her molecular surgery on the girl’s tongue. She was startled by the texture of the cloth, the way the ridges of her fingers ran against the weave. Suddenly, she was intensely aware of her own skin, of the beads of sweat that coated her face and neck, and of the way her clothes clung to her body. She felt every tiny bump in the bricks beneath her knees. Her every nerve cell became a hundred times more sensitive. What was the helmet doing to her now? She closed her eyes, trying to regain control. Now it felt as if her skin was one giant eye that could see in all directions, but instead of perceiving light it sensed heat. The two sun-dragons at her back glowed like furnaces. Pet emitted a torch-like warmth as his muscular body rolled the assassin in the towel, mummifying her. Jandra opened her eyes as he ripped the loose end of the towel into long strips, then used those strips to tie the assassin in a tidy bundle.
As he worked, she stared at his bare torso. The well-defined muscles in his shoulders clenched and coiled as he worked. Her eyes wandered down his long arms to his perfectly formed hands, the fingers so graceful yet powerful in their movements.
“Done,” said Pet. “She won’t get out of that.”
“You’re Vendevorex’s apprentice aren’t you?” Hex asked. “Jandra, I believe?”
“Yes,” Jandra said, standing to face the sun-dragon. Hex bore a family resemblance to Shandrazel, the same vivid red coloring of his scales fading to orange and yellow tips. Hex’s eyes were a dark green, almost black, similar in shade to the ivy that covered the castle’s rocky walls, while Shandrazel’s were a brighter emerald. The deep wrinkles around Hex’s eyes made it apparent that he was many years older than Shandrazel.
“I’ve heard of you,” said Hex. “It’s rumored you command the same supernatural powers as the wizard.”
“I won’t claim to be his equal,” said Jandra. “Still, I’m improving. I’m flattered you’ve heard of me. I’m a little embarrassed I hadn’t heard of you.”
“You aren’t the one who should be embarrassed,” said Shandrazel, apologetically. “Our father was a strict adherent to the old ways. After Hex lost the contest, my father never spoke of him again. It’s my father who deserves the shame here.”
Androkom said, “We can discuss family history later. Every second counts if we hope to find Blasphet. Wake the prisoner.”
Jandra didn’t like the new high biologian. She found him overly bossy. Still, he was right. There was no point in putting this off.
“How will you wake her?” asked Hex. “With magic? It’s said that you command the elements.”
“I’ll command an element, all right,” Jandra said, walking toward the bath. She reached down and picked up a wooden bucket that sat at the edge. It was already full of water. She headed back to the bound girl. “Call it magic if you want.”
She upended the bucket, aiming the deluge at the girl’s shaved head. The prisoner coughed and sputtered in the aftermath. Her eyes jerked open.
“Where am—” The girl’s face went pale, as if she were terrified by the sound of her own voice. She struggled within her cotton cocoon. Her wide eyes darted around the room.
“That’s right. You can talk,” said Jandra. “Where’s Blasphet?”
“I’m a Sister of the Serpent!” the girl screeched, arching her back as she strained against her bonds. “I’ll kill you all!”
“Sister,” said Jandra, putting her foot on the girl’s belly and forcing her back down, “You’re not killing anybody tonight. You may as well relax and answer our questions.”
The girl grew quiet, glaring at Jandra. She stuck out her tongue defiantly. Then with a sudden jerk of her jaw, she bit an inch from the tip. Tears filled her eyes as she rocked her head back and forth, blood speckling her cheeks.
“Oh for the love of . . .” Jandra grumbled, picking up the tongue. “I can keep sticking this thing on all night.” Although, in truth, she wasn’t looking forward to putting her fingers near the girl’s mouth with her awake.
“Dissolve her teeth,” said Androkom.
“What?” said Jandra. “No!”
“Why is the idea so repellant?” asked Androkom. “This human is willing to maim herself. If you dissolve her teeth she won’t bite off her tongue again.”
“I know,” said Jandra. “But . . .”
“It would be torture to maim a captured foe,” said Pet. She was surprised by his intervention. Pet had his shoulders pulled back and his head held high. He could look like a confident leader when the role demanded it. “Stand your ground, Jandra. I was a victim of Albekizan’s torture. The day when helpless humans suffer beneath the talons of dragons must be at an end.”
“She wouldn’t be suffering beneath the talons of a dragon,” said Androkom, frustrated to be explaining the obvious. “Jandra’s human.”
“It’s you who gave the command,” said Pet. Jandra wondered why Pet was so willing to talk back to Androkom. Was he trying to impress her?
“No one is giving anyone commands but me,” Shandrazel said. “I may wish to be the king who brings an end to kings, but, at this moment, I am king. Jandra, I respect your aversion to hurting another. Still, the information this woman possesses is of utmost value. Perhaps losing her teeth will make her more cooperative. Will you reconsider?”
“No!” said Pet.
Jandra was a little annoyed he spoke for her. “No,” she said. “I have no qualms about using my powers in self defense, but this is too much to ask.”
“This is what I was talking about,” Hex said, in a scolding tone directed at Shandrazel. “King for barely a week and already you would issue a command to torture. What degree of physical pain will you need to inflict to break the will of a fanatic who bites off her own tongue?”
“We shouldn’t be discussing this with her listening,” said Androkom.
“Agreed,” said Shandrazel. He nodded toward the small army of guards that had by now gathered in the courtyard. “Take her to the dungeons. Secure her tightly. I’ll be down in the morning with . . . further orders.”
Pet leaned close to Jandra. “I’m proud of you,” he said.
“I’m a little surprised by you,” she whispered. “I didn’t expect you to stand up to Shandrazel.”
He placed a hand on her shoulder and drew his lips closer to her ear as he whispered back, “I’m a little surprised myself. But, having been on the receiving end of torture, I honestly don’t want to see it inflicted on even my worst enemy.”
The warmth of his hand seemed to fill her entire body. She found her eyes drawn to his lips, and the pearly white teeth that gleamed behind them. Propelled by instincts she didn’t quite understand, she leaned into him. He wrapped his arms around her in a strong hug. Her cheek was pressed against his bare shoulder. He stank of fish, but beneath that was a musky aroma, the smell of his sweat. It took all her power to resist sticking out her tongue to taste him. What was happening to her?
As she thought the question, something in the helmet found the answer. His sweat was full of chemicals, tiny jigsaw pieces that locked into receptors in her nose in a perfect mating process. Was this was lust felt like? She’d never been attracted to a man before. To whom was she supposed to be attracted? The brutish slaves the sun-dragons hunted for sport? The thuggish dockworkers that populated Richmond? Human men had always seemed so animalistic when compared to the refined and mannerly dragons. Now, the idea of being an animal found a certain resonance within her. Her heart raced as she took a long, deep breath of Pet’s scent. She closed her eyes, feeling her body melting into his arms.
Was this so bad? What could this lead to?
The helmet suddenly flooded her mind with what it could lead to. She jerked her eyes opened and pushed Pet away.
“Enough hugging,” she said. “There’s work to be done.”
Pet looked a little hurt. She swung around, unable to face him, certain that her lust was written in tall clear letters on her face. She was tempted to remove her helmet. What was the advantage of having sharpened senses if she lost all control of them? But was it so bad to lose control? Eventually, she would experience intimacy with a man, and Pet wasn’t such a bad candidate. He brushed his teeth, kept his nails trimmed, and seemed to be fairly experienced. Who better to learn from?
She closed her eyes and clenched her fists, feeling her nails pressing into her palms. This had to stop.
“I’m leaving the castle,” she said. “There’s too much I need to do.”
“What?” asked Pet. “Right now? It’s after midnight. The only thing we need to do is get to bed.”
She shook her head. “I’m too keyed up after the attacks to sleep. I had planned to leave soon to find Bit . . . to find Zeeky. She told me she was from a village known as Big Lick. I want to make sure she gets home safely.”
“Why is this so urgent?” Pet asked.
“There’s just a lot to do. I want to see Zeeky, I want to find out what happened to Ven’s body, and now Blasphet’s on the loose. The only one I have any real information about is Zeeky. I’ll go find her, get that out of the way, and then come back.” Hopefully, by the time she returned, her senses would no longer be so erratic.
“I need you here,” Pet said. “We both know you’re the smart one. I need you at the summit.”
“You’ll be fine,” said Jandra. “You stood up to the dragons just now. You . . . you’re a better man than you think you are.”
Hex approached them as they spoke. “Pardon my interruption. If you wish to travel, I volunteer as your transportation. It was never my intention to linger here at the castle. I possess a powerful lust to see the world.”
Jandra’s cheeks tingled at the word “lust.” But with Hex flying her, the journey to find Zeeky and the real Bitterwood might only take a few days. Perhaps by then she could trust herself to work with Pet without risking becoming another of his conquests.
“Hex,” she said, “It would be an honor. Do you need anything before we go?”
“I arrived with only the scales on my back and so I shall depart. There is nothing I need that the forests and the streams cannot provide.”
“Wonderful. I travel light as well,” she said, fingering the pouch of silver dust that hung on her belt. If she needed a change of clothes, she would simply weave them from materials at hand. In fact, her skirt seemed a little impractical for dragon-riding. She ran her fingers along the velvety cloth, willing it to transform. The fabric responded almost instantly, reweaving itself into a pair of riding pants.
“Wow,” said Pet. “I didn’t know you could do that. Change your clothes just by thinking.”
“I’ve been able to transmute matter for a while,” she said. “I’ve just gotten better at it.”
“Do you, uh, take off your clothes the same way? Just think about at it and, whoosh, they fall off? Because that’s just . . . I mean—” Pet’s voice trailed off dreamily.
“Take care, Pet,” she said as Hex crouched, giving her access to his broad back.
She glanced toward Pet as she straddled Hex’s neck, grasping his mane of long feather-scales. She was out of range of Pet’s aroma once Hex rose to his normal height. Pet didn’t look as delicious as he had a second before. He looked a little pathetic, actually, small from where she sat on the back of a dragon. Which only made it all the more urgent to her that she not be near him should her senses run wild again.
“Let’s go, Hex,” she said.
Hex ran forward, spreading his wings. With a flap they were airborne and Jandra clenched her knees, holding on for her life.
JANDRA HAD NEVER RIDDEN a sun-dragon before. When she was younger, she’d often flown with Vendevorex, riding in a harness strapped to his chest, looking out over the world upside-down. But once she’d gone through the growth spurt of puberty, she’d become too heavy for him to carry easily, and slowly she’d come to accept that she’d spend her adulthood earthbound.
Hex carried her across the night sky as if she was weightless. Sun-dragons’ enormous wings had always reminded her of sails. Sun-dragons moved through the air the way ships sailed across the water, slowly, taking turns in great arcs. Sky-dragons moved more like fish, darting and flashing in any direction with the speed of thought.
As Jandra watched the moonlit landscape unfolding beneath her, she suddenly found a deep appreciation of the sun-dragon’s command over the air. The relative slowness of their flight felt graceful, as if they were drifting down a river of wind, with Hex’s wings carefully dipping and tilting in the current. From time to time he would beat his broad wings. His powerful muscles rippled beneath Jandra’s legs as they climbed into the sky. She felt as if they must be miles above the earth. Yet, even as she thought this, her brain began to buzz as her helm gathered various bits of data—the angle of the crescent moon above in comparison to the size and shape Hex’s shadow below—and a string of numbers flashed through her mind to inform her they were roughly three hundred yards above the countryside.
The terrain below was mostly gentle hills. It was late fall and most of the trees had shed their leaves. Cottages and barns dotted the hills; rail fences divided the land into large parcels, marking the boundaries of farms. It seemed odd that the earth should look so peaceful, with Albekizan’s castle so near. Most humans had returned home after the battle of the Free City. It mattered little to them who sat upon the throne. They would continue their daily lives of raising families, planting, harvesting, and trading goods.
Vendevorex had told her long ago that humans benefited from the rule of sun-dragons. War had become a thing that dragons waged against other dragons. The armies that dragon kings amassed weren’t aimed primarily at the oppression of humans, but at protecting themselves from the threats posed by other dragons. It was true that, under the law, humans owned nothing. They were legally little more than parasites upon the king’s property. All the products of their labors could be taken from them on a whim. But, in practice, most humans were allowed to live their lives unmolested. The human arts of farming and tending livestock had never been activities dragons embraced. Humans produced food, the dragons took their portion, and beyond this most people spent their lives catching only the occasional glimpse of dragons. In return, humans lived in a state of relative peace. They weren’t allowed to amass armies. The ruling sun-dragons would quickly quash any human militia before it could become a threat. While humans did skirmish with neighboring villages from time to time, most humans spent their lives never having to pick up a weapon to use against a fellow man. For centuries, there had been no human-against-human battle that involved more than a few dozen men. This time in history, Vendevorex had told her, was known as the Pax Draco—the Peace of Dragons.
Was Shandrazel risking this peace with his talk of freedom? Having grown up among dragons, Jandra had spent most of her childhood assuming that the existing world order was essentially fair. Perhaps the world would be better if the dragons continued to rule.
As she thought this, they passed over a high hill and on the far side found what looked to be a city of tents. Smoke from a hundred smoldering campfires scented the air. In addition to the hundreds of small and tattered tents, there were hundreds, perhaps thousands of humans who were slumbering on the bare ground, with not even a blanket to cover them.
“Who are these people?” Hex asked.
Jandra wasn’t sure. “I suppose they’re refugees,” she answered. “People from the Free City who don’t know how to find their way home.”
“This is why Shandrazel’s vision of a new world order is doomed,” Hex sighed.
“Why?”
“Humans will care nothing for Shandrazel’s proposed reforms after what my father has done,” said Hex. “They may even take up arms to avenge my father’s misdeeds. And what then? Shandrazel will use the armies he now commands to force the humans to respect his new laws. He’ll become as much a tyrant as my father was no matter how good his intentions.”
“You’re something of a pessimist, I take it.”
“On the contrary,” he said. “I believe there is every chance a new and better world is only a few years away. Perhaps Shandrazel will lose control of his armies. The various domains that make up the kingdom will revert to local control. No longer ruled by a higher authority, the inhabitants of the land may learn to work together for the good of all. Simple self interest will lead dragons and humans to peace, once the claw of tyranny is lifted.”
Jandra now found Hex’s world view overly optimistic. Then she remembered the sound of the executioner’s axe falling and taking the lives of her friends. She remembered the cries from the courtyard as Albekizan had all the humans in the palace slaughtered. Maybe Hex was right—perhaps all authority in this world did derive from violence.
She grew quiet, lost in thought, as the refugee camp vanished in the distance behind them. Hex said, “Perhaps I should have asked this an hour ago, but where are we going?”
“Oh,” said Jandra. “Excellent question. I wish I knew. You were heading west, and I know that’s right, at least. Zeeky said her village was called Big Lick. Supposedly, it’s in the mountains near Chakthalla’s castle.”
Hex stiffened at the word “mountains.” Jandra had always been mystified that dragons were afraid of the western mountains. Vendevorex had told her that dragons lived in lands beyond, but for some reason dragons avoided journeying to those distant lands.
“I don’t think it’s far into the mountains,” she said, hoping to reassure him.
“It won’t matter if it is,” Hex said, sounding defiant. “I’ve never placed much weight in the legends of the cursed mountains, though others do. Dacorn, the most rational dragon I’ve ever known, told me that it was certain death for a dragon to risk traveling over them. I’ve faced things in life worse than death; a cursed mountain isn’t all that worrisome.”
“There’s still the matter of finding it. I know we follow the river, but as it heads west more and more tributaries join it and I’m not sure which one Vendevorex followed when he took me there. Perhaps we should turn back. There are atlases at the palace.”
As she said this, she saw in her mind’s eye the giant pedestal that sat in the main library, and the atlas upon it, containing all the maps of the kingdom. She could still feel the weight of the parchment in her hand as she looked through the tome—a book scaled for sun-dragons had pages nearly as tall as she was.
As she thought about the atlas, it loomed in the air before her, luminous yet convincingly solid. She reached out to the floating book and opened its cover. Her head tingled as the helmet reached into a thousand folds of her brain simultaneously, reconstructing the book from memories.
Stunned by the detail of the maps before her, she realized, with a sudden thrill, that every book she’d ever studied lurked in the hidden corners of her mind. Would the reconfiguration of her brain that Vendevorex had told her about produce total recall? Would every page of every book she’d glimpsed be available with just a thought?
No wonder Vendevorex had always seemed like such a know it all.
CHAPTER SIX
* * *
JUDGMENT BY SWINE
BANT BITTERWOOD THOUGHT the valley below looked like a giant’s patchwork quilt, as squares of tan fields jutted up against blocks of gray trees. In the distance were mountains, the peaks barely visible through blue haze. Zeeky didn’t seem interested in the scenery. Zeeky, a nine-year old girl with golden hair and dirty cheeks, only had eyes for animals. It was she who guided their mount, Killer, a barrel-chested ox-dog that carried two humans and a pig on his back as if they weighed no more than kittens. Zeeky was currently occupied teaching the pig to talk.
“Zeeky,” she said.
Poocher, the pig, squealed, “Eee-ee.”
Bitterwood hoped the pig would provide Zeeky better conversation than he could. Though he tried to hide it from Zeeky, he was currently wracked with fevers. The wounds he’d suffered when the dragon king Albekizan had buried his dagger-length teeth into him had festered. Yellow-brown puss glued his shirt to his torso and soaked through his makeshift bandages.
Bitterwood sucked in a sharp, pained breath as Killer slipped on a slick rock along the stream bed they followed. The ox-dog was as steady a mount as could be hoped for, and Zeeky’s praise brought out an exceptional gentleness in him. Still, the terrain was rugged, and the broken things inside Bitterwood cut ever deeper.
Bitterwood found the sharp focus of the pain a welcome distraction. It brought him momentary relief from the torment of his memories. He never intended to survive his final battle with Albekizan. He’d nearly died beneath that river, drawn toward a light where he found his beloved wife, Recanna, dead to him for twenty years.
She’d told him to turn back.
She’d told him he wasn’t ready.
For twenty years, Bitterwood had slain dragons, never wavering in his conviction that his cause had been just. Had he been turned away from death to continue that fight? Or had heaven shunned him because the struggle had warped him beyond redemption? Had twenty years with nothing but murder in his heart changed him into a worse monster than the creatures he battled?
“You can end this,” Recanna had said.
Bitterwood picked at those words like a scab. End what? End his struggle against the dragons? Or did she mean he wasn’t finished with the war, that he still had the power to end it by continuing to fight? Had she been telling him his life’s work had been worthwhile? Or had it all been a mission of vanity?
Perhaps it had only been the dream of a drowning man. Could he tell the difference between dreams and reality any longer, after the life he’d led?
“Zeeky,” said Zeeky.
“Eee-ee,” said Poocher.
The ox-dog paused to drink from a pool of clear water at the stream’s edge. Crayfish darted about the rocky pool, above a carpet of corn-yellow leaves. Bant grew more alert as he saw the crayfish. Despite his fever, he felt his appetite stirring.
“Any objection to me eating those?” Bant asked, pointing toward the darting figures.
Zeeky stared intently at the pool as she pondered the question.
“They aren’t saying anything,” she said, her face relaxing. “I guess it’s okay.”
Zeeky wouldn’t let him eat anything she could talk to. Fortunately, not all animals met this criterion. She didn’t seem to have any special rapport with bugs or fish, but late at night he’d caught her gossiping with owls, and she could be downright chatty with Killer and Poocher. Poocher was a few months old, no longer at an age where he could be called a piglet, not yet a full-fledged hog. He was at an awkward stage in a pig’s life, too long and hairy to be cute, yet still too skinny to make a man think longingly of bacon. Poocher had a mostly white hide marked with patches of glossy black, and his dark eyes would sometimes fix on Bitterwood with a contemptuous gaze that caused Bitterwood to look away.
Bitterwood knelt next to the pool. Even in his weakened state, the swiftly darting crayfish didn’t stand a chance. Long ago, his hands had been bitten off by a dragon, and an angel—or perhaps a devil—had given him new ones. She’d also altered his eyes and arms, leaving him fast enough to empty a quiver in under a minute, with every arrow finding its target. The crawfish may as well have been frozen in place as his agile fingers dashed about the pool, quickly gathering a score of the fat mud-bugs.
“We should stop here for the night,” Bitterwood said, looking up at the darkening sky. “I’ll start a fire.”
“I want to keep moving,” Zeeky said. “I think we’re close. The air has a familiar smell to it. We’re almost home.”
Killer looked up from drinking and let out a quick snort.
“Oh, all right, I know you’re tired, stop complaining,” said Zeeky. “That’s two votes to one. What about you, Poocher?”
Poocher lowered his head in a human-like nod and gave a squeal that made Zeeky frown.
“I know you’re hungry,” she said. “You’re always hungry. Oh, all right. We’ll make camp here. Go ahead and start the fire, Mister Bitterwood.”
She said Bitterwood in a mocking tone. Zeeky knew Bitterwood only by legend, a near mythic dragon-slayer, a hero of humanity. Bant looked nothing like anyone’s hero. His hair was thinning; he was missing quite a few teeth, and, though he was strong and wiry, he wasn’t as tall as a hero should be. His clothes were little more than rags, and twenty years of survival beneath an open sky had left him with a face of wrinkled leather.
It wasn’t important to him who she thought he was. Though they journeyed together, in truth each traveled alone. They were refugees, survivors of Albekizan’s death camp. Except for the mundane details of travel, they had little to discuss. Zeeky was usually too busy talking to animals to allow bad memories to sweep over her. Bitterwood was nothing but his bad memories. Strip away the ghosts that haunted him, and his skin would collapse like an emptied sack.
Poocher bounded off into the woods to search for mushrooms and edible roots for dinner. Bitterwood pulled a wad of charred cotton wrapped in waxed parchment from his pocket. He set to work striking his fire flints together to make sparks. A moment later a tendril of acrid smoke rose from the cotton. He knew the smell well. It was the exact smell of the blackened remains of one of Adam’s diapers. It was an odor that had haunted him for twenty years. He lifted the black cotton to his lips and gently blew, giving birth to a delicate flame. He lowered it to the bed of twigs he’d prepared.
Zeeky had the pig and the dog for companionship and protection. The small useful role Bitterwood served in her world was maker-of-fire. It was enough. It was the one thing he could do that made him feel as if his continued existence served some purpose.
As the flames grew, he arranged the crayfish on a stone facing the fire. Some were still alive, struggling to crawl away. He pressed down on their backs, breaking them, until they could do nothing but lie there and cook.
“How close are we?” Zeeky asked.
“You said it smelled like home,” he said. “Your nose is pretty smart. After we follow this stream across the valley, we’ll be at what’s left of Chakthalla’s castle. The town of Winding Rock was near it. You say your village was close?”
“Big Lick,” said Zeeky. She sighed. “I miss everyone. Even Papa.”
“Still think he’ll try to eat the pig?” Bitterwood asked.
“He’s learned his lesson,” Zeeky said, in a firm, matter of fact way that spooked Bitterwood. For a little girl far from home and family, she sometimes sounded as if she were in control of the world.
The crayfish were turning red. Bitterwood snatched one up, snapped it in two, and chewed on the steaming meat in the tail. He sucked down the yellowish gunk inside the head. It tasted good, fatty and bitter. It felt like medicine sliding down his throat. A bucketful of these and a week in bed might cure his fever.
Zeeky wrinkled her nose. “It looks like a bug.”
Killer gave a huff and Bitterwood looked up to see the giant dog staring at him. The dog seemed to like him, even if the pig didn’t.
“Oh, you think everything smells good,” Zeeky said.
Bitterwood tossed Killer the remains of the head and watched him greedily gobble it down, the shell crunching between his teeth. The grateful look in his eyes led Bitterwood to throw him a second crayfish, a whole one this time.
The darkening forest murmured as a breeze rustled through it. He thought for a moment he heard a woman whispering. From the corner of his eye he saw Recanna standing by the water’s edge, waving. He turned and saw it was only a low branch of a tree, draped with pale leaves, shuddering in the chill air.
Bitterwood shuddered as well, and drew the tatters of the blanket he wore as a cloak tightly around him.
WINDING ROCK HAD BEEN LOOTED. Only a month ago, the little mountain town had been clean and full of life. Now, the place looked haunted. The doors stood open to the elements. The panes of glass that had filled the windows were gone. Not smashed, Bitterwood noted, but carefully removed. Gazing into a nearby house, Bitterwood couldn’t see a scrap of furniture. The type of stuff that had been looted told a story. Dragons wouldn’t bother stealing window glass or chairs. This was done by humans—quite possibly Zeeky’s people, from Big Lick.
This was the sort of thing that had driven Bitterwood to hold humanity in nearly the same contempt as dragons. The people of Winding Rock had been rounded up in the middle of the night and forcibly marched to the Free City. The dragons had acted swiftly, gathering only those they found in a single night. Certainly these mountains were full of people the dragons had missed. Bitterwood had spotted other villages in the valley that were unmolested by the king’s attempted genocide. The neighbors of the town of Winding Rock could have banded together and attempted to rescue their captive brethren. Instead, they’d stayed hidden until the dragons were gone, then stolen everything that wasn’t nailed down. Passing a house from which the slate roof tiles were missing, Bitterwood realized that actually being nailed down hadn’t provided any protection from theft either.
“This place is spooky,” Zeeky said.
“It’s just empty,” said Bitterwood. A spark of anger ignited as he realized that this village was the vision Albekizan—the dragon king—had possessed for all of humanity. The spark of anger was instantly quenched by a wave of guilt. Albekizan’s genocide order had come in response to Bitterwood’s actions. He had triggered this violence by killing Bodiel, the king’s most-loved son. His hands weren’t clean in the death of this place.
They passed through the town, finding a well-worn trail that followed a creek higher into the mountains. The path was nothing but rocks and roots. Killer was a powerful mount, but even he slowed on the steep incline. The creek splashed beside the path in a series of waterfalls.
“We’re close!” Zeeky said, fidgeting in her seat.
“Hallelujah,” Bitterwood said. He felt somewhat better today, after the meal of crawdads and a solid night of sleep. Last night he’d slept free of dreams. He’d simply succumbed to exhaustion and illness and slumbered from dusk to dawn. His fever had broken. He was still tender, but he felt some of his old strength returning.
Poocher sniffed the air, then grunted.
“Smoke?” said Zeeky.
Bitterwood took a sniff. The pig was right. There was a slight hint of smoke in the air, burning wood, with an undertone of sulfur.
“They burn coal in these parts?” asked Bitterwood.
“Yes,” Zeeky said. “The menfolk dig it up and trade it down in Winding Rock.”
Poocher grunted again.
“You’re right,” said Zeeky. “It does stink.”
They continued up the mountain path. The rocks were rising at steeper angles now, the forest growing denser and darker. The cliffs high above were riddled with shadowy caves.
They’d come several miles from Winding Rock when Bitterwood heard a scream. Somewhere in the distance ahead, a woman—or perhaps a child—cried out in pain.
“Stop here,” said Bitterwood.
“No!” Zeeky said. “We’re almost there! It’s just around the bend!”
“Let me go ahead to check things out.”
“Run, Killer!” Zeeky yelled.
Killer lunged forward. Bitterwood grabbed fistfuls of bristly dog hair to keep from toppling as Killer swerved around a steep curve on the trail.
Zeeky let out a gasp.
Ahead, the village of Big Lick was nothing but a mound of smoking ruins. Killer stopped in response to Zeeky’s gasp, suddenly as paralyzed with shock as she was.
Bitterwood vaulted from the ox-dog and said, “Wait here,” before moving further up the path. The village had been burned several hours ago, judging from the remains. What had once been homes were now just heaps of charcoal, sending up a fog of smoke. The coal dust that had clung to the village gave the charred remains a sickly egg-fart stench.
Bitterwood searched the ground for tracks as he walked closer to the village. If an army of dragons had done this, they’d not traveled up this path. Of course, it could be sun-dragons or sky-dragons behind it. They could have flown in. However, for some reason he’d never understood, the winged dragons normally didn’t journey into these mountains.
He crept forward carefully, crouched low, his eyes seeking out natural areas of cover he could dive for in case of aerial attack. Unarmed, he searched the ground for a good heavy rock. Fortunately, Big Lick had no shortage of stones. As he picked up a smooth, fist-sized rock, he noticed a scrape in the ground beside it. A claw mark . . . a dragon? It was too small for a sun-dragon, and whatever had left the mark had been heavier than a sky-dragon. Quickly, his eyes picked out a dozen other marks, then a hundred more, in all directions, with human footprints mixed among them. Curiously, he spotted no blood. Sniffing the air, he found no trace of the sweet hammy smell of burnt human flesh. The dragons—if that’s what had attacked—must have taken the villagers as captives.
It was growing dark and cold as he stepped into a square of ash and blackened logs that had once been a cabin. A small tower of stone jutted up from the center, the remains of a fireplace. The smoke danced like ghosts as the wind pushed tiny ash-devils across the stone hearth. He spotted a fallen fireplace poker, a length of black iron with a forked end and a coil of wire for a handle. It was hot enough to blister a normal man when he lifted it, but his hands were tough as leather gloves. The poker had a pleasant heft. He’d killed dragons with lesser weapons than this.
The hair on the back of his neck rose. Something was running in the woods on the other side of the chimney, coming fast. It sounded like human footsteps. Bitterwood pressed himself against the chimney. Seconds later a boy rushed past, breathing hard, tears leaving trails down his soot-darkened cheeks. The boy was older than Zeeky, rail thin, with bright blond hair of a nearly identical hue. The boy caught sight of Bitterwood from the corner of his eye. As he turned his head he tripped, skidding amid the ash, sending up a shower of dull red sparks as he fell. Bitterwood gripped the poker tightly with his left hand, and readied the fist-sized stone in his right hand to throw.
As the boy struggled to stand, Bitterwood saw blood on his burlap shirt. The boy looked back over his shoulder, past Bitterwood and the chimney toward the woods beyond, his eyes wide with terror.
From the crunching of leaves, it sounded as if a small army was approaching.
Every muscle in Bitterwood’s body coiled, ready to spring. The pain in his chest vanished as a reptilian odor was carried toward him—a dragon! But what kind?
A copper-hued, horse-sized head of a dragon darted past the edge of the chimney, low to the ground. The creature’s long neck was quickly followed by a pair of shoulders supporting thick, strong legs that ended in three-clawed talons. This was the creature that had made the tracks. Another yard of the beast passed and another set of shoulders and a second set of legs appeared. The boy had gotten to his feet again, and was darting away like a rabbit. The dragon steered toward him, as a third set of legs scrambled past the chimney. Bitterwood had never seen anything like this creature.
Time slowed, as it always did in the heat of battle. Though the creature charged as quickly as a galloping horse, it moved at a crawl in Bant’s eyes. He could see every individual scale of the creature as it passed. He watched its muscles as they moved in precise choreography beneath a gleaming metallic hide. A fourth set of limbs came around the edge of the chimney, then a fifth, but the fifth set wasn’t part of the creature’s body. They were human feet, resting in stirrups.
The human in the saddle was revealed as the creature advanced. He was a short man, with skin pale as milk, dressed in a shimmering white tunic. A large silver visor hid his eyes. He somehow guided his reptilian mount without the benefit of reins, leaving his hands free to aim a large crossbow at the boy. But, he too caught sight of Bitterwood and cocked his head, his lips parting as if he were about to speak.
Bitterwood wasn’t interested in what he might say. The springs in his legs uncoiled. He swung the iron poker in an upward arc, catching the rider underneath his chin. The rider was lifted from his saddle by the blow.
As the white-clad man fell through the air, the serpent’s back curved, instantly aware of rider’s missing weight. Bitterwood spun as the beast’s head whipped around, its jaws opening to reveal a pale pink mouth-roof. Twin rows of teeth hurtled toward him, the jaws spread wide enough to swallow his head.
Bitterwood raised the stone he carried, a good, hard chunk of stream-polished granite. As the dragon’s mouth reached him and the jaws began to snap, he placed the stone precisely at the back of the creature’s jaw. When the beast chomped down, its spiky rear teeth snapped. Bitterwood ducked to allow the dragon’s momentum carry it over him. The dragon let out a grunt as it hit the chimney with a wet smack. Its body twitched and coiled as Bitterwood jumped free.
Long years of fighting dragons had left Bitterwood with a reliable internal map of where a dragon’s claws, teeth, and tail would be in close combat. Alas, he still hadn’t figured out how many limbs this weird long-wyrm had. As he jumped away something sharp snared his ankle. His leap to freedom aborted in a painful crash. A second set of claws tore into his calves, then a third, and a fourth. Bitterwood twisted around to see the long-wyrm shake its bloodied head, then turn its dark eyes to face him.
Bitterwood kicked, loosening two of the claws. The beast jerked, dragging Bitterwood closer as claw after claw sank into his legs. By now the entire creature could be seen. It was fully fifty feet long from snout to tail, with fourteen pairs of claws. The long-wyrm’s mouth dripped blood, and the lower jaw was set at a funny angle, perhaps broken.
Behind the dragon, the rider rose to his knees, looking dazed. His visor had been knocked off, revealing large, pink eyes amid the ghostly flesh of his face. He raised a hand as if to shield his eyes from the light, despite the deepening shadows. The man looked around, and reached for his visor. Before he could grab it, a black and white form flashed into view and snatched it up in its jaws, then dashed away. Poocher?
The long-wyrm suddenly stopped pulling Bitterwood closer. Its eyes were set on something behind the fallen hunter. The creature braced itself. The ash all around Bitterwood swirled in a rush of wind. A large shadow flew over his head. Killer, the ox-dog, let out a thunderous bark in mid air, then sank his massive jaws into the lizard’s copper throat. The long-wyrm released Bitterwood, coiling up to rake and tear at the giant dog. Killer whipped the wyrm’s head back and forth, its broken jaw flopping. The beast let out a series of hissing yelps as Killer pinned it to the ground and clamped his jaws even tighter.
Even though the serpent was losing, it continued tearing out bloody chunks of fur as it curled around the dog in a whirlwind of claws. Bitterwood scrambled back to his feet, taking the poker in both hands, and lunged for the long-wyrm, ignoring the slashing pain from his damaged legs. He planted the forked edge of the iron poker in the center of the beast’s left eye and threw his full weight onto the handle. The thin layer of bone behind the eye snapped as he drove the rod into the creature’s brain. The dragon fell limp, its claws stilled at last.
“Jeremiah!” Zeeky shouted.
Bitterwood looked down the path, the see the boy running toward Zeeky.
“Ezekia!” the boy shouted. Zeeky jumped into his arms as they reached each other. The boy’s legs collapsed at the weight, and they both wound up on the ground.
Bitterwood yanked the poker from the dead reptile’s eye. The white-skinned rider was now on his feet, his back toward Bitterwood. The rider, hearing Bitterwood’s approach, turned. He’d recovered his crossbow. He raised the weapon and pulled the trigger.
Bitterwood’s eyes were still swift enough to trace the razor honed tip as sliced through the air toward him. His arms felt like lead weights as he tried to lift the poker to knock the bolt from its path.
To the amazement of both the rider and himself, the poker reached the same point in space as the bolt less than a yard from Bitterwood’s chest. The bolt deflected upward, leaving a trail of sparks, as it whizzed past Bitterwood’s left ear.
The rider looked stunned. Bitterwood had witnessed the same look countless time in the eyes of dragons. It was a look that gave him a certain amount of pleasure, but experience had taught him it was not a pleasure that should be prolonged. He willed his torn legs to leap the few yards that separated him from the man, swinging the iron rod in a vicious arc. He slammed it against the side of the man’s neck with such force the poker bent. The man fell to his back, twitching, his eyes rolling up in their sockets.
Bitterwood sucked down air in great gasps, his legs trembling. The world slowed back to normal speed. He studied the fallen rider. Though blood was seeping from his ears, the man still breathed. Perhaps he would live. Perhaps he would have answers as to what had happened here.
On the other hand, the man had been riding a dragon, or something very much like a dragon. Bitterwood thought of women and children being dragged from their homes by reptilian claws, imagined the destruction of Big Lick with great clarity. He could hear the screams of the villagers, just as for twenty years he’d heard the screams of his own family.
There was only one way to silence those voices.
Glancing over his shoulder he saw Killer limping back to Zeeky and the boy, who were sitting on the ground, talking. No one was looking toward him.
Bitterwood fell to his knees. His arms were losing strength; his legs were bleeding in copious streams. He wanted to fall over, to collapse forever into sleep.
But there could be no rest while the voices howled.
Bitterwood raised the poker above his head and swung it, planting the full weight into the man’s face. A bubble of blood rose from the man’s lips.
Bitterwood felt too weak to move as he stared at the damaged face. A lightness took hold of him, like the fevers that had given his world such a dreamlike quality. The unconscious man’s features suddenly struck him as familiar—eyes, ears, nose, mouth—a universal visage, belonging to almost any man. Bitterwood could even see himself in the shared structures, and as the world slowly began to tilt he could no longer tell if it was the rider who lay upon the ground, or himself.
Bitterwood raised the poker and swung at the face that might be his own, then swung again, and again, until what he was hitting looked like a face no longer.
The screams now silent, Bitterwood toppled into the ash.
He closed his eyes, then opened them to discover Poocher by his head. The pig was wearing the rider’s visor, standing on two legs.
“Evil man,” Poocher said, in a smooth and high-cultured tone. He pointed a cleft hoof at Bitterwood in a gesture of condemnation. “All your works amount to dust. All that remains of you will scatter with the winds.”
Bitterwood found himself concurring with the judgment of the pig. He welcomed this fate. It seemed a very light thing, to be carried off by air, unremembered, unmourned.
“Take care of Zeeky,” he whispered before the world spun in a whirl of white embers, then turned black.
CHAPTER SEVEN
* * *
MAGICAL GIFTS
A MISTY RAIN veiled the mountains, hiding Zeeky’s ruined village. Zeeky gazed out from the shelter of one of the caves overlooking Big Lick. It had taken hours for her and Jeremiah to drag Bitterwood to the shelter. Killer was too wounded to carry anyone, though he could limp along. Poocher sat beside her, watching her intently as she used Bitterwood’s kit to start a fire. The logs they’d dragged up to the cave were damp. The flames from the kindling licked the bark, causing the logs to sizzle and put out fumes that were more steam than smoke.
She checked Bitterwood’s bandages one last time. Jeremiah had found scraps of unburned blankets in the rubble and they’d used these to bind his wounds, but she was frightened by how much blood he’d lost. He was burning hot, and his breathing was shallow and raspy. She wished she knew something more to do.
Finally, with the fire putting out at least a little heat and everyone in safe from the drizzle, she asked, “What happened, Jeremiah?”
“For a couple of years, the menfolk have been whispering about the new kind of demon they were seeing in the mines,” said Jeremiah. “Big copper-colored serpents with a hundred legs. But the demons were afraid of light; the men kept mining, they just needed more lanterns than before.”
“I know that. I heard Papa talking to Uncle Silas about the demons,” said Zeeky. “But why’d they attack?”
“I don’t know,” said Jeremiah. “They just showed up in the middle of the night and dragged everyone out of bed. I tried to fight but the demons were too strong. The demon just got hold of me. There were men with them who tied me up. They carried everyone up to Dead Skunk Hole. I was slung over the back of one of the demons, but there was some slack in the ropes holding me. I wiggled loose and ran like a jackrabbit. Didn’t look back to see if I was followed. I hunkered down in some bushes for better than a day. Then I took off running for Big Lick to see if anyone was left. I guess one of the demons also came back to look. I thought sure I was a goner when I heard it coming up behind me.”
“You think Mama and Papa are still alive?”
“I reckon,” said Jeremiah. “I didn’t see nobody get killed. Wonder what them demons want us for?”
“I’ll just have to go up to Dead Skunk Hole and find out,” Zeeky said.
“Zeeky, you saw that demon. It ripped up your friend and hurt this big dog something fierce. You’ll get eaten alive.”
“No I won’t,” said Zeeky. “The serpents aren’t demons. They’re animals. I could make out some of what it was saying while it was fighting. I bet I could talk to one. Animals won’t eat me if I tell ’em not to.”
“Yeah,” said Jeremiah. “You did talk that ol’ bear out of eatin’ Granny.”
“Told him he’d only get indigestion,” said Zeeky.
“But these long-wyrms ain’t natural,” said Jeremiah.
“It ain’t natural that I can talk to animals,” said Zeeky. “I’m not scared of things just 'cause they ain’t natural. I’ll just go into the mine and look around some. I’ll take Poocher. You stay here with Mr. Bitterwood and Killer. Keep the fire going. Fetch them some water from the creek when they wake up.”
“All right,” said Jeremiah. “I know I ain’t going to talk you out of it. Just promise you’ll be careful.”
Zeeky nodded but didn’t actually say the words, so it didn’t count.
IT WAS DAYLIGHT when Zeeky lit out for Dead Skunk Hole. She soon arrived at the sturdy wooden ramp that led up to the entrance. Fog hid everything more than thirty feet away. She held the rail for balance on the slippery wood, as Poocher crept along beside her, looking wary.
“Guess this is it,” she said to Poocher as they reached the entrance of the mine. The gaping hole in the mountainside looked like a giant mouth looming in the mist. It had a faint wet skunk atmosphere drifting out of it. She gave Poocher a scratch under his bristly chin as she knelt to gaze into his dark eyes. “Not too late to turn back if you want. I’ll understand.”
Poocher snorted and twitched his snout, indicating he wouldn’t abandon her.
She stepped into the mine and looked around. The entrance was huge, big enough for an entire army of dragons to take shelter. All around were carts and picks and lanterns, equipment the miners used in their daily chores. The mines had been worked for centuries. Her Papa used to say that the mountain was almost hollow now. Yet, each time a vein of coal would play out, a new vein would be discovered, a little deeper down, a little further in. The men complained it took a full day to walk to the current vein they worked. The miners labored in five day shifts. Zeeky couldn’t imagine spending so long away from the sun. No wonder all the men always looked so tired and haunted.
Zeeky lit the oil lamp closest at hand. It wasn’t as heavy as it looked. Long, jagged shadows stretched out against walls blackened by centuries of lantern smoke. She stepped further into the mine, away from the pale, fog-filtered daylight. Poocher stayed close by her heel. She walked several hundred yards down the main shaft when she reached her first obstacle. The shaft split into five different tunnels. A wooden elevator, designed to be powered by a team of mules, sat in a shaft that hinted at even more tunnels beneath. She wished the mules weren’t gone. She could have asked for help.
“Any ideas, Poocher?”
Poocher roamed over the floor, sniffing. He spent several minutes at the entrance of each tunnel before letting out a grunt.
“Good job,” she said.
Poocher snorted a thank you and trotted ahead. She followed, her eyes straining at the shadows. The white patches of Poocher’s hide grew increasingly gray. Was Poocher getting dirtier, or was the lantern getting dimmer? She tried to adjust the wick. The light brightened briefly, but as she fiddled with the lantern she could hear a sloshing of what could only be a few teaspoons of oil. She suddenly realized why the lantern had felt so light. It was her first time using a lantern. She’d watched her father use them, and was pretty sure she knew how to refill it. Her father said there were oil barrels all through the mine. Had she passed one yet? Had there been one back near the elevator?
She turned around.
The lantern flickered, the glass darkening with sooty smoke. She started to run.
Everything went black.
BROWN GUNK COVERED the marble floor of the grand hall of Chakthalla’s castle. Here and there in the muck, bright shards of the broken stained-glass windows that had once lined the hall glinted in the firelight. This room was vivid in Jandra’s nightmares—it was the room where her throat had been slit. Some of the nastiness on the floor might be her own decayed blood, mixed with rain and rotting leaves that had blown into the abandoned room. Here, she’d watched the sun-dragon Zanzeroth gut Vendevorex and leave him for dead. This was the room where she’d learned the truth behind the biggest secret of her life—that it had been Vendevorex who’d killed her parents, for no other reason than to prove himself to Albekizan.
Despite her terrible memories of the place, she’d known the castle held rooms large enough to shelter Hex. They’d been only a few miles away when the weather became too dangerous to continue their journey by air. Once the fogs rolled in, flight was a foolish risk.
Hex was curled up near the fireplace at the rear of the room, slumbering. His belly gurgled as it digested the young buck he’d swooped down upon and killed earlier. He’d eaten most of the buck raw, hooves and all, but had saved Jandra some meat from a haunch. She’d roasted it over the fire and had her fill. Jandra would have joined Hex in sleep, but, oddly, despite her full belly and the fact she’d barely slept in days, she wasn’t even mildly tired. Vendevorex had seldom slept. He’d needed no more than a few hours each week to remain alert. Was this another side effect of the helmet?
Jandra passed the time by reweaving and altering her clothes, doodling with the physical qualities of the fibers. She’d altered the color of the fabric, changing it from black to a red shade resembling Hex’s hide. She’d adjusted the fit of her loose mourning clothes until they clung to her like a second skin, though not too immodestly. From just beneath her chin down to her toes, there was no hint of exposed flesh save for her fingers and palms—even the backs of her hands were hidden by a red, feathery, scale-patterned lace she’d created. Her breasts were modestly concealed by a leather vest she’d crafted by replicating the molecules of leather in her shoes. She was sufficiently occupied with her newfound talent as a mental seamstress that the ghosts of the room didn’t haunt her.
Unfortunately, the same wasn’t true of Hex. His sleep grew fitful. His jaws clenched with rapid snaps, as if he was biting at some unseen foe in his dreams. His claws flexed and twitched. Suddenly, he jerked his head up, his eyes open wide, as he shouted, “No!”
Jandra reached out and placed a hand upon his hind-talon.
“It’s okay, Hex. Just a bad dream.”
Hex stared at her, confusion in his eyes. He shuddered, and released a long breath. “I was dreaming of the contest of succession,” he said.
“Oh,” said Jandra. The contest of succession had pitted two of Albekizan’s sons against one another in a ritual hunt of human slaves. The victor had had a chance to challenge Albekizan in combat for the throne. The loser had been castrated, and sent into a life of servitude to the biologians. Jandra could see how such an event could lead to unpleasant dreams, even thirty years later.
Hex rose to his hind-talons, stretching his wings, shaking off the effects of sleep.
“Everyone expected me to win,” said Hex. “But the slave I hunted drowned while swimming the river. It took three days for his body to be discovered. The human my brother hunted broke his leg falling from a tree within sight of the palace. His howls of anguish made him easy to find. Dacorn tried to console me with talk of destiny. He said that fate required someone else to wear the crown.”
“Perhaps there’s truth to it,” said Jandra. “No one expected Shandrazel to become king. And now, he may be the king that brings an end to kings.”
“Destiny played no part in this,” Hex said. Now that his limbs were awake once more, he crouched down near the fire, his legs beneath him, his wings folded against his body. In this posture, with his long serpentine neck, he resembled a giant, scaly, blood-red swan. “Life is essentially random. Shandrazel is king by chance alone. Bitterwood killed Bodiel, then my father. No guiding power put him on the throne.”
“These things aren’t random,” said Jandra. “Bitterwood wanted revenge against your father because your father took his family. Things happen for reasons. Our lives are entangled with the lives of those around us.”
“Just because our lives are tied together doesn’t make us puppets. We’re free to cut our strings.”
“There’s a poet inside you,” Jandra said.
“Nonsense,” said Hex. “Poets seldom have any meat on them. I’d have to be starving to eat one.”
Jandra smiled. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard a sun-dragon make a joke before. Most always seem so serious.”
“Why do you assume I’m not serious?” Hex said. Then, he winked at her. “I decided long ago that life’s absurd. If you don’t develop a sense of humor, it will drive you mad. Especially in this part of the world.”
“What’s special about this part of the world?”
“Why, the noise, of course.”
“Noise?” said Jandra.
“The song of the mountains,” said Hex. “Though we are some miles distant, I can already hear whispers of the infernal melody. They may have caused my unpleasant dreams.”
“I don’t hear a thing,” said Jandra.
“Humans have always been deaf to the noise. It’s a low-pitched dirge that drives some dragons to insanity. Fortunately, it’s still faint. If the windows of this room were intact, I doubt I would hear it at all.”
“Hmm,” Jandra said. “I want to try something. Can I touch your ear?”
“If you wish,” said Hex, snaking his head closer to her. The ears of sun-dragons were saucer-sized disks just behind the jaws. The sheer size of the ear meant they could hear certain sounds that eluded humans. She gently traced the edges of the smooth disk. With the increased sensitivity of her fingertips, she could feel a faint vibration. Hex wasn’t imagining things. The noise was real, and coming from the direction of the fog-draped mountains. What caused it?
“I might be able to help you,” she said. “Vendevorex taught me that sounds travel through air like waves across water. You can neutralize sounds with a counterwave, just as you can disrupt ripples from a rock thrown into a pond by throwing in a second rock.”
She dipped her fingers into the pouch that hung from her belt, grabbing a fist full of the silver dust. These tiny machines were the key to her control over matter. Right now, however, she needed a bigger machine. The silver in her hand changed from dust to long metallic threads. The shimmering strings coiled into the shape of a concave disk the size of her palm. It pulsed slowly, like a heartbeat. The remaining threads braided through the air, forming a long silver chain that draped down to the floor. A moment later she was done. The firelight danced upon a silver amulet. The necklace that held it was no thicker than a human hair.
“Put this on,” she said. “Let’s see if it works.”
“What is it?” Hex asked, extending his fore-talon.
“It’s an amulet that emits a frequency that neutralizes the sound you’re hearing. Most of the things I make with the dust only exist a second or two, and draw power from ambient heat. This should be a stable construct, but it will need to be warmed by your body to keep working.”
Hex slipped the chain on. The amulet rested against his breastbone, just beneath his throat. He cocked his head, tilting his ear toward the broken windows above.
“I don’t hear the mountains anymore,” he said. “Let’s hope your magic dust doesn’t run out.”
“It won’t,” said Jandra. “It’s self-replicating and self-assembling. I drop raw materials in the pouch from time to time—iron nails, sand, the occasional bit of gold. I charge them with sunlight, and the machines draw everything else they need to function out of the air. With a little care, it will last forever.”
“With so much power, why are you a servant of Shandrazel?” Hex asked.
“I didn’t think I was,” said Jandra.
“Since Vendevorex served my father, I assumed you would serve my brother,” Hex said.
“When I was younger, I dreamed I would grow up and be Bodiel’s personal wizard. He was so clever and elegant; I would gladly have devoted my life to him. I like Shandrazel. I think he means to make life better for humans. Still, it’s difficult to overlook the fact that most dragons accepted Albekizan’s dreams of genocide. It would be difficult to swear my loyalty to a dragon, even one as visionary as Shandrazel.”
“So you’ll serve humans instead? Perhaps this young Bitterwood should he become the human king?”
“I most especially won’t be serving young Bitterwood,” Jandra said. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with my life. I haven’t had much time to consider the matter. It wasn’t so long ago that Vendevorex made all my decisions for me. I studied what he told me to study, and we traveled where he decided to travel. It’s still sinking in that I’m the only one in charge of my life now.”
“We sun-dragons believe that no son is truly grown until his father is dead. I, too, lived my life by my father’s choices rather my own.”
“Then you know how I feel. What are you going to do with your life?” she asked.
Hex fixed his eyes on the fireplace that warmed them. He studied the dancing flame with a long and thoughtful gaze before answering. “Somehow, I would like to change the world.”
Jandra thought this sounded like a noble, if broad, goal.
“Hopefully for the better,” Hex continued, “but I’ll take what I can get.”
ZEEKY PLACED ONE HAND on Poocher’s shoulder, holding her other hand in front of her as they crept toward the entrance, guided by Poocher’s infallible sense of smell. Even blind, he knew where they had walked. When they got back to the entrance, she would grab every lantern she could carry, and this time she’d make sure they were full. She’d even let Poocher carry one.
The mine was full of odd noises. Water trickling down some unseen stream. A distant moaning, like wind passing through a tunnel. The echoes of Poocher’s hooves as he shuffled along. Her own stomach grumbling.
Then, ahead of her, the sound of something she couldn’t identify, a scraping, scratching, clicking noise. She stopped. It sounded like claws upon the stone, drawing closer. Poocher tensed, suddenly frightened.
“Is someone there?” she asked.
The scraping noise stopped. Now she could hear the deep, slow breathing of the beast ahead of her.
“H-hello?” she asked.
“Hello,” said a voice. It sounded like a man, but not someone from her village. The accent was one she’d never heard before.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“My name is Adam,” the man answered. “You must be Zeeky.”
“How do you know my name?”
“The goddess planted you,” Adam answered. “I’ve come to harvest you.”
Zeeky was confused by the man’s response, but her focus shifted to the beast that accompanied the man. It was drawing closer. Its hot breath washed over her like humid wind, carrying the odor of dead things. Then, the wind shifted direction as the creature took a long sniff. The beast was only inches from her. Something damp gently flickered across her cheeks. She scrunched up her face, recognizing the wet thing as the creature’s tongue exploring her features, tasting her. She reached out and stroked the beast’s nose. It was hard and smooth and cool, covered with individual scales the size of her palm—it felt like the same sort of dragon that Bitterwood had slain. The beast flicked its forked tongue across her fingers. She could tell the creature meant her no harm—it was merely curious. From the location of the man’s voice, she assumed he was riding it, which meant it was tame.
“Pleased to meet you,” she said, addressing the dragon. “I’m glad you found me. Can you see in the dark?”
“The long-wyrms can see shades of heat with an organ in their snout,” Adam said. “It helps them maneuver in absolute darkness.”
“How can you see?” Zeeky asked Adam.
“Let me show you.” There was a crunch of coal dust as he hopped from his saddle. He walked toward her, drawing very close. He smelled a lot better than the long-wyrm. He put something cold and metallic in her hand. It was a circle of metal, with a gap at one end. It felt like the visor poocher had taken from the rider Bitterwood had killed. She still had the object in her bag.
“Put that on,” he said.
She slipped the visor over her eyes. Suddenly, she could see clearly. Adam crouched before her. Unlike the first rider, Adam was handsome, with a mane of chestnut hair and boyish features. He stood up, smiling. “Better than stumbling around in the dark, isn’t it?”
“We were doing okay,” Zeeky said. “Poocher wasn’t lost.”
“Oh?” Adam asked, sounding skeptical. “I didn’t know pigs could see in pitch black.”
“He can see with his nose almost better than with his eyes,” Zeeky said, kneeling next to Poocher. Poocher turned his snout toward her as she opened the bag over her shoulder and pulled out the visor. He quietly advanced into her hands as she slipped the visor onto him. Poocher’s head was bigger than hers. In a few months, he’d be too big for the visor. As it was, he gave an approving grunt.
“Yes,” she said. “It is better isn’t it?”
“So it’s true,” said Adam. “You understand the pig?”
“Of course,” said Zeeky. “Mama says I was born able to talk to animals. I could talk with Mulie, our old hound-dog, before I could talk to Mama.”
Zeeky took a closer look at the long-wyrm. She gave it a scratch near the back of its jaw. It tilted its head to accept her touch. Its claws flexed in the packed coal dust.
“Yes, I know you like that,” she said.
“You can understand Trisky too?”
“That’s his name? Trisky?”
“Her name. Her full name is Triskaidekaphobia.”
“That’s a funny name.”
“It means ‘fear of the number thirteen.’ It’s appropriate because she was the thirteenth and final egg to hatch, and, unlike her siblings, she only had thirteen pairs of legs instead of fourteen. She was born when I was only seven; it was lonely for me growing up underground because I had no parents, and I felt sorry that Trisky had no parents. I asked the goddess if I could care for her and she said I could. I fed her cave crickets when she was little—she was no bigger than a garden snake. Now, she’s the strongest and fastest of the long-wyrms.”
“Granny told me there was no goddess,” said Zeeky. “She said that the goddess was really the devil, and the only things that lived underground were demons. But I knew that wasn’t true, because I’ve talked to bats, and they aren’t demons.”
“Do you know why you can talk to animals, Zeeky?” Adam asked.
“Nope,” she said. “I just can.”
“I know why,” said Adam. “The goddess is always trying new things in the world. She gave the long-wyrms life out of clay.”
“I thought you said they came out of eggs?”
“But she sculpted the eggs out of clay. They weren’t laid by a mother. And, sadly, Trisky and her siblings never laid any eggs themselves. When they die, they’ll all be gone. The goddess said it’s just part of life; most kinds of animals that have ever lived died out long before you and I were born.”
“That’s sad,” said Zeeky.
“The goddess says it isn’t sad. She says the world must constantly change; nothing lives forever, save for her. And, for all the things that die, she makes new things. Some thrive, some don’t.”
“If Trisky and her kind are so rare, why do you ride them? Why do you attack people? It will only make them get hurt.”
“Trisky likes to be ridden. She enjoys having a purpose in life, as long as that purpose is to serve the goddess.”
Trisky let out a bubbling gurgle that showed that she agreed with Adam’s words.
“See?” said Adam.
“You can understand her?” Zeeky asked.
“Yes, but I need the visor. It contains all the knowledge of the subtle sounds and gestures that allow me to talk with her. Though, 'talking' isn’t exactly the right word.”
“No,” said Zeeky. “It’s like talking, but it’s more than talking. Animals speak with their whole bodies. They even speak with smells.”
“Right,” said Adam. “I need the visor in order to talk to long-wyrms, and that’s the only animal I talk to. But you can talk to most vertebrates, and I know why.”
“Why?”
“You were born with a catalogue of animal signals already memorized. You instinctively know the right tones and postures to convey your thoughts to animals, and you can read all the signals they give off and understand their intentions. The goddess made you this way. She reached into your mother’s womb and shaped your brain so that you would be gifted with a thousand times more knowledge than my visor holds.”
“Oh,” said Zeeky. This news worried her. Sometimes, the other kids in Big Lick would whisper behind her back that she was a witch child. Had the devil touched her while she was still in her mother’s belly? She shook her head. She wasn’t a witch child. She was a good girl. Maybe the goddess wasn’t the devil. But then—
“What happened to my village, Adam?” Zeeky asked. “Did you help destroy it?”
“We didn’t destroy it,” said Adam. He smiled, but Zeeky could tell this wasn’t a real smile. “We simply returned it to nature. In a year or two, no one will know it was ever there.”
“But that was my home!” Zeeky said, in her sternest voice, placing her hands upon her hips. Poocher drew close to her, his head tilted toward Adam, his head lowered, as if prepared to attack with tusks he hadn’t yet grown. “Where is everybody? What did you do with Mama and Papa? Tell me!”
Adam shook his head. “I can’t tell you. However, I’m supposed to bring you to Gabriel. You can ask him.”
“Why can’t you tell me?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t have permission. And, truly, I don’t know what the goddess plans for them. She’s been preparing the people of Big Lick for many generations, I’m told. She’s given all its people magical gifts. Gabriel said that the goddess planted her seeds in Big Lick, and decided now was the right time to harvest them. Be assured that if the goddess wants your family brought to her, it must be for some greater purpose.”
Zeeky frowned. Judging from his body language, Adam was telling the truth. He didn’t know what was in store for her family. She didn’t see any choice but to go with him to Gabriel, whoever he was.
“Looks like I’ll get to ride you, Trisky,” she said, stroking the beast’s copper-scaled neck.
Trisky gurgled her approval.
CHAPTER EIGHT
* * *
BURKE’S TAVERN
EVERY TOWN NEEDS an old man whose only purpose is to sit near the main road and talk to strangers as they pass. Dealon served that role at Burke’s Tavern, a small village on the Forge Road, ninety miles from Albekizan’s palace and equally as far from Dragon Forge. Dealon had filled the role of unofficial greeter for over forty years, since his wife had died in labor. He’d been too lonely simply sitting alone in the ramshackle cabin he’d built for her. The place looked abandoned after all these years, with weeds all about and moss growing on the wooden shingles. Dealon only returned to the cabin late in the evening to sleep, sharing his bed with a one-eyed cat named Gamble. The rest of his time was spent on the porch at the local tavern, or had been since the tavern was built.
The curious thing about the village of Burke’s Tavern was that it had possessed the name for centuries, yet, in Dealon’s youth, there was no tavern, nor any memory of anyone named Burke. In the first decade after his wife’s death, Dealon had spent his days leaning against a fence near the Forge Road. The traffic of the road often resembled a parade. Great-lizards as green as unripe apples ridden by darker-hued earth-dragons would traverse the dusty, packed earth, guarding caravans of wagons towed by monstrous ox-dogs.
Yet, it had not been dragons that had proved to be the village’s most important visitor. Roughly twenty years ago, Dealon had been looking toward Dragon Forge, watching the sun set. Under this crimson sky, a lone man had walked toward the village. As he grew closer, Dealon discovered the man wasn’t truly alone; an infant was cradled in his arms.
The man was a curious sight. His skin was darker than anyone Dealon had met before, a deep, ruddy hue, like a sunburn beneath a suntan. His long, jet-black hair was pulled into a braid, secured by bands of leather. His buckskin clothes were worn and dirty, but the blanket he carried the infant in was white as a daisy petal. He wore two disks of curved glass over his eyes, held in place by a golden frame that sat upon his hooked nose. Dealon had heard of spectacles, but he’d never seen a pair before. The spectacles were such an oddity, Dealon almost didn’t notice the man’s second prominent feature—three parallel scars, running from beneath his right eye down to his chin, barely missing the edge of his lips. The spacing of the scars hinted they’d been inflicted by an earth-dragon.
The man was aware of Dealon watching him, and as he drew close, he said, “Greetings. I’ve walked many miles today. Could you direct me to the nearest tavern?”
“Ah,” Dealon had said. “You’ve been confused by the name.”
“The name?”
“Burke’s Tavern. Our town. There’s been no tavern here in my lifetime.”
“I see,” said the man, thoughtfully gazing around the motley collection of shacks that composed the village. “The name is sort of wasted, isn’t it?”
Dealon nodded. “I suppose. What’s your name, stranger?”
The traveler had smiled, his eyes twinkling behind his spectacles, as he said, “Call me Burke.”
In the years since Burke had built his tavern, the town had thrived. Burke was famed not only for his hospitality, but also for his cleverness. He was an inventor, and people would travel far to witness such marvels as the guitar under glass that played without the touch of fingers, and the tall clock from which a copper frog would hop and croak the time. This fall, Burke had installed the chess-monkey on the porch, which had grown to be the bane of Dealon’s existence.
Though a chill breeze had driven everyone else inside, Dealon remained on the porch, seated before an upturned rain barrel with a chessboard atop it. Across from Dealon sat the chess-monkey—a three foot tall tin ape with long nimble fingers and glass eyes that fixed on Dealon with infuriating confidence. Dealon studied the game before him as if he were locked in a contest with a player of the highest caliber. With a cautious hand, he twisted his white bishop from its square and picked it up. The bottom of the bishop wasn’t flat; it held a slender rod covered with small pegs—a key. Dealon placed this key into a corresponding slot three diagonals up and to the left. He twisted it into position to complete his move. Now the monkey either had to take the bishop with his queen and lose the queen to Dealon’s rook, or move the queen and expose the monkey’s rook to capture.
Within the barrel, clockwork whirred and clicked. The monkey tilted his head toward the board and reached out to grasp his knight. With a heart-breaking click, the rook protecting Dealon’s bishop rose in its slot. The monkey retrieved the lifted piece with his left hand and moved his knight into the now open slot. A chime inside the box struck three times. The flat metallic disk of the monkey’s jaw lowered, forming a wide grin.
“Sonova . . .” Dealon grumbled. He was in check. He could move his king out of it, but only in such a way that his rook no longer protected his bishop. The monkey's queen would take his bishop, and he’d be in check again.
Dealon stood up, stretching his back, taking a minute to think. He’d been insensitive to the cold while he’d been concentrating; now he felt it in his bones. He should go inside, sit next to the fire, and warm himself with a cider. However, when he walked inside, Thorny would ask him how he’d fared against Burke’s monkey. Since the installation of the device, Dealon had played one hundred and seventeen games. Five of these had been stalemates. The others he’d lost. He knew the exact total not because he kept track, but because Thorny kept track, and reminded him every time he entered the tavern.
Of course, he hadn’t lost yet. True, things looked bleak, but it was vaguely possible he could win. The problem was, the damn monkey didn’t get tired. Its butt didn’t get sore sitting on a wooden chair. Cold winds didn’t make its back ache. All it had to do was grin and let its clockwork brain think about chess.
Dealon looked back at the board. He looked toward the door of the tavern, and could hear the conversation drifting from within. The scent of warm cider flavored the air. Of course, he could just go home. It would be dark soon. He looked down the Forge Road, toward the east.
A mob of humans was approaching, led by a naked man. Dealon stepped from the porch for a better look, thinking his eyes might be playing tricks. They weren’t. Hundreds of men, perhaps thousands, were marching down the Forge Road, most carrying makeshift weapons: pitchforks and scythes and clubs.
The late afternoon sun gave Dealon a good look at the man out in front of the group. Their leader stood tall and muscular, his whole body covered in dark wiry hair. His face was all but hidden beneath an untamed mane of brown hair that hung past his shoulders in a tangled veil. His thick, curly beard reached the center of his chest. He wore no clothes, not even shoes.
In contrast to the makeshift weapons his men carried, the leader held finely crafted scimitars in each hand. Dealon spun around and darted up the porch steps. He burst into the tavern and shouted, “Burke!”
“What’s wrong?” Thorny asked from his seat at the table by the fireplace. His grizzled old face broke into a cruel grin revealing his three remaining teeth as he asked, “Monkey beat you again?”
“There’s an army,” Dealon said as the door closed behind him, guided by the invisible hand of a counterweight that Burke had installed. “They’re heading here!”
At this pronouncement, the scattered conversations in the room fell silent. There were only ten people in the tavern’s great room, eight of them farmers like Thorny, plus Anza, Burke’s daughter, who worked as the tavern’s barmaid. Behind the bar stood Burke himself, wiping a glazed ceramic mug, his spectacles reflecting the orange flames dancing in the fireplace.
“Earth-dragons?” Burke asked, sounding disinterested.
“Humans!” said Dealon.
Burke’s lips pursed ever so slightly downward. “How many?”
“Hundreds!”
“I see,” said Burke. He took off his spectacles and cleaned them with the same cloth he’d used on the mug. “It’s a good thing we just stocked up on cider. Anza, would you go down to the cellar and count the stock for me?”
Anza nodded, looking serious, as if Burke’s words meant something that only she understood. Anza had grown into a fine woman, several inches taller than her father, with the same perfectly straight black hair and tan skin. In all her life, no one had ever heard her speak. Though she understood everything that was said to her, she communicated only with her gestures and expressions. Among the gestures she was famed for was her rather swift response toward any man who laid a hand on her. She could break a man’s fingers faster than he could finish saying, “Aren’t you a pretty thing?”
As Anza vanished into the kitchen, Burke asked, “How far off? How long before they get here?”
In response, the door to the tavern was kicked from its hinges. It crashed to the floor, knocking over a table, which sent chairs toppling in a domino effect. The thick floorboards of the great room trembled as the mob trampled in, led by the naked swordsman. Dealon ran to the bar, scrambling over it as fast as he could manage, getting on the side with Burke. Others sought refuge beneath tables, or in the corners of the room. Burke alone seemed unfazed by the invasion as he picked up another mug and began to wipe it.
More of the army crowded inside—Dealon guessed at least a hundred men. A dozen of the largest hung close to the muscular leader as he approached the bar. Like their leader, they were armed with actual swords. Unlike him, they wore clothes. Some even had bits of ill-fitting armor: breastplates and bucklers and skirts of chainmail that had obviously been crafted for use by earth-dragons.
The naked man raised his hand and the men who followed him stopped where they stood, utterly silent. He stared across the room at Burke. Burke patiently waited for the man to speak first.
The naked man shook the room with a deep and thunderous voice: “The southern rebellion. The town of Conyers. Among the heroes of that battle was a man known as Kanati the Machinist. He was of the ancient race of the Cherokee, and legendary for his inventiveness. You are this man.”
Burke shrugged, then shook his head. “Seems you know a little history. You must know Albekizan crushed that rebellion. The sun-dragons held a public feast to devour the captives. Whoever this Kanati was, he’s dead now. Everyone who lived in Conyers is dead.”
“Not everyone,” said the naked man. “I was born there. I was nine when the king’s army came against the city. Despite my youth, I would gladly have stayed and fought. My father, however, gathered my family and fled in the darkness. We weren’t the only refugees. Don’t tell me that everyone died.”
“Maybe there were some survivors,” said Burke. “Your family was one of the fortunate.”
“No,” the man said, shaking his wild locks. “My mother and father survived Conyers only to be slain five years later by Albekizan and his accursed wizard. Little about my history can be called fortunate save for discovering you, Kanati.”
“Kanati, I assure you, has long since been digested. Sorry to make your trip here a pointless one. Why don’t I give your men a round of cider for your troubles, then you head off to wherever it is you’re going?”
“My men may not partake of alcohol.”
“I see. Well then, Ragnar, I’m not sure there’s much more I can do for you.”
“Ah!” the naked man said, his eyes brightening. “You know my name! Can it be you remember me from long ago?”
“Were you this hairy when you were eight?” asked Burke. “I know your name because I’ve been hearing rumors about a prophet named Ragnar who’s vowed not to cut his hair or wear clothes until the last dragon has been slain. You seem to fit that description.”
Ragnar drew back his shoulders. “I am that prophet. I have been the tongue by which the Lord speaks of the final days of the dragons. Now, I am the sword that will cut them from this earth!”
“Everyone needs something to do with their time,” Burke said with a gentle smile. “I confess, I’m not sure I grasp the strategic value of fighting a dragon buck naked.”
“The prophet Samuel wandered the desert clad only by prayers,” said Ragnar.
“Interesting,” said Burke, nodding slowly, as if appreciating the logic behind Ragnar’s words. “Did this Samuel fellow also swear off soap? Because, I gotta tell you, Ragnar, you’re making my eyes water.”
Ragnar slammed the hilt of his scimitar onto the bar, causing the mugs that sat upon it to jump. Spittle flew from his lips as he shouted, “Do not mock me! I am the Lord’s chosen! With a word, my army will destroy this town. Stone will be knocked from stone. Your barns will be burnt and your livestock slaughtered. Your women will weep as we behead the men of this village one by one for treason!”
Dealon cringed a little lower behind the bar in the face of Ragnar’s rage. Burke was no longer smiling.
“You make a compelling argument,” Burke said, in a cool tone. “Still, I can be a little thick. Why, exactly, are we accused of treason?”
“Albekizan, king of the dragons, is dead, as I prophesied. The dragons are in disarray. All men must now stand together to strike the accused serpents. Those who refuse are traitors. I march from village to village, bringing all men the divine message: Join or die!”
Burke smirked. “At least we get a choice.”
“No, Kanati,” said Ragnar. “Your only choice is to join. The Lord has told me the legendary machinist will fight by my side.”
Burke reached up and scratched the pale scars above lip as he thought. He said, “Why would you even want Kanati? The machinist didn’t do much good the last time he stood up to dragons. He spent months preparing Conyers for battle. The dragons overran the town in hours. All this Kanati fellow managed to do was spread false hope and get a lot of people killed.”
“You lacked divine guidance,” said Ragnar. “The holy scriptures state that the great dragon will hold dominion over the earth for a millennium before perishing in a final battle. The thousand years have passed. I now wage the last war. You will build me the weapons I need to fight it. Should you refuse, my men will find your lovely daughter—Anza, I believe she’s called. Terrible things will be done to her before your eyes.”
Burke lowered his hands to the bar. His voice was cold as the breeze outside as he said, “Leave here, Ragnar. You no longer amuse me.”
“I’m not here to amuse you,” said Ragnar.
“I’ll give you until the count of ten,” said Burke. His hand fell below the bar. Dealon noticed a long iron rod that Burke pulled back. From beneath the floor came the clatter of cogs and clockwork, like the sounds the chess-monkey made, but on a grand scale. “After that, I’m going to start killing your men.”
“Do it,” said Ragnar. “Kill them.”
Burke frowned, his eyes darting about the room as if he were counting the number of forces arrayed against him. Most of the time, Dealon thought of Burke as the same youthful man who’d wandered into town those long years ago. Now, Burke looked as if he’d aged twenty years since Dealon had last seen him. Light gray hairs streaked his braid and deep wrinkles lined his eyes. The expression upon Burke’s face as he surveyed the mob wasn’t so much a look of anger as one of weariness.
“This one,” said Ragnar, grabbing the guard to his left. “His name’s Ugnan. Start with him.”
“Sir,” Ugnan said, looking startled. He was a big, lumpy man, with thick arms and a thicker belly. His pumpkin-shaped head sat upon his shoulders without the intervention of a neck. Plates of rusted armor hung over his dirty brown shirt and trousers.
“Your faith will protect you,” said Ragnar.
Ugnan didn’t look confident in this, but he stood still, obedient to the holy man.
“If your power is as great as you wish me to believe, prove it now,” Ragnar said to Burke.
“Don’t make me do this,” said Burke.
“Think of Anza,” said Ragnar.
Burke grimaced, his eyes locked onto those of the prophet. Suddenly, he barked out, “A-seven!”
A powerful spring in the cellar uncoiled with a twang. The bar stool next to Ugnan splintered as a long, sharp iron rod sprang six feet into the air. Ugnan looked over at the rod, only inches away, his eyes wide. “It missed,” he whispered. “It’s true . . . my faith saved me.”
Burke sighed. “Sorry Ugnan. It’s not divine will, just bad memory. It’s been, what, twelve years since I built the grid?”
Ugnan looked confused.
Burke looked down at his feet, cupped his hands to make a fleshy megaphone, and shouted, “A-six!”
Dealon turn away as a pained shriek tore from Ugnan’s lips. His twitching body lifted into the air and his sword hit the floor with a clatter. Blood splattered the ceiling. Ugnan's eyes remained open as he lifelessly slid down the spike.
“Alas,” said Ragnar. “Ugnan’s faith was weak. But my faith is strengthened. Perhaps Kanati the machinist is long dead. The Lord has delivered us a man who matches his talents. Join me, Burke. Together, we cannot fail.”
“What I did to Ugnan I can do to every man in this room,” said Burke. “Even you.”
“You didn’t kill me, though you could have. You know that should I die, the men outside this tavern will run wild.”
“True,” said Burke with a sigh. “The only thing worse than an army led by a fanatic is an army led by no one at all.”
Burke stared into the eyes of the naked prophet. His hand rested on a second lever beneath the bar. Dealon wondered what intricate machinery that lever would set in motion. Yet the look on Burke’s face was one familiar to him. It was the same expression Dealon often saw in the glass eyes of the chess-monkey, the look his own face wore when he was in check and any move he made was going to cost him dearly.
Burke’s fingers slipped from the handle.
“No one else,” he said. “I’ll join you if no one else from the town is taken.”
Now it was Ragnar’s turn to stare as he silently contemplated his opponent’s offer. He studied the twisted form of Ugnan, standing like a fleshy scarecrow, supported by the steel rod. Ugnan’s blood pooled around the prophet’s bare feet. With a look of satisfaction in his eyes, Ragnar turned to Burke. “Agreed.”
Burke relaxed. He crossed his arms and said, “You’ve picked up a fair little army with this ‘join or die’ tactic. Do you have any other plans up your sleeve? If you had sleeves, that is?”
The prophet smiled, his yellow teeth gleaming amid the dark tangle of his beard. “It’s not by chance we travel the Forge Road.”
Burke nodded, as if Ragnar had just explained everything.
CHAPTER NINE
* * *
FEVER DREAMS
BITTERWOOD DREAMED OF FIRE. He fled down corridors of flame-wreathed stone in Chakthalla’s castle, holding his breath to avoid the deadly smoke. He emerged into a courtyard to find his home village, Christdale, ablaze. All the wooden buildings glowed apple red, yet were still intact; the black cinder bodies of women and children stood in doorways, beckoning to him. He stumbled through the inferno of the village, his lungs aching, blisters rising on face, to arrive at the church he’d built board by board with his own hands. The structure collapsed in a spray of bright sparks. As the burning walls fell away, stands of living trees were revealed. It was the temple that had stood in this village long ago, the temple of the goddess.
He peered through the smoke into the heart of the temple, toward the statue of the goddess. In Bitterwood’s youth, the goddess had been a wooden carving, immobile, but in this dream she was walking toward him, a voluptuous female form with skin of rich mahogany. Where her hair should have been there were gouts of flame, slithering together like glowing snakes, flicking their tongues in evil hisses.
The fire spread across her polished skin as she drew closer. The goddess stumbled, her glowing arms stretched toward Bitterwood, as if begging him to catch her. He tried to run, but couldn’t move as the goddess fell against him and his own skin caught fire. In his panic, he jerked his eyes open.
He was lying under a stone outcropping. A small, pathetic campfire sputtered at his side. White smoke drifted from the coals and wrapped around his head like a cloud. With every breath the acrid stench filled his lungs. He was under a heavy wool blanket that smelled like manure. He was awash with sweat. The breath that passed between his shivering lips was hot and dry as a summer wind. He tried to wipe the sweat from his eyes. The hand he lifted was barely recognizable as his own; it was a yellowish gray streaked with purple. Bitterwood tried to wiggle the swollen fingers and they didn’t move. He dropped the limb limply to his chest.
Glancing around the shelter, he couldn’t see Zeeky or Poocher, but the boy he’d saved was near, leaning up against Killer’s massive body. Both were sleeping. Killer’s legs were covered with brown bandages. Bitterwood tried to speak, but wound up coughing. The intended effect was the same. Killer and the boy opened their eyes.
Bitterwood licked his dry lips and whispered, “W-where’s Z-Zeeky?”
The boy shrugged. “Gone,” he said.
“G-gone where?”
“Dead Skunk Hole,” the boy said.
Bitterwood nodded, as if the boy’s words made sense. Then he closed his eyes and slipped back into dream.
THE FIRST DRAGON Bitterwood had ever killed had been a sky-dragon. The beast had been flying overhead, little higher than the tree tops. Bitterwood had been practicing with a bow since the fall of Christdale, never wanting to again be unprepared to defend himself. Bitterwood hadn’t needed to defend himself from this dragon. The sky-dragon never even glanced down as it passed. Bitterwood had been, quite literally, beneath its notice. Bitterwood could have ignored it and continued his training. Instead, he’d made a lucky guess as to how far ahead of the beast he needed to aim and loosed the shot. The beast had yelped a single word—“What?”—when the arrow caught in its breast, then spiraled through the air as its damaged chest muscles tried to maintain its flight. It crashed at neck-snapping speed.
Bitterwood had stood over the dead dragon a long time, trying to feel something. Guilt, perhaps, for killing a creature that had nothing to do with the deaths of his family. Or, satisfaction, at least some small flicker, that his shot had found its target and the population of dragons was now reduced by one.
He’d felt nothing. Intellectually, he was aware he’d just killed a fellow intelligent being, capable of thought and speech. Until this moment, the only large thing he’d ever killed had been a deer when he’d hunted with his brother Jomath. He’d felt some small twinge of remorse looking down at the deer, though that emotion had changed to satisfaction when he’d later dined upon a steak cut from his kill.
Remembering that meal, he’d cut the dragon’s thigh free from the body and left the rest to be picked over by buzzards. That evening, he’d roasted the thigh over a fire. He could still smell the aroma of dragon fat as it dripped from the leg and sizzled on the coals below. He remembered the way the tough, chewy meat played upon his tongue, the gushes of smoky grease. He could still be warmed by the glow that filled him after that meal as he stretched out under the stars, his belly full.
To this day, there was no sound more satisfying to his ears than a startled dragon yelping, “What?”
Deep inside his dream, Bitterwood was aware of his nostrils twitching. He was keenly tuned to the smell of dragons, the way their hides stank of fish, the way their breath smelled of dead things. His nose served as an extra eye, alerting him when dragons waited in the dark, unseen. His lids cracked open the barest sliver.
A dark red shape loomed at the mouth of the cave. Then it was blotted out by a second shape, scaly like a dragon, but shaped like a woman. The woman’s face drew closer. Did he know her?
“Recanna?” he mumbled before his eyes closed again.
“He’s burning up,” the woman said, pulling the blanket and taking away a fair number of scabs with it. The smell of rotting meat wafted through the air. The woman audibly gagged. “By the bones,” she said softly, strange words from a human’s lips. It was normally an expression of dragons.
“That’s a lot of pus,” said a deep voice. Bitterwood recognized the timbre of the sound, the bass formed by a belly wide enough to digest a man. A sun-dragon. Was he still dreaming?
He opened his eyes once more. A sun-dragon peered into the small cave, his eyes glowing green in the firelight. Bitterwood was certain that he was looking at a ghost: Albekizan, coming to claim his revenge. Yet, despite the similarity, this dragon was younger than the king. Bodiel? No, Albekizan’s youngest son was dead too. Who was this?
This dragon didn’t seem to be watching him. His eyes were focused above Bitterwood. Bitterwood tilted his head to find the woman he’d glimpsed kneeling over him. He flinched as her fingers probed his wounds. Yellow fluid oozed beneath her fingertips as she applied pressure. She closed her eyes. Bant struggled to recall where he’d seen her before. Her helmet was familiar . . . it looked like the one the wizard-dragon Vendevorex had worn.
“J-Jandra?” he asked. It had to be her. She looked different since their time together in the Free City. Older, somehow, though only weeks had passed.
“I’m here,” she said. “What the hell did this to you, Bant?”
“Dragon,” he mumbled. “N-never seen one like it.”
“I can’t believe you’re still alive.” Her voice sounded distant and distracted. Her eyes were closed, flickering back and forth under the lids. “I’ve never seen so much infection.”
“I-I’ve felt w-worse,” he said.
“You’d lose your left leg if I weren’t here,” Jandra said. “Still might. This is going to take some work.”
She said something else a moment later, but her voice seemed far away, lost beneath some hiss, like the fall of a hard rain. Was it raining? He couldn’t see anything beyond the veil of black mist that slid across his vision, blotting out Jandra, the dragon, and the fire beside him.
All pain left his body as he slipped into cold, unending darkness.
HE WOKE SITTING in the peach orchard of his youth. It was springtime. Everything was blooming, the world was pink and fresh. Recanna was lying at his side, her head in his lap. It was a warm day, and the only sound in the world was the faint hum of bees working through the blossoms overhead.
He was young again, eighteen perhaps. His hands were calloused from labor, but unscarred by battle. He looked at them, wondering why he’d expected them to be any different.
He nudged Recanna. She stirred, sitting up, brushing her long dark hair from her face.
“Did I fall asleep?” she asked.
Bant started to say yes. He stopped as he remembered why his hands should be scarred.
“You died,” he said. “Dragons killed you. Dragons killed you because of what I’d done.”
She nodded, looking as if she, too, were searching her memories. “Yes,” she said. “I remember now.”
The breeze that washed over them was warm and scented by the clover of the nearby fields. Bitterwood swallowed hard. Nothing hurt inside him for the first time in memory. “Is this . . . is this heaven?” he asked, softly.
“Do you believe in heaven?” she asked.
“No,” he whispered. “I haven’t believed in anything for a long time.”
“Then where will you find me?”
“I don’t . . . I don’t know.”
He raised his hands to wipe the tear that trickled down his cheek. As the back of his hand touched his face, he woke.
“Recanna?” he said, sitting up, looking across the dark room toward the female form that sat near the fire.
“It’s me,” the woman answered. “Jandra. Can you see me?”
He rubbed his eyes, then blinked several times. Suddenly, Jandra popped into focus. “I see you,” he said.
“Good,” she said. “I was worried your fever might have damaged your vision. I tried to repair some of the fine blood vessel damage I found there, but I’m still new at this. I worried I might do more harm than good. But I thought I was doing it right because I discovered something strange about you.”
“What?” he asked.
“You already had nanites inside you. They were dormant, like they were left over from repairing you before, but they already contained programming for restoring tissue. I just had to reactivate them. Did Vendevorex ever heal you?”
“No,” said Bitterwood. “I don’t know what a nanite is.”
“And no one has ever cured your injuries before?”
“I didn’t say that,” Bitterwood said. “A long time ago, after the fall of Conyers, I was healed by a green-skinned woman. She caused my hands to grow back after they’d been bitten off by a dragon. To this day, I don’t know if she was an angel or a devil. Since she worked her magic, I’ve been faster and stronger. My vision is as sharp as a sky-dragon’s.”
“Hmm,” Jandra said.
Bitterwood stared at his hands. They were wrinkled, calloused, and scarred. Yet, they felt whole. The decaying purple sausages that had sat at the end of his arm were wriggling fingers again. It wasn’t just his hands that felt restored. He tossed aside the blanket, which was now clean. Beneath, he was naked. All the wounds inflicted by the long-wyrm were healed. His body was covered by a hundred smooth crisscrossing scars, but he felt fine. All traces of the fever and weakness were gone.
“I’m sorry about the scars,” Jandra said. “Once I got rid of the infection and repaired the deep structure damage, I simply accelerated your body’s own healing systems.”
Jandra wasn’t looking directly at him as she spoke, averting her eyes from his nudity. Bitterwood grabbed the blanket and pulled it back over his lap to hide himself.
“You must command the same magic Vendevorex used,” Bitterwood said. “He healed himself after being gutted. He should have died.”
“He did die, later, in the Free City. I’m not sure how much you know about what’s happened since I left you.”
“Not much,” Bitterwood said. “I’ve been traveling with Zeeky . . . Zeeky! Where is she?”
“Missing,” said Jandra. “Her brother said she went into the mines.”
“That fool girl,” he grumbled. “She’ll get herself eaten. Why didn’t you go after her?”
“I’ve been saving your life,” she said, looking hurt by his scolding tone.
Bitterwood looked around for his clothes. If Zeeky had gone into the mines, he’d have to go after her. “Where did you put my—?”
“Here,” Jandra said, lifting a folded bundle of leather and linen. “I took these off because I didn’t want to get the fibers entangled in your wounds. I repaired them as best I could. Nothing fancy. There wasn’t much to work with.”
She tossed the bundle to Bitterwood. He caught the familiar fabric, recognizing at once the linen shirt and buckskin pants he’d worn for so many years. He couldn’t recall the last time they’d been so completely free of blood stains. The tattered blanket he’d worn on his journey had been fashioned into an actual cloak, complete with a drawstring hood.
“I didn’t know you were a seamstress as well as a witch,” he said. He took a sidelong glance at her. “You’ve changed your hair again.” Her long brown locks hung freely past her shoulders from beneath the silver skullcap. In the Free City, her hair had been black, and barely shoulder length. Her clothes also caught his attention, as it looked like dragon hide. The material clung to her body in a way that seemed part of her. Elaborate flourishes of feathery lace around the cuff and collar seemed more appropriate for a palace than for a cave in the wilderness. “Your clothes look like something that peacock you consorted with might have worn. What was his name? Pet?”
Jandra frowned. “Pet wasn’t my consort. I don’t appreciate being judged simply because I want to wear something nicer than rags.”
As she spoke, Bitterwood sniffed the air. “It’s not my imagination. There was a sun-dragon here.”
“Hexilizan,” said Jandra. “He likes to be called Hex.”
“Ah. The disgraced first-born.”
“You’ve heard of him? I lived in the castle all my life and didn’t know who he was.” She turned her back to him. “Put your clothes on so we can go see the others.”
“I know Albekizan’s family well,” said Bitterwood, unfolding the bundle. “He had six sons and four daughters. Only two of the sons survive—Hexilizan and Shandrazel. Lancerimel followed the Dragon Road beyond the Cursed Mountains and never returned. The other three I killed . . . though only Bodiel’s body was discovered.”
“Don’t brag about that to Hex,” she said. “In fact, before we go further, I want to lay down some rules. Back at Chakthalla’s, you gave me your word not to kill Vendevorex, and you kept it. Now, I want your word that you won’t kill Hex. He’s my friend, and I won’t have him become another notch on your bow.”
“I don’t carve notches in my bow,” said Bitterwood, struggling to pull his pants over his thighs. The buckskin had tightened. “It would weaken the wood.”
“You know what I mean. At Chakthalla’s castle, you didn’t take sides. If it had scales, you put an arrow into it. But all dragons aren’t alike. Hex has done nothing to hurt you.”
“You know nothing of the real world, girl,” Bitterwood answered, finally getting the pants up to his waist. Despite the snugness of the buckskin, Bitterwood could tell he’d lost weight during his time of fever. The skin of his belly lay tight against the muscles beneath, all hint of fat eaten away in an effort to keep him alive. “As Albekizan’s son, Hex trained in the art of hunting humans. Your so-called friend has feasted on the meat of slaves he’s brought down. No dragon is innocent.”
“Sun-dragons’ reputation for eating humans is vastly exaggerated,” Jandra said. “Most of them eat the same stuff people do—fish, beef, bread—just a whole lot more of it.”
“Foods produced by human labors, which the dragons steal. You don’t know that because you’ve led a sheltered life, protected by a dragon who treated you as affectionately as some men treat their dogs.”
“I’m not naïve,” said Jandra. “I’ve killed dragons. I’ve killed humans. Nothing about my life is sheltered anymore.”
Bitterwood silently pulled his shirt on, weighing her words as he laced the front closed. Jandra was forever corrupted by having been raised by a dragon. However, he knew he wouldn’t be alive without her. She would also be helpful in finding Zeeky. Despite being a witch, she seemed to have a kind heart. Finally, he sighed. “What is it that you want of me?”
“Don’t kill Hex. Or Shandrazel, should you meet him. We’re at the dawn of an age when dragons and humans can finally live in peace. I don’t want you destroying that with your blind hatred.”
“My hatred is far from blind, girl,” Bitterwood said. “It’s clear-eyed hatred, seeing the world that is, not the world you wish it to be. Still, I will honor your request . . . for now.”
Jandra looked relieved. She moved toward the edge of the cave and leapt onto a rock below. “Come on,” she said, motioning for him to follow.
They were several hundred feet above the ruins of Big Lick. The mountain here was a series of rocky shelves and overhangs, some quite deep. Jandra navigated the narrow path that led between the ledges with the sureness of a mountain goat. Bitterwood sensed that the change in her since last they’d met was more than just a change of wardrobe. He strained to keep up with her. She definitely hadn’t been this strong or fast when they’d first met. Then, she’d been little more than a child in a young woman’s body. She’d been brave, yes, but also irrational and overly emotional. She seemed more in control now. When she’d told him not to kill Hex, she hadn’t been pleading or bargaining. She’d simply been telling him the rules he would live by in her presence.
He wondered if she’d laid down the same sort of rules with Hex.
THEY WALKED up a wooden ramp toward the great gaping mouth of the mountain. Judging from the picks and shovels laying around, this was the entrance to a mine. Inside the shelter of the mine a fire burned, and beside this fire sat Killer and the boy. Killer looked healthier, though the ox-dog’s hide was now as scarred as his own.
“Did you heal the dog before you healed me?” he asked.
“His wounds were mostly superficial,” Jandra said. “After he was better, I had Hex bring him and the boy here. The first cave was too small for Hex, and I wanted us to have a little privacy after you woke.”
It was getting dark outside, and the roof of the cave was so black with the soot of centuries it looked like a formless void.
“Where’s Hex?” Jandra asked.
“I don’t know,” the boy said. “He smelled something strange. Said he’d be right back. He only left a minute ago.”
“Where’s Zeeky?” Bitterwood asked.
“We found her footprints,” the boy said, pointing toward the rear of the shaft. “She’s looking for our folks.”
“You’re related to her?” As he asked this, Bitterwood saw that the family resemblance was undeniable. The same cornsilk-blond hair, the same evening-blue eyes. The boy’s face was a bit more angular, however, his nose sharper, his chin more prominent. Bitterwood guessed the boy to be about twelve. He had the same wiry limbs that Zeeky possessed, a body shaped by poverty and the physical demands of climbing over this harsh landscape.
“Ezekia’s my sister,” he said. “I’m Jeremiah.”
“You’re older than your sister,” said Bitterwood. “Why did you let her go?”
“Ain’t nobody can stop Zeeky when she sets her mind to do something.”
Bitterwood nodded. He knew this from experience. “Jeremiah and Ezekia . . . these are names from the Bible.”
“Yes sir,” the boy said. “My great grandfather was converted by a prophet named Hezekiah. He came to these mountains as a missionary.”
“I see,” said Bitterwood. “People in this area are usually devotees of the goddess Ashera. I saw her temple in the town of Winding Rock.”
“If you know the Bible enough to know our names, are you a follower of the Lord, mister?”
Bitterwood felt anger stir inside him at the question. He knew the boy meant no harm in asking; no doubt he was merely looking for common ground with a stranger. The boy couldn’t know that the only thing Bitterwood hated more than dragons were the words of the so called prophet Hezekiah.
Apparently, the boy sensed Bitterwood’s anger, because he turned his face toward the floor and grew quiet, as if he was afraid.
“I didn’t know you were such an expert in religion,” Jandra said to Bitterwood. “Of course, almost anyone would know more about religion than I do. Vendevorex didn’t teach me anything about spirituality.”
“If you stay in these mountains long,” the boy said, “you’ll learn more than you want to know about spirits. These mountains are full of devils.”
“Some people think these mountains are the home of the goddess,” said Bitterwood, not so much to argue with the boy as to explain things to Jandra. “Jeremiah’s people think the place is full of devils, but in the village where I was born it would have been unthinkable to mine these mountains—this was sacred ground. The goddess both lived in the earth, and was of the earth. Digging a hole this deep into her would have been like digging into her heart.”
“Hmm,” said Jandra. “When I get back to the library I’ll have to read up on theology.”
“Don’t you carry the books inside your head?” asked a deep, strong voice from the growing darkness outside the cave. Bitterwood spun around, his body instinctively steeling itself for combat.
Jandra looked toward the shadows outside, and said, “I can only recall books I’ve actually seen. This wasn’t something I studied.”
The shadows at the mouth of the cave took on shape and substance as the ruby hide of a sun-dragon slinked forward. Bitterwood surveyed the room for a weapon. He’d never killed a sun-dragon barehanded. The pickaxes that lay at the entrance could do the deed.
However, the way this dragon moved gave Bitterwood a reason to relax. This dragon was no threat; he was limping, and there was a hint of freshly spilled reptilian blood in the air. Indeed, more than a hint—Hex must be bleeding freely to unleash such an odor.
As Hex moved nearer the light of the campfire, it became apparent that he wasn’t limping. He was dragging something he grasped with his fore-talons, something quite heavy. From the corner of his eye, Bant saw Jandra toss a handful of silver dust into the air. Suddenly, the room was as brightly lit as if the noon sun was overhead.
The burden that Hex dragged behind him was copper colored and its body seemed to stretch on forever out of the mouth of the cave. It was studded with muscular legs ending in fearsome claws.
“I heard what you were saying about the goddess,” said Hex, as if the fact he was dragging a slain beast into their presence was hardly worth mentioning. “We dragons don’t believe in gods exactly, though we do believe in a life flame that endures beyond death, and we believe in spirits. These mountains are said to be haunted; perhaps the strange noise that permeates these rocks causes both men and dragons to seek supernatural explanations.”
“What noise?” Bitterwood asked.
“What in the world is that?” Jandra said, walking over to the beast, ignoring Bitterwood. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“I’m not sure what it is. I smelled something odd in the wind earlier. I found this thing emerging from one of the nearby caves. It attacked when it saw me; I killed it in self defense.”
“Those are demons,” Jeremiah said. “They live in the underworld.”
“This isn’t a demon,” said Hex. “It’s an animal, and it was being ridden by a man. Unfortunately, he escaped as I was fighting the beast.”
Bitterwood nodded. “There was a man on beast I slew as well. He didn’t escape. I’d never seen anything like it either. But I’ve heard about a lot of legendary beasts over the years, and once was told of a race of long-wyrms that lived in the mountains. This must be one of those.”
Jandra ran her hands along the long-wyrm’s hide as Killer, the ox-dog, drew up beside her and started to sniff. “A creature like this shouldn’t exist,” she said. “I’ve been studying biology since I was old enough to hold a book. All vertebrates are limited to four limbs. It’s biological law.”
“The beast must not have read the same books,” said Hex. “If it can read at all. Despite its draconian head, I didn’t get the feeling it was intelligent. It didn’t speak during the battle, although its rider let out a string of scatological commentaries as he departed.”
“Jeremiah, what else do you know about these creatures?” Jandra asked.
“Not a lot, ma’am,” the boy answered. “Occasionally the menfolk of my village spot the demons when they’re in the mine. The demons shy away from light. But they weren’t scared of fire when they attacked Big Lick.”
“Why did they attack?” Hex asked. “What provoked them?”
“I don’t know,” said Jeremiah. “They just came in during the night and started dragging people from their beds. I don’t think they killed anyone, their riders just tied us up like hogs and carted us back to the mountain. I’m lucky to have got away. Luckier still to find Zeeky.”
“And now Zeeky’s gone into underworld to find your parents,” said Bitterwood. “Can you lead us through the mines?”
“I . . . I’m afraid to, mister,” the boy said. “They say these things don’t just eat you . . . they also eat your soul.”
“If you live a life of cowardice, your soul has already been chewed up,” Bitterwood scolded.
The boy hung his head in shame.
Hex said, “Zeeky’s footprints are easy enough to spot in the coal dust. I can smell where her pig walked. We won’t need the boy to guide us.”
“You’re crazy to go into the mountain,” Jeremiah said, directing his words at Bitterwood. “That one demon right near killed you. There were at least a dozen that came to Big Lick.”
Bitterwood smiled grimly. “I’ve faced stiffer odds. I only fared badly because I was already injured. If Jandra can make me a bow and some arrows using her—” he stopped suddenly. Killer had lifted his head with a jerk, and turned to face the back of the cave. He let out a low growl toward the darkness.
“What is it, boy?” Jeremiah asked.
“I hear something,” Jandra said, looking in the same direction. “Something’s moving back there.”
Hex dropped to all fours and strained his neck forward, sniffing the air. “Another long-wyrm,” he said. “More than one, in fact.”
Bitterwood’s eyes searched the darkness. The back of the cave was a tangle of rock and shadows, and the light Jandra had created only made it more difficult for him to see what was approaching. Then, at the edge of his vision, a patch of shadow moved closer, until its eyes caught the light and flashed golden.
“Jeremiah,” Bitterwood said, as a second pair of eyes joined the first. “Now would be a good time to run.”
Jeremiah darted toward the entrance of the cave and, having barely traveled twenty feet, skidded to halt. Bitterwood glanced back. Three more long-wyrms and their riders were at the entrance of the cave. This brought the total number they faced to five, plus the riders.
The middle long-wyrm at the front of the mine had two riders. “That’s him,” the hindmost rider said, pointing toward Hex. “He killed my mount.”
The long-wyrms crept closer, eyeing the sun-dragon. Their riders carried loaded crossbows. All possessed the same pale skin of the earlier rider, and all wore the same shimmering white tunics and strange visors. Though Bitterwood couldn’t see their eyes, it was apparent from the tilt of their heads that the riders were focused on Hex.
Jandra said firmly, “Don’t come any closer. I’m sorry we killed your mount. There’s no need for further violence.”
“The hell there isn’t,” growled the rider whose mount had been slain. “The goddess was furious when Fondmar and his wyrm were killed. I’ll not face her without bringing the head of the dragon who killed my mount.”
“Why did you attack the town of Big Lick?” Jandra asked. “What have you done with its people?”
Bitterwood noticed that as she spoke, Jandra had dipped her hand into the pouch on her belt and was now allowing the fine silver dust to trickle through her fingers and vanish into the air. The atmosphere around Bitterwood began to faintly hum. What was she doing? There was already enough light to see by. Too much light for his taste. He fought better in the shadows.
Of course, in a second, it would no longer matter. In unison, all the wyrm-riders lifted their crossbows. Everyone aimed their weapons at Hex.
Bitterwood tensed, waiting for the triggers to be pulled, so he could spring into action before they reloaded. In his head, he was already mapping out the path he would follow, which wyrm he would attack first. He could have one long-wyrm dead in twenty seconds; a second would fall half a minute later. Beyond that, the situation had too many variables to plan. Hopefully, his attack would be enough of a distraction for Jandra to turn invisible and get Jeremiah to safety. He wished he had a second to share his plan. He would have to trust her instincts.
The time for planning abruptly ended as the vengeful rider shouted, “Fire!” The crossbow strings sang out with a single deadly note.
CHAPTER TEN
* * *
THE BATTLE OF DEAD SKUNK HOLE
BITTERWOOD CHARGED as the bolts whistled through the air. A flash of light caught his eyes. The bolts flared, lit by an internal fire. Three feet from Hex’s hide the missiles vanished in puffs of smoke.
“Yes!” shouted Jandra, sounding pleased. “Finally!”
Hex looked puzzled by the dusty cloud wafting around him. Then he grimaced, as if in pain, before unleashing a sneeze that echoed through the cave like thunder.
With all eyes on Hex, Bitterwood grabbed a shovel that leaned against a mine cart as he closed in on the nearest long-wyrm. He jumped atop a crate and threw himself at the beast. The long-wyrm whipped toward him, drawn by the sudden movement. Bitterwood planted a hand on the dragon’s snout and somersaulted over its toothy maw. He landed on the beast’s back, two yards from the rider, who dropped his crossbow and hastily drew his sword. As the weapon cleared its scabbard Bitterwood swung. The wooden handle cracked as the iron blade of the shovel connected with the man’s head. The rider tumbled from his saddle, his sword flying from his fingers. Bitterwood dropped the shovel and snatched the sword as he leapt from the beast. He landed on the stone floor, crouching, his cloak concealing the blade. The shadows on the floor revealed the long-wyrm snaking back toward him. Bitterwood spun around, burying the blade in the underside of the beast’s jaw. Hot spittle flecked his cheeks as the long-wyrm’s mouth slammed shut. The upper six inches of the sword jutted from the creature’s snout like a bloody horn.
Bitterwood braced himself. He’d missed the long-wyrm’s brain. The beast recoiled in pain. Bitterwood held onto the blade with both hands as he was jerked him from his feet. With a slurp the blade pulled free, and Bitterwood dropped back to the stone. The creature shook its head back and forth in agony. Bitterwood aimed carefully and thrust upward, his feet braced for maximum leverage. The tip of the sword found the spot he wanted, nearer the back of the jaw. This time, the blade broke into the beast’s skull with a gratifying crunch. A spasm ran the length of the long-wyrm, all its claws clenching in sequence. Bitterwood pulled the blade loose as the beast slackened. He jumped free of the collapsing serpent, his eyes searching for the next target.
None of the long-wyrms even looked his way. Two of the remaining beasts were fighting Hex, one was locked in combat with Killer, and the last creature and its rider were engulfed in flames. Jandra was focused on their writhing bodies; her hands grabbed at the air. It looked as if she was gathering the smoke that rose from her victims into a tight ball.
Satisfied that Jandra was in no immediate danger, Bitterwood sprinted across the room toward the long-wyrm that fought Killer. In a replay of the earlier battle, the ox-dog had buried his teeth into the creature’s throat. Unlike the earlier battle, Killer’s new wounds were more than just scratches. The wyrm had coiled around it and was digging deep gouges in the giant dog’s underbelly. A pool of gore grew beneath them as the creature’s copper claws pulled out bluish-red loops of intestine. Killer’s jaws went slack. A noise, part howl and part sigh, came from somewhere deep inside him. The rider, still in his saddle, leaned forward with his silver blade and buried the tip of the weapon between the dog’s eyes.
Bitterwood had seen a lot of creatures die, but seldom had he ever felt such loss. Killer had been a good dog. Bitterwood snarled as he flew at the rider. The rider looked up, struggling to pull his sword free from the dying canine. Bitterwood leapt and swung his blade, chopping into the man’s sword arm near the elbow. The rider pulled back, a gasp of agony escaping his lips. The rider’s pale face turned even whiter as he saw his arm dangling by a thread of flesh. Bitterwood spun to face the jaws of the long-wyrm as the rider slipped from his saddle. Unfortunately, the rider wasn’t dead. With his good hand, he reached out as he fell and grabbed Bitterwood’s cloak, jerking him backwards.
Bitterwood fought for balance as his feet slipped on the slick gore beneath him. An instant later he was flat on his back. He clenched his jaws as the first of the long-wyrm’s talons dug into his right shin. With reflexes trained by years of constant battle, Bitterwood swung his blade without thinking, severing the talon at the wrist. He kicked, scooting backward, as the long-wyrm pulled back. He tried to rise, but everywhere his feet and hands fell he found the hot, stinking slime of Killer’s entrails. He could get no traction. The long-wyrm recovered and rose, swaying, then flashed toward him, a bolt of serpentine lightning.
Before it reached him, a second long-wyrm came flying through the air, catching Bitterwood’s attacker in mid-strike, knocking it backward.
Bitterwood rolled to his side, trying to figure out what had just happened. He saw one of the long-wyrms now lying dead and broken at the sun-dragon’s feet. Two riders lay still and bloody nearby. Hex was down on all fours, the tail of the remaining long-wyrm clamped in his mouth. He spun in circles, whipping his foe through the air in dizzying arcs. This was what had saved Bitterwood—Hex’s foe had collided with his. The rider of the spinning long-wyrm was still in his saddle, his feet tangled in the stirrups. His visor was gone, and he had a look of sheer terror in his eyes.
Rising to his feet, sword in hand, Bitterwood searched for the long-wyrm that had killed Killer. It was undulating toward the back of the shaft, vanishing once more into darkness. Bitterwood considered giving chase, but decided against it. The bleeding long-wyrm would leave an easy trail. Bitterwood was greatly interested in where it would lead.
With a sickening crunch, the long-wyrm in Hex’s jaws smacked into the wall of the mine, its body nearly flattening with the impact. Hex let the now-dead beast drop, pinning its still living rider beneath it.
Hex looked dizzy, swaying drunkenly in the aftermath of battle. He was covered with countless cuts, though none looked serious.
Bitterwood examined the body of the rider who’d grabbed him by the belt. The man had finally died from blood loss. He looked around the room. Jeremiah was nowhere to be seen.
“Where’s the boy?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Jandra said, looking down at something small in her hands. “I got a little overconfident after my success at dismantling the bolts and fried this one with Vengeance of the Ancestors. I forgot that I might kill the rest of you with the poison smoke. I had to gather up all the particulate matter and compress it so it wouldn’t be harmful.” She held up a black ball the size of a walnut. A skin of silver flowed over it like paint as she turned it in her fingers. “I’ll be more careful next time.”
Hex said, “I saw Jeremiah flee from the mine. I admire his finely honed instincts for avoiding danger.”
“He’s only a child,” said Jandra. “He’s probably safer wherever he ran to than wherever we’re going.”
Bitterwood knelt next to Killer, placing his hands on the dog’s bloodied body. The bristly fur was warm to his touch. He remembered Killer’s gentleness as a mount, the look of genuine gratitude the dog conveyed whenever Bitterwood had thrown it some scrap of food. Bitterwood’s leg throbbed from where the long-wyrm had dug into it, but the pain felt so distant compared to the cold fingers of grief that clamped around his heart.
“Jandra,” he said softly. “Can you help him? He’s . . . he’s a good dog.”
Jandra walked over and placed a hand on Bitterwood’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. Most of what I do is augment a body’s own healing mechanisms. I can’t bring the dead back to life.”
Bitterwood shuddered, feeling the icy hands inside him closing tighter. He closed his eyes, locating the core of hatred that forever burned in him, and instantly his grief washed away in a flood of outrage. These long-wyrm riders had much to pay for.
He stood and limped toward the only rider left alive, the one trapped beneath the long-wyrm. The man’s face was twisted in agony as he clawed at the floor, trying to pull himself free. His pale features were now smudged with black coal dust.
Bitterwood stamped down with his full weight, using his uninjured leg to snap the man’s fingers beneath his boot. The man released an agonized cry.
“I’m going to kill you,” Bitterwood said, pressing down harder and giving the fingers under his heel a twist.
“Wait!” Jandra shouted, rushing up behind him. “We need him alive! We need to ask him questions.”
“I’ll never talk!” the rider vowed between clenched teeth. “I’d die before betraying the goddess!”
“Then die!” said Bitterwood, raising his sword.
“Stop,” said Jandra, taking Bitterwood’s arm and pulling him back. “He can tell us what happened to Zeeky!”
“He won’t talk. He’s a disciple of the goddess Ashera. I know better than anyone the blindness of faith. Let me end his pathetic life!”
“The goddess shall avenge me!” the man said, struggling to sit up. His legs were free of the long-wyrm now but they were twisted in a way that told Bitterwood he would never walk again.
“Your goddess has no power,” Bitterwood said. “I’ve seen her temples gutted, her idols desecrated. She cannot stop these things, just as she cannot save you!”
“Blasphemer!” The rider spat the word out as if it tasted vile. “I’ve seen the goddess with my own eyes! If you were to gaze upon her glory, you would tear out your own tongue in penance for your foul lies!”
Hex’s long face drew closer to the rider. His jaws still dripped blood. “I, for one, would like to meet this goddess. Can you take us to her?”
The man grimaced as he tried to move his broken legs. He sighed, sagging back against the long-wyrm’s corpse. “It would serve you right if I were to lead you to her, dragon. She would melt the flesh from your bones with but a glance.”
Jandra knelt before the rider. “I’m willing to take that chance. I have the power to heal your legs. Would you lead us to your goddess if I do?”
The man looked at her skeptically.
Jandra reached out and placed her hands on the man’s foot. His boot had been lost beneath the long-wyrm, leaving his bloodied and twisted flesh exposed.
She closed her eyes as a look of concentration fell over her features.
“Compound fractures in both legs,” she said. “Extensive internal bleeding. You’ll die if you don’t accept my help.”
In answer, the man’s one good hand darted out and grabbed Jandra by her hair. Her helmet flew from her head as he yanked her to his chest, pinning her with his other arm. His free hand flashed to his belt and an instant later a dagger rested against her throat.
“Stay back!” he snarled. “I’ll kill her if you move so much as an inch!”
“This really isn’t a smart move on your part,” Jandra grumbled.
“I’ve summoned other riders,” the man said, eyeing Bitterwood, then the dragon. “You should flee if you value your life. I’ll release the girl when they arrive.”
Bitterwood raised his sword and took a step closer. “The girl is a witch. It was only a matter of time before I killed her myself.”
“I swear I’ll do it,” the rider screamed, jerking Jandra’s hair back and denting her throat with the tip of the blade.
Before Bitterwood could react, Jandra grabbed the man’s wrist. Though the man’s arms were twice as thick as her own, she pushed the dagger away from her throat as the man struggled to regain control.
Suddenly Hex darted in, his jaws wide. He clamped down with twin rows of knife-length teeth over the man’s head. The rider screamed briefly before Hex silenced him forever with a sharp twist that tore the man’s neck from his torso. Hex rose, his jaws spraying blood as he crunched the man’s skull into ever-smaller fragments.
Jandra turned pale as she watched Hex swallow. She scrambled away from the corpse who still had an arm around her and grabbed her helmet.
“He tasted better than his mount, at least,” said Hex, wiping blood from his jaws onto his wing. “Why didn’t you simply melt his dagger, Jandra?”
Jandra didn’t look back at Hex as she pulled on her helmet.
“I need my helmet to . . .” her voice trailed off, as if she thought better of completing her sentence. “It’s not important.”
Her eyes caught Bitterwood’s. Bitterwood could tell that this was the first time she’d ever seen a dragon devour a man. Perhaps now she could understand his hatred of the beasts. She turned away, looking ill.
Hex remained oblivious to the unspoken communication between the humans. His eyes were fixed on the back of the shaft.
“There’s one more,” he said.
Bitterwood looked into the gloom. A single long-wyrm slithered forward. At first, he thought it might be the one he wounded, but he soon saw that this one was unscathed, as was the rider upon its saddle. The rider’s outfit was slightly modified from that of his brethren, with a large red star above his left breast. Like the others, he wore a silver visor. Unlike the others, whose hair had been cropped short, this new rider’s locks hung to his shoulders. His skin was the same pale tint, but his hair was a dark chestnut, a shade that reminded Bitterwood of his now dead wife, Recanna. He carried a crossbow, but it wasn’t loaded. Bitterwood had learned to read bodies well over the years; whoever this was, he wasn’t planning to attack.
“What a waste,” the new rider said, looking over the corpses of his brethren. “This combat wasn’t authorized. They betrayed the goddess by coming here on a mission of petty revenge. They’ve paid the ultimate price for their folly.”
“You’ll not try to avenge them, then?” asked Hex.
“No,” the rider said. “Through our visors, we may send messages to one another. They signaled that they were entering combat; I ordered them to stand down and they disobeyed my orders. I watched the battle as if through their eyes. They struck first. You fought in self defense. There is nothing to avenge.”
“Perhaps you have nothing to avenge,” said Bitterwood. “But there’s a town below that was destroyed by your riders. Why?”
“The goddess decreed it was a time of harvest,” the rider said in a matter-of-fact tone as his long-wyrm carried him to within a few yards. To be coming into the presence of a sun-dragon, the rider and his long-wyrm looked strangely unworried. “The goddess planted them. She may reap them.”
“Planted them?” Jandra said. “They weren’t stalks of corn.”
“Are they still alive?” Hex asked.
“The fate of the villagers should not concern you,” the rider said.
“The fate of one villager is of great concern to me,” said Bitterwood. “Her name is Zeeky.”
The wyrm-rider smiled. “The girl with the pig. Quite resourceful, that one. The goddess has taken special notice of her.”
“We want to meet this goddess,” said Hex.
“Her temple is a long journey from here,” said the rider. “You must travel underground for several days. It isn’t a journey to be taken lightly; men have gone mad contemplating the weight of the earth above them.”
“Perhaps men do go mad,” said Hex. “I believe I’m made of sterner stuff.”
“I’m not afraid,” said Jandra. “Take us.”
Bitterwood didn’t answer. It didn’t seem, from his posture, that the rider was planning to lead them into a trap. Still, if the temple was many days away, had Zeeky arrived there yet? He wasn’t certain how many days he’d lost to the fever.
“Before we go, introductions are in order,” Hex said, apparently impatient with Bitterwood’s silence. “I am Hexilizan; my friends call me Hex. The woman is named Jandra. I fear I haven’t been introduced to the gentleman yet.”
Bitterwood thought carefully of what to say. Jandra apparently had kept his true identity secret. A wise move, perhaps, but now that he had a sword in his hand he didn’t care what Hex knew about him.
“My name is Bant Bitterwood,” he said. He saw the muscles beneath Hex’s hide go instantly tense. More curiously, the rider also stiffened in his saddle. The man’s mouth opened, but he seemed unable to speak.
Shaking off his shocked expression, the rider dismounted. He took off his visor and stepped toward Bitterwood. The look on his face was an expression half of disbelief, half of reverence.
“Do you . . .” he asked, his voice soft. “Can you truly be Bant Bitterwood?”
“Is my name known so well in the underworld?” Bitterwood asked.
The rider drew closer. Despite the pallor of the man’s skin, Bitterwood noted the rider’s features in many ways echoed his own, from the sharp angle of the nose to the firm line of the brow. Yet while Bitterwood’s face was leathery and wrinkled, the rider’s visage had a baby-skin smoothness that no doubt came from avoiding the sun. The man was taller than Bitterwood, better muscled and much younger, at most a few years older than Jandra.
“I worried you were dead,” the rider said.
“I’ve done little to discourage that belief,” Bitterwood said.
“Your legend has preceded you,” the rider said. “As I grew up, I took pride in your exploits whenever Gabriel reported back news from the world of men. I feel as if I’ve known you my whole life, though I have no true memories of you.”
“No memor . . . who are you?” Bitterwood asked, his voice trailing to near silence as he realized why this man might resemble him.
The rider nodded, as if recognizing that Bitterwood had figured out the puzzle. “Yes,” he said. “I’m Adam Bitterwood.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
* * *
UNHEALTHY PHILOSOPHIES
THE BRILLIANT MORNING SUN was a welcome change from the gloom and rain Graxen had flown through the last few days. The palace of Shandrazel stood in the distance, a small mountain of granite. The frost that covered this ancestral seat of power sparkled like jewels. Since Shandrazel had taken the throne, Graxen had spent little time at the palace. He’d traveled to the far reaches of the kingdom to summon guests to Shandrazel’s conference. Today, sun-dragons would arrive, lords of the various territories that swore alliance to the king. Humans would attend as well, represented by the mayors of the larger towns, like Richmond, Hampton, Chickenburg, and Bilge. The earth-dragons would be underrepresented. Save for Dragon Forge, they claimed no territory as their own. They lived primarily in the service of sun-dragons, and depended upon these superior beasts for leadership. Male sky-dragons from all nine of the Colleges would be in attendance, but the female sky-dragons would only have one voice—the representative from the Nest. Graxen wondered how Shandrazel could hope to bring equality to races of such uneven power and resources; he couldn’t even bring equal numbers of representatives to the discussions.
Still, there was an atmosphere of optimism about the palace. The red and gold flags that served as the banner of Albekizan fluttered everywhere. Earth-dragon guards in crimson uniforms stood at each door, and above the towers of the palace the brilliant blue figures of the aerial guard could be seen. The aerial guard were those rare male sky-dragons who had chosen lives of combat over scholarship. Graxen himself had wished to join the guard when he was younger. He’d trained his body to endure the hardship of combat, and his childhood as an outcast had toughened him for a life of constant vigilance. Yet, his letters of application to the commander of the guard had never been returned. No matter. As messenger of the king, his life at last had purpose.
The one dark spot on the landscape of this historic day was a literal one—the Burning Grounds, the blackened funeral field still smoking with the pyres of the previous night. Many noble dragons who had valiantly given all in the battle of the Free City still awaited the ceremonial cremations. All winged dragons were due this honor; it would be a long time before any hint of grass returned to that charred field.
Beyond the Burning Grounds, almost hidden by the long shadow of the palace, stood the Free City itself, the cause of much of the recent trouble. This city had been built as a trap for humankind. Albekizan had promised a life of luxury and ease to its chosen residents, a reward, it was said, for their faithful service. In truth, the city had been designed by Albekizan’s demented brother, Blasphet, to serve as an abattoir. Albekizan had authorized the genocide in order to produce a definitive end to the legendary dragon-hunter Bitterwood. Of course, in the end, Albekizan had underestimated the humans; on the day the residents were to be massacred, a rebellion had spread. What was to be a day of human slaughter turned into a day of human victory.
The Free City was empty now. Graxen wondered what would become of it. It seemed pointless to tear down the structure after so much wealth and effort had been expended to construct it. The Free City could house thousands of people. Perhaps humans would one day settle there peacefully, if they could overlook its sinister origins.
Graxen’s reverie ended as he passed over the palace walls. He tilted his body toward a balcony, angling his wings to slow his descent. He gracefully lit on the balcony then walked into the marble-tiled hall beyond. The murmur of voices told him many of Shandrazel’s guests had already arrived.
This was the Peace Hall. Albekizan had always referred to it as the war room, but Shandrazel had renamed the chamber as a sign of his intentions. Yet, despite the room's new name, its history still hung on the walls. Tapestries depicted a dozen scenes of Albekizan’s conquests. Even the floor of the room was inlaid with a map fifty feet long showing the entirety of Albekizan’s kingdom, laid out in precious metals and polished stones of exotic colors.
Groups had gathered in the four corners of the chamber. Four enormous sun-dragons leaned in closely with one another in conference in the corner nearest the balcony. Graxen knew them all as dragons he’d personally summoned. In the opposite corner, a crowd of humans stood. Graxen recognized a few: the mayor of Richmond was noteworthy for being unusually squat and round, and the mayor of Bilge he remembered due to the fact he only had one arm. Few of the other humans looked familiar. Graxen prided himself on his eye for details and his excellent memory, but he still had difficulty telling one human from another. It wasn’t that they all looked alike, rather, there was too much variance. It was impossible to catalogue all the countless configurations of the human form. Adult sky-dragons varied little in color and size; adult human came in hundreds of shades of tan, and could vary in height by several feet and weight by hundreds of pounds. Their faces were an equally exasperating mish-mash—some hairy, some hairless, some with hair on their scalp and none on their cheeks and jaw, some with the pattern reversed. And that hair could come in an array of colors: white, black, gray, orange, brown, and gold, each in dozens of shades and mixtures.
With a fellow dragon, there were only a few simple identifying cues: the bumps of the snout; the curve of the jaw; subtle variations in the shape of the eyes; the way that no two sky-dragons scale patterns were ever exactly alike. A sky-dragon face instantly triggered recognition as the mind filtered through the logical system of organizing who was who by these differences. With humans, most identities were drowned out by the cacophony of possible features.
As he mused on identity, Graxen cast a glance toward a third cluster of gathered guests—sky-dragons like himself, all male—the biologians, the scholar-priests that guided the intellectual life of the kingdom. A few cast glances toward him with suspicious eyes. Graxen felt a sense of shame. Did the dismissive attitude he felt toward humans mirror the feelings the biologians had about him? Too different to ever be worth the effort of knowing? No biologian ever studied his face for his identifying features. He was forever marked as “other.” Something deep in the brains of sky-dragons would never accept him as a fellow member of the species.
In the final corner of the room sat Shandrazel, resting upon a throne pedestal topped with a large golden pillow. The young king looked quite noble: his red scales freshly groomed, golden rings decorating the edges of his wings. Before him stood Androkom, the high biologian. Androkom wasn’t much older than Graxen. It was odd to see a dragon of his youth wearing the green sashes that denoted such important rank. Androkom’s most notable feature, however, was his lack of a tail; he’d lost most of the appendage after an encounter with Blasphet. Normally, sky-dragons placed great emphasis on physical perfection; the worst punishment any sky-dragon could face was to become a tatterwing. Graxen wondered if having an amputee dragon holding such high rank might lead to greater acceptance of deformities among sky-dragons.
Graxen approached as Shandrazel and Androkom quietly conferred. The king glanced up as he neared.
“Welcome, Graxen,” Shandrazel said. “Thank you for your work in summoning everyone. They day is still young, but already many of the guests have arrived. However, I won’t need your services today. You’ve worked hard these past weeks. You should take today to rest. Tomorrow as well.”
“History will unfold here today,” Graxen said. “I can think of no other place I’d rather be.”
“Understood,” said Androkom, sounding impatient. “However, you can’t stay here. The talks must remain closed. Everyone who isn’t a representative of their race must leave the chamber.”
Graxen looked toward Shandrazel. The sun-dragon looked apologetic as he said, “He’s right, I’m afraid. You can remain while the guests arrive, but I must request that you leave when the discussions begin.”
Graxen nodded. He could see the logic of having the talks be private, but there was still something condescending about Androkom’s emphasis on the words “representative of their race.” Graxen looked around the room. If he couldn’t remain, he still might play one small role in helping the talks succeed. The historic tapestries on the wall may have been effectively invisible to Shandrazel; no doubt he’d seen them his whole life, and paid little attention to their contents.
“Before I leave, may I assist in removing the tapestries?” he offered.
“Why?” asked Shandrazel.
Graxen motioned with his gaze to a tapestry behind Shandrazel’s left shoulder. It showed a young Albekizan with a human body crushed in his jaws and a severed human head hanging in his left fore-talon. The glorified dragon stood upon a mountain of dead men.
“It hardly seems fair to the humans to negotiate a new government under such a reminder of the power of dragons,” Graxen said.
“I understand your concerns,” Shandrazel said, contemplating the image. “However, I value truth above all other virtues. My father was known for his blind spots. He acted as if Hex had never been born. He claimed that the map inlaid on the floor showed the entirety of the world when it actually only shows the narrow sliver he conquered. My father erased history as it suited his needs; I prefer to let the evidence of the past stand. Perhaps these glorifications of violence will inspire us to greater fairness.”
Graxen thought this highly unlikely. He said, “But what if the humans—”
“The tapestries will stay, Graxen,” Shandrazel said. “There’s no point in arguing with me. You know that during my time at the College of Spires, I never lost a debate.”
Graxen himself had witnessed many of these debates. Did Shandrazel truly believe he’d always won due to his superior intellect? Was he blind to the fact that he owed his victories to being Albekizan’s son more than to any special gift for logic?
“Of course, sire,” said Graxen.
He glanced once more at the growing crowd of humans, wondering what their thoughts on the matter were. He took note of a tall young man with long blonde hair dressed in silk finery—he’d seen this human before, often in the company of Shandrazel. It was the one Albekizan had labeled as Bitterwood. Perhaps Shandrazel was right about Albekizan’s blindness to truth. The man was obviously too young to be the source of the original Bitterwood legend.
The young Bitterwood was leaning in close to talk to a shorter man. The second man was bald save for a few whispery gray hairs, and sported a long braided mustache. In contrast to the robust form of Bitterwood, the man was stooped and thin, supporting himself with the help of a gnarled stave. Watching the two whisper to each other, Graxen was struck by a possibility. What if the older man were the original Bitterwood?
“I’M GLAD TO SEE YOU AGAIN,” Pet said, keeping his voice low as he leaned in to confer with Kamon. Kamon was a prophet from the town of Winding Rock. His people had been among the first brought to the Free City. Kamon was well known throughout the kingdom; for decades he had preached a philosophy of subservience to dragons, telling men they must not take up arms until the arrival of a nameless “savior.” Kamonism was a popular philosophy. It promised better days coming, without requiring any immediate action on the parts of his followers.
Kamon nodded. “It was my duty to answer this call. For over half a century I’ve preached of the day when men would be free. I’m glad I lived long enough to see this day.”
“You certainly had a loyal following in the Free City,” said Pet. “Speaking of loyal followings, any idea where Ragnar is?”
Ragnar and his men had been the most ferocious fighters in the battle of the Free City. Pet owed his survival to Kamon and Ragnar. Both were genuine leaders, while Pet knew, deep down, he was a fraud. People believed him to be a fearsome dragon-slayer. In truth, even during the heavy fighting of the Free City, he’d never so much as scratched a dragon.
Kamon lowered his eyes at the mention of Ragnar. His lips trembled as if he was about to speak, but after several long seconds the old prophet merely shook his head.
“You don’t know?” Pet asked.
“The most accurate answer is, yes, I don’t know,” Kamon said.
“What’s a less accurate answer?”
“All I’ve heard are rumors. It may amount to nothing.”
“I’ve always listened to rumors,” said Pet. “What’s going on?”
Kamon’s voice fell to a whisper that Pet strained to hear. Kamon’s breath smelled like sour milk as Pet leaned closer. “After the fall of the Free City, many of the captives returned to their homes. But I’ve heard that some of the men have formed a small army led by Ragnar.”
“Small army? How small?”
“A few hundred. Perhaps a thousand at most.”
Pet silently contemplated the news. Maybe this wasn’t so bad. One right that was going to be discussed was the right for humans to assemble militias to defend themselves. Just because Ragnar had an army didn’t mean he planned to go out and kill a bunch of dragons.
“According to rumor,” Kamon said, so close now his mustache touched Pet’s cheek, “Ragnar plans to capture the Dragon Forge and kill all the dragons within it.”
“I see,” Pet said neutrally. He kept his face impassive as various scenarios boiled in his mind. Ragnar would launch a war and lose, showing humans to be both hostile and weak. Or, Ragnar would win, showing humans to be hostile and dangerous. Neither was a good position for negotiating peace. Pet thought of informing Shandrazel of the rumor and possibly halting Ragnar’s army before it did real harm. Yet, on a gut level, this felt wrong. He’d be dead if not for Ragnar. He couldn’t just betray him. Where was Jandra when he needed her? She was the one with the brains. Not to mention an actual sense of right and wrong. Pet’s moral compass normally steered him toward the path of least resistance. He wasn’t entirely without his limits; having been the victim of torture, he’d had no trouble standing up to Androkom when he’d suggested torturing the captured assassin. Right now, however, he didn’t know what to do, so he decided to do nothing.
Before he could confer further with Kamon, the doors of the Peace Hall swung open and six earth-dragons marched in, clanking and clunking as they advanced toward Shandrazel. Most earth-dragon soldiers wore light armor, but these were arrayed head to tail in elaborate steel exoskeletons, the individual pieces polished to a mirror finish that reflected the room's vivid colors. The earth-dragons snapped to a halt before Shandrazel. They saluted crisply and, in unison, removed their helmets.
Pet couldn’t help but stare at the one in the center. The dragon’s face was horribly disfigured, with a crack in his beak large enough that Pet could see his tongue even with his mouth closed. All that remained of the eye above this gash was a horrible tumor of scars.
“My lord Shandrazel,” the earth-dragon said, his voice deep and authoritative, with a slightly wet whistling noise from his injured beak. “I am Charkon, commander of the Dragon Forge, a loyal servant of your father for sixty years. I’ve received your summons and am here to serve you.”
“Thank you, esteemed guest,” Shandrazel said. “Though, it is not your service I seek today, but your wisdom and counsel.”
“Sire,” Charkon said, “my wisdom comes from my service. For an earth-dragon, there is no greater purpose than to devote his life to the will of his superiors.”
“I do not like the word ‘superiors,’” said Shandrazel. “It implies that your race is an inferior one; these talks are to promote the equality of all races.”
“Yes, sire. So I’ve heard. Let me be blunt: We earth-dragons aren’t the equals of sun-dragons. You winged dragons see the world from up high. You’re dreamers and planners and leaders because of your elevated view. We earth-dragons are simple creatures. We think of little in life beyond what we will eat next. We seldom ponder the world outside our immediate grasp. Our greatest joy comes from hitting things. We make fine soldiers and blacksmiths; we have no gift for politics.”
“The eloquence of your words argues differently, noble Charkon,” said Shandrazel.
Charkon started to answer, but his voice was drowned out by a flapping of wings. Pet looked toward the balcony to find a small army of sky-dragons alighting on the marble rail. Pet instantly recognized them as valkyries. He’d never actually been in the presence of these fabled female warriors, but as a performer he knew the ballads that sung their praises, and the valkyries had been popular subjects of the painting and sculptures at Chakthalla’s castle.
The valkyries quickly fell into formation behind the tallest of the sky-dragons. Their armor and spears glinted in the warm morning light. The tallest valkyrie was unarmed and unarmored, but something about her eyes told Pet she was the most dangerous of the group. Her claws seemed especially sharp as they clacked upon the marble on her march across the room.
“Sire,” she said, in a short, clipped syllable. Unlike the deferential Charkon, this valkyrie showed no hint of submissiveness or even respect as she stared into Shandrazel’s face. “I am Zorasta, commander of the valkyrie legion, the matriarch’s appointed representative for these so-called ‘talks.’”
“So-called?” asked Shandrazel, sounding somewhat taken aback by Zorasta’s forcefulness. “I assure you these talks are genuine. I hope that all of us working together will be able to form a more perfect union.”
“Sire, you’re still quite young,” Zorasta said in a condescending tone. “You’ve led a sheltered life. The biologians who educated you have failed you, filling your mind with unhealthy philosophies. I’ve been sent to bring you back to the sane and rational path.”
Shandrazel wrinkled his brow, looking quite bewildered by the aggressive manner of a creature half his size.
Kamon cast a sidelong glance at Pet and whispered, “This is their diplomat?”
“At least the talks aren’t going to be boring,” said Pet.
Pet looked at Androkom, trying to judge his reaction, since he was one of the biologians most responsible for Shandrazel’s “unhealthy philosophies.” The new high biologian didn’t look all that worried. Indeed, while dragons could neither smile nor frown, there was a tilt to Androkom’s head and a gleam in his eye that told Pet he was amused by Zorasta’s attitude.
But the thing that really caught Pet’s eye was the sky-dragon standing behind Androkom—Graxen the Gray. Graxen’s eyes were positively starry as he cast his gaze at Zorasta. No, not Zorasta. Graxen was focused on a different valkyrie, the one standing behind the right shoulder of the diplomat. At first, Pet couldn’t spot anything particularly unusual about this sky-dragon, who stood stone-still, a living prop to symbolize Zorasta’s authority. However, Pet had finely tuned instincts for spotting sexual attraction. There was a flicker in the valkyrie’s eye, a slight change in her breathing, that told Pet that she was fully aware of Graxen’s presence. Did the two know each other? Or was this some kind of love at first sight thing? Pet was an expert in human romance and knew more than he wanted to about sun-dragon affairs, but he had no clue what would stoke the flames of passion for sky-dragons.
He felt himself relax a bit at the sight of this unspoken emotion between the two dragons. He stopped worrying about Ragnar and felt a flicker of hope. Dragon’s weren’t so unlike people. They had the same basic needs—food, clothing, shelter—and an all-consuming desire to mate. As long as he could help insure a world where those basic needs were met, perhaps it was possible for all the species to live in harmony.
“. . . which brings me to my next demand,” Zorasta said. She’d been talking this whole time, Pet realized, he just hadn’t been paying attention while he was focused on reading Graxen’s body language. He suddenly wished he’d been listening, though, as Zorasta swung toward him and extended her wing in an accusatory fashion.
“Bitterwood cannot be a representative of the humans. No dragon can know peace until this man has been brought to justice for his crimes. If these ‘talks’ are to take place at all, he must be arrested and taken to the executioner’s block without delay!”
BLASPHET, THE MURDER GOD, rested upon a giant cushion stitched together from the hides of sky-dragons. The Sisters of the Serpent demonstrated remarkable aptitude for tanning and taxidermy. The only downside was that Blasphet’s temple reeked of the tanning solutions. Huge vats of brine and urine and various tree saps gave off fumes that permeated the air.
Perhaps another god might have taken offense that his temple had such a foul atmosphere, but Blasphet was too impressed by the ingenuity of his worshipers to judge them harshly. From the air, Blasphet’s temple was indistinguishable from the thousands of abandoned and derelict buildings scattered through the kingdom. It had been a warehouse in centuries past. Now it was almost completely buried beneath a tangle of vines and brush; there were low, gnarled dogwoods growing upon the roof. Yet, somehow, the warehouse had survived the assault of centuries of vegetation and remained mostly intact. The vast, open space within proved comfortable for a creature of his stature. The Sisters of the Serpent had painted the walls of the place black. The floor was carpeted with the hides of various beasts; even the skins of sun-dragons. His followers had been busy. Colobi, the human leader of this sect, said they had worked on the temple for some years, long before he’d been released from his first imprisonment to design the Free City. He was touched that they had shown such faith in his eventual return.
The temple was lit by the light of a thousand candles; the scent of burning tallow mixed with the tanning fumes. In this candlelight, a score of his followers were guiding a flat-bedded wagon drawn by an ox-dog. Upon the wagon lay the immobile form of a sun-dragon. Blasphet knew him: Arvelizan, a distant cousin, and the sun-dragon charged with the administration of the territory of Riverbreak, a rather poor and unimportant domain on the edge of the Ghostlands. Arvelizan had been captured within sight of Shandrazel’s palace. He now lay paralyzed by Blasphet’s poisons, though Blasphet could see the slight rise and fall of his belly that signaled he was still alive.
Colobi, the serpent of the first order, approached him. She was dressed in robes created from the soft leather of a sun-dragon’s wings, stained black. Her face was in shadows below a broad hood, revealing only her blood red lips and pale chin in the candlelight.
“We have captured a live sun-dragon as you commanded, O Murder God,” Colobi said, kneeling before him. “Two sisters were killed in combat with his guards; no one who traveled with him escaped. His absence at the talks will be a mystery.”
“Well done,” Blasphet said. “Have the sisters administer the antidote. I wish to speak to Arvelizan.”
“At once, my Lord.”
Arvelizan was now only a few yards away. Blasphet watched as Colobi issued her orders and one of the sisters injected the antidote into Arvelizan’s long, scaly neck using the fine tip of a hollow dagger. Moments later, the sun-dragon’s eyes opened. His deep green irises were still dilated, leaving his eyes mostly black.
“W-where . . .” he whispered, still too weak to lift his head.
“Hello Arv,” Blasphet said. “Remember me?”
Arvelizan’s gaze drifted toward the voice. Suddenly, he jerked his head up, the motion halted by the sturdy hemp ropes that bound him to the wagon’s bed.
“Blasphet!” he cried.
“Here in the temple, I prefer to be addressed as Murder God,” said Blasphet. “Lord is acceptable as well. My true name is sacred, you see.”
Arvelizan responded by increasing his struggles. His tail came free and whipped around blindly, catching one of the sisters off guard and knocking her from her feet. Other sisters leapt back and drew daggers as the ropes groaned and the wood creaked.
“You’ll only injure yourself if you keep struggling,” said Blasphet.
Arvelizan showed no fear of self-injury. He kicked and strained and wriggled, working slack into the ropes. Suddenly his left wing extended, now free of its bonds. Three more sisters were thrown to the ground by his struggles.
“Colobi,” said Blasphet. “Feed him this paste.” He held out a gallon-sized iron pot. Colobi grabbed it and removed the lid. In contrast to the background stench of the room, a pleasing aroma of orange scented honey rose from the oily yellow paste within.
Colobi grabbed the iron pot and fearlessly jumped onto the bed beside the thrashing dragon. He turned his jaws to snap at her; she crouched down inches from his teeth. She calmly slipped on a waterproof leather glove that covered her slender arm up the elbow. Arvelizan snapped his jaws again, straining harder to reach her as she dug her hand deep into the pot. The paste within was the consistency of dung; she lifted a large fistful. Arvelizan opened his jaws to attempt to bite her a third time and she flung the golden gunk toward the back of his throat. Arvelizan coughed, spraying Colobi’s black robes with flecks of yellow. She readied a second handful, then a third, tossing it with expert aim into the creature’s gullet as he strained to reach her with his teeth. Soon the sun-dragon’s entire tongue was coated in the stuff, and his saliva dripped like mustard-colored paint. His struggles slowly calmed. Colobi reached out and placed her hand upon his snout, then nudged his lower jaw open as he stared at her vacantly. She rubbed the last few scoops of paste directly onto his tongue.
“There,” said Blasphet. “Isn’t that better?”
Arvelizan turned toward Blasphet once more. “Yes,” he whispered.
“Yes what?”
“Yes, Murder God,” said Arvelizan.
“Untie him,” Blasphet said.
Colobi looked calm as she stood and removed her paste covered glove. She tossed it aside as the other sisters ran forward and cut away Arvelizan’s ropes.
“Rise,” Blasphet said.
Arvelizan stood, looking more alert than Blasphet had suspected. Save for the yellow spittle dripping from his jaws, he showed no obvious signs of having ingested the powerful drug.
“Now bow before me,” said Blasphet.
Arvelizan dropped to all fours, lowering his chin to touch the floor. He spread his wings like giant red carpets to his side as he pressed himself into a pose of unquestioning submission.
“Truly, your works are mighty, O Murder God,” said Colobi, staring at the now obedient dragon.
“I won’t deny it,” said Blasphet. “However, I’m not certain how long our friend here will be useful to us. The paste has dissociative properties; Alvelizan is obedient because his own sense of identity has been suppressed. Alas, the paste rots the brain. He’s functional now, but he’ll grow increasingly drowsy and clumsy in the coming days. Hopefully, a few days will be all we need. Take him outside and fit him with the harness. Make sure all the sisters on the sky team get a chance to practice riding. I’ll guide the kitchen in preparing more paste. I want you to select the stealthiest crew you can assemble. Soon, I’m sending you back into the belly of the beast.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
* * *
TRACES OF KINDNESS
THE VALKYRIES LOWERED their spears and advanced toward Pet. He’d long suspected he’d meet his end facing a mob of vengeful females, but somehow he hadn’t seen it playing out like this.
“Halt!” Shandrazel shouted, his voice booming through the Peace Hall. “Stand down, valkyries!”
The valkyries stopped in their tracks, looking back toward Zorasta. The valkyrie diplomat turned toward the king.
“Bitterwood’s sins demand justice,” Zorasta said firmly. “He killed your father and your brother. Why would you taint these talks with the presence of a confessed murderer?”
“This man did not kill my father,” said Shandrazel. “His whereabouts are well known at the time my father died.”
“What of your brother, Bodiel? This man confessed to the crime.”
Which was true. Pet had confessed; he’d even bragged about it. He just hadn’t actually done it. He’d confessed because the king’s army had been slaughtering the people of his home village one by one until they produced Bitterwood. He’d confessed and stopped the slaughter, partly driven by some faint flicker of courage within him, partly driven, he would admit, by a desire to finally impress Jandra. If she hadn’t been chiding him for his cowardice all day, he doubted he would have made the decision he did. Acting and deception were Pet’s innate talents; it hadn’t been that hard to play the role of hero. Still, perhaps now was a good time to come clean? Perhaps he’d calm things by claiming his confession had been a lie. Or would that only make matters worse?
Before he could answer, Shandrazel rose from his golden cushion. He strode toward the center of the room, taking a stand in the middle of the world map. He was silent, as if gathering his thoughts as he looked down at the inlaid gemstones beneath his talons. Everyone grew quiet as they awaited his words.
Shandrazel lifted his head. “My honored guests,” he began, in a thoughtful voice. “I’ve summoned you to this Peace Hall for a noble cause. Four intelligent species share this world.” He motioned toward the map beneath him with a sweep of his wings. “This is our common wealth. We hunt in the same forests, we drink from the same rivers. I was born to a family that viewed this land as our domain, and ours alone. Everything on this map was the property of my father; by law, it now belongs to me. The labors of humans, earth-dragons, and even sky-dragons are never truly their own. If a human planted a crop, my father could claim the harvest. If an earth-dragon smelted gold, my father could claim that treasure. Any book a biologian wrote was instantly considered the property of the king’s library. This is the history we share.”
Pet looked around the room. Everyone stood in rapt attention at Shandrazel’s words. Even Zorasta seemed to be attentive.
“As of this day, the book of the old world is closed,” said Shandrazel. “We in this room must turn to a new page, and write the history of a reborn world. Let them remember me as the king who brought an end to kings. After these talks, dragons and men will no longer live in a kingdom; we shall all dwell together in a Commonwealth.”
Pet noticed that, as Shandrazel spoke, Graxen the Gray gave a nod toward the valkyrie with the teardrop scale on her cheek. The valkyrie gave a subtle nod back.
“We have a golden future ahead of us,” Shandrazel continued. “Each of us can leave the Peace Hall knowing we’ve made the world a more just place. To do this, we must free ourselves from old hatreds and grievances. I know that every race in this room has suffered in some way; I don’t wish to diminish the injustice that has occurred in the past. As of this moment, however, we must turn our eyes away from our yesterdays and face our tomorrows. To make a world that is truly free, we must release ourselves from the chains of memory.”
“Will you do this? Will you join me in drafting the future? Can I count on your hard work and dedication to ensure the birth of this Commonwealth?”
Shandrazel’s stirring words echoed through the hall. He’d delivered the speech with a voice that rang with confidence and leadership. Pet applauded enthusiastically, his long-practiced response to any speech a sun-dragon gave. The humans around him clapped in more sullen fashion.
Charkon and his guards slapped their gauntleted claws against their breastplates, then unleashed a single cheering syllable: “WHOOT!” which sounded to Pet like a noise of support.
Even the biologians broke out in scattered applause.
Only the valkyries remained stock-still. Zorasta glowered at Shandrazel with eyes that could have shattered stone.
PET LEFT THE PEACE HALL twelve hours later. He was giving serious consideration to finding a fast horse and being far away come dawn. Shandrazel had neutralized the demand for his execution with his speech, but that was about the only positive thing accomplished with the day. Once all the representatives had arrived, the room had quickly fallen into bickering over such trivial details as which part of the room each delegation was to stand in. It wasn’t an auspicious start.
While Pet had been the immediate beneficiary of Shandrazel’s insistence that the talks wouldn’t dwell on the past, Pet found himself disturbed by the logic. Centuries of oppression of humans were to be dismissed as no worse than the murder of a few dragons. As attractive as it was to focus on a better future, Pet couldn’t forget the things he’d witnessed in the Free City. But, was it necessary to forget? Or only to forgive? Was one the equal of the other?
Pet climbed the stairs to the roof. He walked to the edge and looked out over the Free City, ghostly in the light of a crescent moon. The frigid night air made his lungs ache; it was crisp and clean, yet somehow it couldn’t quite remove the scent of blood and piss and muck that washed through his mind whenever he looked at the wooden palisades surrounding the Free City.
Pet froze as he heard a loud, long sigh behind him. Turning, he saw Graxen the Gray perched on a wall on the opposite side of the roof. The sky-dragon seemed oblivious to Pet as he stared across the open courtyard toward one of the many towers that studded the palace skyline. Graxen almost looked like a statue, immobile against the backdrop of stars. Pet followed his gaze and saw a valkyrie standing at attention on a distant balcony. Suddenly, the Free City no longer loomed in his mind; Pet was ever the romantic. He couldn’t turn his attention away from a case of unrequited love.
Pet cleared his throat, startling Graxen from his reverie. Graxen flinched, as if he’d been caught doing something embarrassing.
“So,” Pet said, hopping onto the wall next to Graxen. From here it was a long, steep plunge into the courtyard. Luckily, Pet was immune to vertigo. “What’s her name?”
“W-whose name?” Graxen asked.
“The valkyrie. You know her?”
Graxen sighed. “Nadala. In truth, I know little more than her name.”
“I thought that sky-dragons of different sexes didn’t mingle. How’d you meet her?”
“She tried to stop me from entering the Nest,” said Graxen. “I met her at the point of her spear.”
“Aren’t they irresistible when they play hard to get?” Pet said with a knowing chuckle.
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Graxen.
“Human women don’t like to appear too easy. I assume the same is true with your females. They like to make you work to prove your interest.”
“I fear you know nothing of sky-dragon propagation,” Graxen said. “My interest has nothing to do with mating. Desire may rule the reproductive choices of humans, but sky-dragons value their species too much to leave breeding to individual whims. Our biological destinies are determined by the matriarch and her advisors. We mate only with whom we are told to mate”
“Where’s the fun in that?” Pet asked.
“What does fun have to do with mating?”
Pet felt a gulf arise between Graxen and himself that he wasn’t sure could ever be crossed. Yet, there was no mistaking the look in Graxen’s eyes. This dragon was lovesick, even if he didn’t know it.
Pet studied the valkyrie across the way. He could see nothing remarkable about her except, perhaps, that she was standing at such diligent attention.
“She shows a remarkable commitment to duty,” Pet said.
“Yes,” Graxen said. “She’s guarding Zorasta.”
“She’s probably on duty for hours. She might appreciate some company.”
“I don’t wish to disturb her,” Graxen said.
“You won’t disturb her. I saw the way she looked at you. She’s as fascinated by you as you are by her.”
Graxen wrinkled his nose as if the concept disgusted him. “Valkyries are too disciplined to ever be ‘fascinated,’ especially by one such as myself. You know nothing of our ways.”
“I saw the two of you nod to one another earlier.”
“It was only a respectful greeting.”
“If you fly over there, does your conversation carry any danger of turning into a session of passionate mating?”
“What? No!” Graxen looked genuinely mortified by the suggestion.
“That takes all the pressure off, then. You can hop over knowing all you’re going for is a polite chat. There’s no risk of anything messy. What’s the harm?”
Graxen didn’t answer. Pet could practically hear the wheels turning in the dragon’s mind as he allowed himself to be convinced. Pet gave him one last nudge.
“At the very least, since she’s stuck standing out here in the cold, you could ask if she’d like a cup of hot cider to fight the chill. You can bring her some from the kitchen if she says yes. It’s not flirting. It’s just being kind to a fellow dragon. It’s showing respect and appreciation for her hard work.”
Graxen’s eyes softened. “It is cold tonight. It would be simple kindness to offer.”
“Go,” Pet said, giving Graxen a gentle push on the back. The sky-dragon tilted forward, looking for half a second like he would plummet into the courtyard, until he spread his gray wings and shot toward the distant balcony as if pulled by some powerful, unseen spring.
Pet decided at that moment he wouldn’t flee the castle. For one thing, he was curious as to how this meeting would work out for Graxen. Secondly, he hoped that, sooner rather than later, Jandra would return. He didn’t want to miss the chance to see her again. He grinned as he dreamily watched the distant dragons talking. He drifted into a fantasy that began with the offer of a cup of warm cider on a cool evening, then moved to a vision of Jandra’s gown and his pants tangled together at the foot of a bed. Some small, quiet voice inside him warned that he might be skipping some steps in this scenario, but he’d honed to a wonderful degree the ability to ignore such small, quiet voices. He closed his eyes and let his body grow warm in the embrace of Jandra’s invisible arms.
NADALA REMAINED rigidly at attention as Graxen landed on a rainspout above her. Only the slightest tilt of her head revealed her awareness of his arrival.
“It’s, uh, chilly tonight,” he said. His tongue felt stiff in his mouth as he spoke. His voice seemed to belong to someone else.
She whispered her answer, so softly he had to strain to hear it. “It’s not so cold. I’ve stood watches in snow. Tonight is almost balmy.”
“Oh,” said Graxen. “Then, can I get you some warm cider?” He cringed as the words came out of him. She’d just said she wasn’t cold!
“We’re not allowed to drink on duty,” she whispered. She kept her eyes focused on the horizon, as if watching for the approach of invading armies.
“It’s . . . it’s quite a difficult job, I imagine, being a valkyrie. I-I want you to know I . . . uh . . . appreciate your hard work.” He grimaced at the prattle falling off his tongue. Why had he listened to the human?
“Thank you,” Nadala whispered.
Graxen found himself with nothing further to say. He’d thought he’d be flying off for cider about now. His heart pounded out the long seconds as neither of them spoke.
Nadala cast a brief glance upward, as if to assure herself he was still there. Her body quickly resumed the stance of an alert sentry as she whispered, “It’s kind of you to offer. Under different circumstances, I would take the cup.”
“You’re going to be here at the palace for a few days, at least,” said Graxen. “Perhaps we could meet—”
“I don’t think that’s wise, Graxen the Gray.”
“Oh,” he said.
“I wish the world were more fair,” she sighed.
“I know,” he said.
“Zorasta won’t allow this conference to succeed,” Nadala said, sounding bitter. “The matriarch has commanded that we cannot risk the existing world order. I wish she were open to the possibility that the world could be improved.”
Graxen felt his heart flutter as the implications of her words took hold.
“Then, you aren’t happy with the world as it is? You dream of changing the old ways?”
“A valkyrie is devoid of dreams,” Nadala said, her voice firm and, somehow, not her own. It was as if she were speaking the words from rote. “A valkyrie has no will of her own, no desire, save to serve the matriarch. We live and die for the greater good.”
Graxen dropped from the rainspout down to the balcony rail, twirling to face her, landing as silently as a leaf. With his voice at its softest, he said, “We both know that isn’t true. You treated me kindly when your sisters turned me away. You’re an individual as well as a valkyrie.”
“In the heat of battle, there can be no individuality,” Nadala said. She no longer sounded as if she were repeating slogans. She believed these words. “A valkyrie must be a part of a greater unit. In unity, we will never know defeat.”
“But life isn’t always a battle,” said Graxen. “Shandrazel wants to bring an era of peace to the world.”
“There will never be lasting peace,” said Nadala. “Especially not in this time of upheaval, following the death of a king. I know with the certainty that night follows day, I’ll be called to battle soon. My subservience to the unit must be complete.”
Nadala sounded resigned as she spoke. Her eyes looked past Graxen, into the distance, as if seeing that future battle.
Graxen nodded, accepting the wisdom of her words.
“You’re right,” he said. “Mine was a foolish dream.”
Her eyes suddenly met his. She whispered, “Tell me of your dreams, Graxen the Gray.”
“I’d only lower myself in your eyes to speak of such fantasies,” he said.
“No,” she said. “I’m fascinated by dreams. I envy your freedom to dream them.”
Graxen wanted to leap from the balcony and flee rather than confess his thoughts. Yet, for so long, he’d wanted to talk to someone about his most cherished hopes. He’d never been asked before; he couldn’t run away now. “Before I visited the matriarch I dreamed . . . I dreamed I would be allowed to mate. It’s utterly foolish. I know that centuries of careful planning aren’t going to be set aside to accommodate the hopes of an aberration. Yet . . . still I dreamed, and still I hope.”
“I admire that you can hold on to your dreams,” she said. “It’s been many years since true hope burned in my heart.”
“But, certainly you’ll be allowed to mate,” he said. “You must be highly respected, to be chosen as a guard for Zorasta. I know from experience you’re a formidable warrior.”
Nadala lowered her eyes as he spoke, as if embarrassed to discuss the matter. Despite her discomfort, she said, “I find the possibility that I’ll be selected as breed stock as dreadful as I do hopeful. I won’t be allowed to choose my mate; he’ll be assigned to me. The matriarch selects biologians who excel in intellectual arts, yet frequently these biologians lack even the most basic sense of decency. They spend their lives being lauded for their greatness, and they approach the mating as just another award they’ve earned.”
“I’ve heard the boasts of the chosen ones,” Graxen admitted. “They do seem to relish in describing how they, um, dominated the female. I think they overcompensate. Many biologians fear the power of valkyries; they become overly aggressive when confronted with a creature they secretly believe to be their superior.”
“We don’t wish to be your superiors,” said Nadala. “Only your equals.”
“Those are the sorts of words that Shandrazel is hoping to hear. It’s a shame you aren’t the ambassador.”
“And it’s a shame that the matriarch is blind to your virtues. It was kind of you to come speak to me tonight, Graxen. I fear for the future of our race, should the last traces of kindness be bred out of it.”
There was a noise in the chamber beyond the balcony, a soft mumble, like someone speaking in their sleep.
Nadala whispered softer than ever. “If Zorasta wakes, it will be difficult to explain why I haven’t gutted you.”
“Understood,” said Graxen. “It’s been worth the risk of gutting to speak to you. I feel . . . I feel less alone after hearing your thoughts. I wish we could continue our conversation.”
Nadala shook her head. “You mustn’t take further risks. Leave, knowing that you’re less alone in the world, yet also knowing we cannot speak again.”
Graxen swallowed hard. Could this really be the end? Ten minutes of conversation was so inadequate for the lifetime of words he’d stored up inside him. He could hear in her voice that she was also full of such words. She was simply too disciplined to risk speaking them. She had so much more to lose than he did. He should go and be satisfied. Still, some desperate part of him wanted more.
“I could write you,” he said.
She cocked her head at the suggestion, intrigued.
There was a further mumble in the chamber beyond.
“I know where you could leave the letters,” she said, her voice rushed. “On my patrol, midway between the nest and Dragon Forge, there’s a crumbling tower, long abandoned. It’s easy to find if you follow the river. Atop its walls stands a single gargoyle; there’s a hollow in its mouth big enough to hold a scroll. You could leave letters for me there, if you wish. Perhaps I’ll answer them.”
“I’d like that,” said Graxen.
In the room beyond, there was a sudden snort, the sound of a dragon jerking awake.
“Fly!” Nadala whispered, raising her fore-talon and stroking Graxen’s cheek. He tilted his cheek against her touch, feeling the smoothness of her scales, and the fine, firm strength of her talons.
Graxen tilted backward, then kicked into space, corkscrewing until he caught the air. He flew out beneath the stars, lighter than air, a song rising in his heart.
La-la-la!
Na-da-la!
He shuddered as he realized it was the same tune as “Yo ho ho, the slow must go!” Would he never get that accursed song out of his head?
AFTER THE SUCCESS of his will-deadening paste, Blasphet felt, paradoxically, a sense of dissatisfaction. This was something he’d learned about himself over the years; his setbacks usually stirred his spirit and prodded him to meet new challenges. His successes frequently left him feeling hollow and analytical, wondering if his achievement had come because he’d lowered his standards. With the paste, he should have been celebrating the results of years of research and testing. Instead, he found himself wondering why a gaseous or even liquid version of the poison had proved so elusive. The results of the paste pleased him, but the thought of force-feeding a gallon to his planned victims offended his aesthetic sensibilities. It simply lacked grace.
A lack of grace was also an attribute of the current demonstration of the taxidermy arts of the Sisters of the Serpents. Their earlier disguises of themselves as earth-dragons showed their talent at the art. Now, they were attempting to bring a stuffed sky-dragon back to some semblance of life.
Anatomical difference prevented the sisters from assembling a wearable sky-dragon costume. At first glance, it seemed as if a sky-dragon’s knees bent backwards, something a sister in a suit couldn’t duplicate. Of course, Blasphet knew that, at the level of skeletons, all mammals, lizards, and birds were built from the same archetype. All shared the same basic structure of four limbs, a torso with a rib cage and hips, a spine, and a skull. The bones of a sky-dragon’s legs were similar in size to a human’s bones, but of different proportions. The thighs were nearly the same length, bending forward from the hips. Then, the shins bent backward at the knees. However, human shins were long. Sky dragon shins were short, and the bones that formed the human ankle became a backward bending knee. The bones of a human foot were stretched into a long lower leg for the sky-dragon. Where humans had short stubby toes, the same bones in sky-dragons splayed out as talons.
Before his arrival, the sisters had tried to make a sky-dragon costume work by chopping off the shins of one of their order and teaching her to walk on stilts that resembled sky-dragon legs. The experiment hadn’t gone well, and the sister had died of infection. Blasphet suspected that if he had a human baby to work with, he could devise a device that would confine the shins. He could lengthen the feet as the child grew by the use of screws and clamps. If any of the sisters became pregnant, he would give the matter further thought.
This evening, the sisters were demonstrating a mummified sky-dragon turned into a puppet. The black silk threads that held the preserved corpse were invisible in the candlelit room. A team of sisters in the rafters tugged and tweaked the beast’s limbs. Curiously, the fine details proved effective—the sky-dragon’s eyes blinked in a realistic fashion and its fore-talons were manipulated with enough dexterity that the puppet could pick up a quill. Alas, it was the larger movements that seemed exaggerated. The beast’s stride was off. Even the way the corpse’s head bobbed upon its neck felt false. Blasphet doubted the illusion would fool a real sky-dragon. Their eyes were the sharpest of the dragon species. You could never make a puppet string so fine it wouldn’t stand out like thick rope to them, even in candlelight.
“I’ve seen enough,” Blasphet said, shaking his head. “Leave me to my thoughts.”
The sisters looked disappointed as they carried the puppet away. Only Colobi remained in the room. Rather than retreating, she walked toward him and knelt, placing her head against his left fore-talon.
“They meant well, my Lord,” she said softly.
“I know,” Blasphet said.
He gently stroked her cheek. Colobi was proving to be his favorite of the hundred clever girls willing to die for him. His responsibility for their lives was sobering. He’d wasted five of them in the castle due to a momentary whim. Eventually he’d send the rest to their deaths as well. But for what cause? Revenge against Shandrazel seemed petty now that he was free. The unfinished genocide of the human race still sat in his belly like an undigested meal. Would his plan have worked if Albekizan hadn’t ruined things?
He was certain he could have succeeded. But did he want to? Humans were among the creatures he hated least. Time and again they’d proven useful. Humans treated him with deference and respect. Humans had proven to be clever and quick-witted. An army of a hundred, guided by a mind as powerful as his own, could do astonishing things. Genocide was still a challenge that seemed worthy of his unique talents. But perhaps he had chosen the wrong species as his target?
A sliding door rumbled open on the far side. A cross-current swept across the cavernous room; the winter air was a welcome relief from the fumes of the tannery. The night outside was blustery. The wind whistled through a thousand tiny gaps in the building’s decaying walls.
Three sisters came through the door, leading a bound and blindfolded sky-dragon. Blasphet recognized the frail creature immediately. The sisters tugged at the ropes that held the dragon, guiding him to stand before the Murder God.
Colobi rose and angrily demanded, “Why do you interrupt our Lord’s solitude?”
The leader of the trio gave Colobi a hateful stare. Blasphet had noticed that the other sisters were becoming aware of her status as his favorite.
The woman said, “We captured this unworthy one on the road leading to the College of Spires. He claims to be the former high biologian, Metron. He says he has served the Murder God loyally in the past.”
“Remove his blindfold,” said Blasphet. “Cut his bonds. He speaks the truth.”
The three produced knives hidden in folds in their garments and thrust them expertly at the old, trembling dragon, slicing away his ropes in violent strokes, yet never so much as scratching him.
Freed, Metron shook his limbs. His wings had been slashed to ribbons, the fate of all criminal sky-dragons. He lifted his ragged limbs to remove his blindfold. He squinted as if the candlelight caused him pain. His nose wrinkled as tears welled up in his eyes.
“What is that stench?” he gasped.
“Oh, did you notice the tannery?” said Blasphet with a chuckle. “You grow used to it.”
Metron looked around, visibly disoriented by the black walls and the candlelight. He stared down at the hide he stood upon, a fellow sky-dragon, and trembled.
“Where are we?” Metron asked
“My temple,” said Blasphet. “Modest, perhaps, but roomier than the dungeons.”
Metron shook his head. “So you’ve found more humans to believe your lies of godhoo—”
Before Metron could complete the thought, Colobi sprang forward and delivered a powerful kick to his gut, her black leather robes spreading wide like the tail feathers of an enormous raven. The old dragon folded over, collapsing, struggling to breathe.
“Give me a knife that I may cut out his blasphemous tongue!” Colobi snarled. Her hood had slipped backward in the attack, revealing a face twisted into naked rage.
“Not just yet,” Blasphet said. “I’m curious as to what he was doing traveling toward the College of Spires.”
“I-I’ve been banished for assisting you,” Metron said, his voice faint as he rocked in pain from Colobi’s blow. “I’m no longer high biologian. Other biologians will kill me if they discover me.”
“I know,” Blasphet said. “Which makes your destination baffling. Half the biologians in the kingdom dwell at the College of Spires. It’s not a healthy place for you to be.”
“I’m old,” Metron said, still lying limp at Blasphet’s feet. “This may be the last winter I see on this earth. I’ve little time left to tell certain truths to . . . interested parties.”
“To your bastard son, you mean,” Blasphet said.
“H-how did you—?”
“I’m a god,” said Blasphet. “I know things. The whole time that you assisted me in the palace I knew of your little secret. I have a network of spies that provide useful fodder for blackmail. You always gave in so easily it was never required. You proved exquisitely corruptible.”
Blasphet motioned to the trio who had brought Metron before him. “Help him rise. Give him shelter and food. We must help this poor lost soul find his son.”
“Why, Lord?” Colobi asked, sounding hurt. “Why do you spare this blasphemer?”
“Even a Murder God may know his moments of mercy,” said Blasphet. “This pathetic creature has done me no harm. He was useful to me once; you must know I can be kind to those who are kind to me.”
Colobi’s face softened. Her cheeks blushed pink in response to his words.
“Metron,” said Blasphet. “Your journey to the College of Spires would have been in vain. The dragon you seek resides there no longer; he now serves Shandrazel in the palace.”
“Truly?” said Metron as he stood, assisted by the women. He winced as he rose; the tatters of his wings were covered with scabs. A dragon’s wings were sensitive; Blasphet suspected Metron was in constant agony.
“I know you can enter the palace anytime you wish,” said Blasphet. “You may know more of its secret passages than even I. Indeed, your son owes his existence to your knowledge of secret passages, does he not?”
Metron lowered his gaze. “I don’t wish to discuss the matter.”
“I do,” said Blasphet. “And we both know you’ll eventually do whatever I wish. So, have a seat, Metron. You look weary. The sisters will bring you food and drink and a blanket to help fight the chill. Then, you can tell me your story. I’ve heard the rumors. But only you can tell me the true origins of Graxen the Gray.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
* * *
UNSEEN MOUTHS WHISPER
BURKE THE MACHINIST stood on a hill overlooking Dragon Forge. The continuous pollution of the foundries had rendered much of the surrounding countryside barren; the red clay soil lay naked, cut through with gullies. Here and there a few particularly tough and ancient trees rose above the landscape, gnarled and defiant. In the low areas sat the camps of the gleaners, shanty towns built around small mountains of scrap metal and refuge. Burke studied the workings of the town at the heart of this desolation, using one of his inventions, the spy-owl. The spy-owl was a copper version of the night bird with large glass eyes, standing almost three feet tall. The big round lenses on its face directed light into a series of carefully crafted mirrors. Burke rested the heavy device upon a tripod. Looking into twin lenses at the back of the spy-owl allowed him to see the goings-on in the town below as clearly as if he were standing in the center square. He studied the doorway of the central foundry, counting the earth-dragons who came and went. Knowing how many dragons it took to keep the foundry in operation was crucial information.
He hadn’t created the spy-owl to prepare for war. He’d built it to discover the truth behind the stories of life on the moon. The stories were true; the moon was teaming with cities and lakes and forests beneath the glint of crystal domes miles across. Yet, learning the truth had left him wishing he’d never built the spy-owl. What did the knowledge gain him? The discovery of a world he could never reach filled him with a hunger that could never be slaked.
He looked up from the owl, stretching his back. His daughter, Anza, climbed the hill toward him. Dressed in buckskin dyed black, her dark hair in a tight braid, Anza looked quite formidable. She was a walking armory, with a longsword slung over her shoulder, a dagger strapped to her shin, an array of throwing knives on small scabbards lining each bicep, and two steel tomahawks at her belt. Of course, even without all this weaponry, Anza was woman who’d earned the fearful respect of men back at the tavern. She could silence anyone with a glance.
Burke didn’t know why Anza had never spoken; she wasn’t deaf. She had a keen mind. She could work calculations in her head that took him two sheets of paper to solve. She read voraciously, yet she’d never taken up a pen to write. She spoke to him with a few dozen hand signals that she’d devised while still in diapers. Everything else she had to say she conveyed with her eyes.
She nodded toward the spy-owl as she reached him. He stepped back to let her look inside. She turned the owl toward a new target and stepped back, motioning for him to look inside. He did so, and found his vision focused on the city gates. He quickly saw what she had noticed without the aid of the spy-owl. The gates were sunk into the dirt. Or rather, over the centuries, the grime and dust of the city had built up and covered the lower parts of the gates. Burke guessed the bottom two feet of the doors were buried.
“I’m not surprised those gates haven’t closed in centuries. Walls around towns lost some of their defensive value once the winged dragons took over the world,” Burke said. He moved the spy-owl around, studying further details of the walls. “This place was built by humans before the ninth plague, when the biggest threat was still other people. That plague gave the dragons their opening; they flourished as mankind withered. Human numbers have built back up, but we’ve never truly thrived again. As you can imagine, this doesn’t sit well with folks like Ragnar, who believe they were given dominion of this world by God.”
Anza gave him a curious look.
“Don’t worry that you don’t know. I deliberately haven’t told you much about God, the Great Spirit, or whatever. I felt there were other educational priorities for you than the study of invisible men who live in the sky.”
She frowned slightly. She glanced toward the horizon, to the exact spot where the moon would be rising in a few hours.
“No, it’s nothing like that,” said Burke. “The men on the moon are real. Even if they weren’t, people aren’t going out and launching wars to please them. No one has ever been killed because of the moon men.”
Anza pursed her lips. She made a stabbing motion, like she was driving an invisible dagger into someone’s belly, then tilted her head, inviting further explanation.
“No,” said Burke. “I’m not saying it’s wrong to kill, if you’ve got a good reason: Self-defense, financial gain, political advantage, or even just to stay in practice. Killing for a rational purpose is fine. Killing because you think it will make an invisible man in the sky treat you kindly when you’re dead is deranged.”
Anza nodded, finally clear on his point. Then she looked down the hills and gave a disgusted wrinkle of her nose. Her eyes said, “Look who’s coming.” Her nose said, “Ragnar.”
“Speaking of deranged,” Burke mumbled.
A chill wind rushed over the hill as Ragnar, prophet of the Lord, walked toward them. A whistling moan rose from the rust heaps in the valley below. Burke shivered within the folds of his heavy woolen duster. Ragnar, clothed only by his sunburned, leathery skin and a mane of wild hair looked blissfully insensate to the cold. Bliss was perhaps exactly the right word, thought Burke. Ragnar’s eyes were permanently narrowed in an angry expression, yet Burke was slowly starting to see the man underneath this mask of rage. The true dominant quality of the prophet wasn’t his anger but his serenity, a calm, faithful confidence that came from his absolute certainty that every breath he breathed had been waved across his lips by the fingers of God. It wasn’t that Ragnar wasn’t angry, boiling with vengeance and wrath—he was simply at peace with this rage.
“What have you learned with your magic bird?” Ragnar asked as he drew near.
Anza moved to Burke’s left side then retreated several yards, so that she was no longer directly downwind from the prophet.
“The first thing I’ve learned is that earth-dragons are uniformly near-sighted,” said Burke. “If they see anything more than shadows and shapes past fifty yards, I’ve found no evidence of it.”
“How can you tell?” Ragnar asked.
“For one thing, I’ve been up here two hours without anyone but the human gleaners glancing my way.”
“My spies are moving among the gleaners,” said Ragnar. “I want to learn how loyal they are to the dragons.”
“I don’t think loyalty is a virtue gleaners hold in high regard,” said Burke. “They make their living destroying relics that could teach us much about the days when humans ruled the world. I personally don’t trust them.”
“Do you fear they will betray our presence?” Ragnar asked.
“Maybe,” said Burke. “We are going to mess with their livelihood. Fortunately, gleaners aren’t noted for their bravery. I can’t imagine they’ll take up arms against us. Once we control the forge, they won’t care who they’re selling their junk to. Not that we’ll be needing to buy much from them. We can pour for weeks just by melting down all the armor and weapons cluttering up the place.”
“My men need those weapons,” said Ragnar.
“The armor doesn’t fit right, and swords and axes are poor weapons to fight the winged dragons. If you want to win, let me outfit your army properly. We need bows more than swords.”
“Many of my men already have bows,” said Ragnar.
“At Conyers, longbows weren’t enough,” said Burke. “The sun-dragons can fly above their range. From that height, anything a dragon drops turns into a weapon. At Conyers, they’d fly overhead and drop bucket-loads of steel darts, only a few inches long, weighing barely an ounce. You couldn’t really see the darts as they fell, only a dark shadow released by the dragon’s claws as they zoomed over you. One minute, the walls are full of archers, vainly firing arrows at dragons out of reach. The next minute, half your archers are dead, ripped to shreds by the dart swarm.”
“Now you admit to being at Conyers,” said Ragnar.
Burke placed a hand on Anza’s shoulder. “Go back to camp,” he said.
Anza gave him a worried glance. She detected something in his tone, perhaps.
“I’ll be fine,” he said.
Anza walked away, slowly at first, then breaking into a sprint. He was envious of her energy, the way her body seemed so light. She bounded down the hill with the grace and speed of a doe.
“You shouldn’t have brought your daughter,” Ragnar said. “War is no place for a woman.”
“Anza is better trained than any of those farmers you’ve pressed into service. With a hundred like her, I could take this fortress and hold it against every dragon in the world.”
“You wouldn’t succeed unless it was the will of the Lord,” said Ragnar. “He cannot look kindly upon the fact you allow your daughter to dress in such tight clothing. Did the ancient race of the Cherokee always permit its women to dress like whores?”
Burke flicked his wrist, triggering the spring-loaded knife he had in his sleeve. In a flash, he buried the razor tip in the prophet’s beard, stopping the second he felt the blade graze flesh.
“You call yourself a prophet,” said Burke, his voice trembling. “Can you see what I’m going to do if you insult my daughter again?”
Ragnar’s lips curved into a smile. His eyes kept the look of frustrating serenity that tempted Burke to give his blade one last push.
“You’ve brought bad times upon us, prophet,” Burke said, trying not to shout. “You’re about to unleash a war. A lot of people are going to die. Cities will be burned. No crops are going to be planted in the spring and by next winter men everywhere will starve. We might see the dawn of the tenth plague, thanks to you. This is a tremendous burden of misery I could spare the world right now by slitting your damned throat.”
Ragnar’s expression changed from serenity to outright glee. “War!” he said. “Plague! Famine! Death! These things you fear are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Kill me if you wish; you cannot halt their ride!”
The blade Burke held was among the finest he’d ever machined. It was sharp enough to shave with. The prophet’s leathery hide wouldn’t even slow it. Burke saw madness in Ragnar’s eyes, horrible visions dancing in their black centers. Looking into this darkness, Burke remembered the battle of Conyers with perfect clarity. The deadly rain of darts had been nothing compared to what had happened next. The sun-dragons had dropped onto the fleeing and broken survivors and tore them, simply tore them, ripping flesh from bones with as little effort as a man might use to tear the husk from an ear of corn. Did he want to witness that nightmare again?
No.
And Ragnar was his best hope of never seeing it replayed.
His hand trembled as he pulled the knife away.
“I don’t like you,” said Burke. “I don’t believe in your God. I don’t believe in your prophecies. But you have an army. In a few days, you’ll have a foundry. I need both of these things if I’m ever going to show the dragons why humans once ruled this world. Twenty years of nightmares have given me a very strong incentive to plan the right way to fight an army of dragons. I know the weapons we’ll need; I know the training we’ll require; I know the tactics and strategies we’ll follow. I can win this war, but only if you obey me.”
“I’m the chosen of the Lord,” said Ragnar. “I obey his orders alone.”
“Damnit, no!” Burke shouted, throwing up his arms. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. You aren’t going to win by obeying the voices of your invisible friend. If you want even a slender hope of surviving this, I have to be the only voice you listen to. Your mob can take Dragon Forge through sheer brute force, but can they hold it? The sun-dragons will come and take it back from you. I have a plan to defeat them. It’s going to require turning a hundred of your farmers into foundry workers in the span of a few hours. It’s going to mean that I’m the one mind that will guide their hands in building weapons that you can’t even imagine. If we’re fast enough and lucky enough, the dragons that fly over us will be slaughtered. Their blood will rain from the sky. Our biggest logistical problem will be clearing the carcasses from the streets before they rot.”
Ragnar looked toward Burke’s spy-owl. He walked over, lowered his head, and looked into the lenses. He moved the owl on the tripod with surprising confidence and dexterity. For several long minutes, he silently studied the city.
At last, he pulled away. His face was blank; for the first time, there was no hint of anger, no trace of insane joy. For the first time since Burke had met him, Ragnar appeared lost in thought.
“It wasn’t the Lord that guided me to you, Kanati,” Ragnar said. His voice had lost its normal prophetic vibrancy. With the madness gone from his eyes, Burke realized how much younger Ragnar was than himself. There was something boyish and innocent about him. “When I was a child, my father told me you were the smartest man he’d ever known. He said if the others had listened to you instead of Bitterwood, they might have won.”
“We’ll never know,” said Burke. “We made the choices we made. Bitterwood’s plan wasn’t a horrible one. We just didn’t know what we were up against. No one at Conyers had ever faced an army of sun-dragons. The normal way of the world is for men to waste their energies fighting men, and dragons to focus their aggression on other dragons. We didn’t have the experience we needed to plan for victory. Now, some of us have it. Bitterwood, I hear, has been fighting a one man guerilla campaign ever since. It’s not a bad strategy if all you want to do is make dragons suffer. But you need a smarter plan if you want humans to once again rule at least a patch of this world.”
“An unseen mouth whispers that you have that smarter plan, Machinist,” said Ragnar, with sly grin. Some of the heaven-sent madness again flavored his speech. “A rain of blood. Carcasses filling the street. You have the soul of a prophet.”
“I have the mind of a man who’s seen too much,” said Burke, shaking his head. “I wish you’d died in the Free City, Ragnar. But, since you didn’t, I’ll make the best of a world with you in it. I pride myself on understanding reality. You’re my reality now.”
“I shall spread the word,” said Ragnar. “My army will obey you as they would me.”
“Good. Before we take the city, I need twenty men, your brightest. I’ve been canvassing your mob and have a few candidates in mind. I’ve got plans sketched out, diagrams. I need to teach them the what, why, and how of the items we’ll be manufacturing. They’ll be the foremen who lead the rest of the workers when we take the town. With the right advance work, we can pour metal within hours of taking the foundry.”
“How long will you need?” asked Ragnar.
“Several days. At least a week,” said Burke. “There’s a lot to cover.”
“That’s too long to tarry,” said Ragnar as he once more to looked into the spy-owl. “The earth-dragons may be dim-witted and half-blind, but it’s only a matter of time before they realize there’s an army encamped mere miles from their fortress.”
“Haste will lead to failure,” said Burke. “Still, you’re right. Every hour we wait is a gamble. The gleaners could betray us; a sky-dragon could fly over. Hopefully from the air your rag-tag army looks like gleaners, but that’s probably wishful thinking. Let me get started; I’ll teach the men as quickly as possible. Anza can help. I can get the training down to five days. Maybe four. There are tests I’ve written up. Until I have twenty men who can pass those tests, taking the town will do us more harm than good if the sun-dragons retaliate before we’re prepared to fight. The moment we’re ready, I’ll let you know.”
“So be it,” said Ragnar. “It’s been nearly sixteen years since my parents were killed and I took up preaching the gospel of war. The victory of the Free City has left me hungry to spill more dragon blood; yet, if I must, I can wait a few more days for this feast of vengeance.”
Ragnar smiled with the serene rage that Burke found so disquieting. Burke shivered, pulling his collar higher to fight the chill and rising wind.
WHEN ZEEKY WOKE she sensed something was different. The odor and sounds surrounding her had changed. Trisky was gone, as was Adam. The only one with her was Poocher. She reached for the visor, sitting up in the pitch black. She’d been too drowsy to keep her eyes open when Adam had taken her back to his camp. How long had she been asleep?
She froze as she slipped on the visor and the darkness became light. She wasn’t alone after all! Leaning against the mine wall across from her stood a tall, broad-shouldered woman in a long black coat. No, not a woman—a man with long white hair and a beautiful, feminine face. He watched Zeeky with an unblinking gaze, smiling as he realized she saw him.
“Sleep well?” he asked with a gentle voice.
“Who are you? Where’s Adam?” she asked. Poocher stirred at the sound of her voice.
“Adam was called away. Some trouble with the other members of his squad. He summoned me to take you. I wanted to let you sleep. You’ve had a tiring journey.”
“Are you Gabriel?” Zeeky asked. “Adam said he was taking me to see someone named Gabriel.”
“An excellent deduction,” said Gabriel.
“You look like the angel in the Bible at the church. At least the Bible that used to be there. I guess it’s burned up now.”
“Do you believe in angels?” Gabriel asked.
“Sure,” said Zeeky. “Are you one? Is that why you’re not breathing?”
Gabriel raised an eyebrow. “Adam told me your perceptions were strong. I didn’t fool you at all, did I?”
“If you’re an angel, why don’t you have wings?”
“Who says I don’t?” Gabriel asked. He took off his coat, revealing a bare chest. He was well-muscled, yet slender; he looked more like an animated statue than a living thing. He shrugged his shoulders and a pair of golden wings began to sprout, covered in golden feathers. The wings unfolded in an intricate dance, soon reaching several yards in length. He shook his open wings and the metallic feathers sang with the delicate ringing of a thousand tiny chimes.
Poocher sat up. He’d nudged the visor onto his eyes himself and now sat beside Zeeky, staring at the winged man. Poocher grunted.
“I know,” said Zeeky. “But maybe angels are supposed to smell that way. It’s like summer rain.”
“You’re a curiously fearless girl, Zeeky,” said Gabriel, kneeling down before her. “Adam said you weren’t afraid of Trisky. You aren’t afraid of the dark. You obviously aren’t afraid of me.”
“I get scared sometimes,” she said. “I got scared in the Free City, when the dragons started killing everyone. I got scared when I saw Big Lick all burned up. Do you know why it got burned? Do you know what happened to my parents?”
“Yes,” said Gabriel. “The goddess decided that few people would notice their disappearance at this particular moment. The other villages they traded with would assume they’d been killed by Albekizan’s soldiers in his purge of the human race. She needed people to help her learn things. She designed the people of your village to help her study.”
“Study what?”
“Ah,” said Gabriel, with a grin. “That is a difficult question to answer. The goddess knows almost everything. The few things she doesn’t understand aren’t going to be easily explained to mortals, not even to a girl as clever as you.”
“Adam said the goddess touched me in my mother’s belly and changed me. Did she do this to learn something?”
“Of course,” said Gabriel. “Everything the goddess does she does in the name of knowledge. The alterations to your mind help bridge the perceptual gap between humans and animals. You see the world with the same sensory openness of a beast, yet still possess the cognitive gifts of a human. You’re the harbinger of what the goddess envisions for all future humans.”
“What’s a harbinger?”
“A forerunner,” said Gabriel. “You’re the first of your kind. But, you’re displaying such promise, I’m certain you won’t be the last. We’re happy you came back, Zeeky. The goddess was disappointed you weren’t with your family.”
“If this goddess has my family, will you take me to her?”
“Of course,” said Gabriel, offering his hand.
Zeeky placed her fingers into his outstretched palm. Gabriel helped her rise. She could hear things inside him as he moved, soft clicks and purrs that sounded nothing like a normal human body.
“How far away are they?”
“A long way by foot,” said Gabriel. “But I know a short cut.”
He reached his arms out in a dramatic gesture; his slender fingers grabbed the air. He began to pull, as if at some unseen rope. A rainbow formed where his fingers moved. Poocher squealed and backed away as the arc of colorful light grew, stretching from floor to ceiling.
Zeeky backed away as well. There were terrible sounds coming from the rainbow, distant sobs and moans, the sound of men and women in horrible torment.
Gabriel looked puzzled by her reaction.
“For one so fearless, I didn’t expect you to be bothered by a little light,” he said.
“Can’t you hear it?” she asked.
“Hear what?”
“Those voices,” she said, as she backed up all the way against the wall. The cool wet rock dampened her shirt. “All those people. Listen to them. They’re hungry and lost and afraid.”
“Interesting,” Gabriel said, looking at the rainbow arc. “I don’t hear anything. No one ever hears anything. There are no sounds in underspace.”
“They’re not just in the rainbow,” Zeeky said, covering her ears. “They’re all around us. They’re in the air, and in the rocks. It’s like the voices of ghosts!”
Poocher paced back and forth, emitting a series of short, soft, panicky squeaks, as if he wanted to erupt into a full blown squeal but was afraid to make the noise.
“If you can hear them, can they hear you?” asked Gabriel. “Can you talk to them?”
Zeeky felt her rising fear suddenly plateau as the question lodged in her mind. She could talk to animals. Could she talk to ghosts as well? Her curiosity overwhelmed her terror.
“Hello?” she cried out. “Hello? Can you hear me?”
At first, the change in the moaning was very subtle. It was difficult to tell if there had been any reaction at all. Yet, perhaps a few of the voices had fallen silent. Some of the ghosts had stopped to listen to her.
“Hello!” she called out again, aiming her voice toward the rainbow. “Is anyone there?”
Now more of the voices grew quiet. One by one, the sobs fell away. The agonized moaning trailed off, to better pay attention.
“My name is Zeeky,” she said. “Who are you?”
At first, she could barely hear anything. Then, the whispers rose, repeating her name: “Zeeky . . . Zeeky . . . Ezekia . . .”
The hairs on the back of her neck rose as she realized the ghosts knew her true name.
“Zeeky?” a woman asked. She knew this voice.
“Mama?”
“It’s cold here,” the woman answered.
“Where are you?” Zeeky asked.
“Where are you?” the woman answered, her voice fading.
“Mama?” Zeeky repeated. “Mama?”
There was the faintest whisper in response, a word just beneath the edge of comprehension, and then the voices were gone.
“I don’t hear them anymore,” she said. Poocher seemed calmer as well. Had he heard the voices, or just been responding to her fear?
“Extraordinary,” said Gabriel. “Opening the underspace gateway creates millions of fine-scale wormholes. Can it be you heard voices from underspace through these tiny rips? The goddess will definitely want to study this further. We must see her at once.”
“You keep saying underspace,” Zeeky said, crossing her arms, looking stern. “You know I don’t know what it means. Are you trying to make me feel stupid?”
“I’m sorry,” said Gabriel, with a sincere tone that convinced Zeeky he meant the words. “Underspace, is, well, it’s like a world under the world.”
“Like this mine?”
“Not quite,” said Gabriel. “Perhaps I should say it’s a world beside this world. But really, it’s more like . . . hmm. I don’t think I can explain it well without using higher math. I’ll let the goddess try. She’s very good at making things easy to understand.”
“All I want to know about underspace is, is my mother there? Is that why I could hear her?”
“Possibly,” said Gabriel. “Let’s go to see the goddess. She can explain everything.”
Zeeky looked down at Poocher, who looked up at her. He shrugged, as if to say, “Too late to turn back now.”
Zeeky nodded, and walked toward the rainbow.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
* * *
ENCOUNTERS IN THE NIGHT
SHANDRAZEL HAD COMMANDED Graxen to leave the palace on the second day of the talks and go someplace where he could simply enjoy his day. Graxen would have preferred to stay near the palace in hopes of seeing Nadala again, but an order was an order. Graxen had no true friends to spend time with, so he flew downriver to the brackish swamplands, mentally replaying every word of his conversation with Nadala as he flew. Near the coast, the river swelled so wide it was nearly a bay. Countless fishing villages stood on stilts. Humans by the thousand plied the waters here. Using wide flat boats they harvested shrimp and crabs, oysters and eels, and fish from inch-long anchovies to sharks that rivaled sun-dragons in size. Graxen had grown up in the eternal poverty of a student, but as Shandrazel’s messenger his purse was suddenly full. On his trip to Hampton to summon the mayor, he’d glimpsed an item worn by the mayor’s wife that seemed as if it would make an appropriate gift for Nadala. Of course, at the time, he didn’t have any clue he would ever see Nadala again. Now, he returned to the fishing town, landing on one of the countless docks that edged the harbor, hoping he could find her a gift.
The second he landed on the salted wood, vendors from a dozen nearby shacks began to shout. His first instinct was to ignore them, but to his left a wizened old woman in a yellow scarf thrust her arm into an oak barrel and pulled out a still living catfish. Graxen’s eyes immediately locked onto the fat, blue-gray morsel, nearly two feet in length. The woman held it high with her knotty fingers jammed into the fish’s wide mouth. She smiled knowingly as she met Graxen’s hungry gaze.
There was no meal more beloved of sky-dragons than raw fish. While the necessities of commerce and transportation meant that most seafood was dried, smoked, or pickled, when the opportunity arose nothing compared to biting into a freshly caught fish, drinking down its living fluids as it struggled against your tongue.
Almost before he knew it, his purse was two coins lighter and his belly was many pounds fuller. His tongue repeatedly flickered across the gaps between his teeth, searching for any remaining essence of the meat that lingered there.
Feeling fat and happy, Graxen moved along the docks, browsing the various wares. He lingered at shops where the local women sold their specialty, tiny flat beads carefully carved from opalescent mother of pearl and shaped in to a variety of bracelets, necklaces, belts, and capes.
At last, Graxen found the item he sought. It was a belt made of the pearly shells, with each bead carved into the shape of a curved sword. The hips of a sky-dragon were similar in size to the hips of a human female. He tried it on himself and found it fit snuggly, given that his belly was swollen with fish. He knew Nadala wouldn’t be allowed to wear it openly; indeed, she might find the gift trivial and pointless.
Still, Graxen couldn’t resist. The belt was a lovely thing made from blades; Nadala was a lovely thing who used blades. He could write her a letter explaining the symbolism. Or, would that be insulting to her intelligence? Every time he thought about the contents of the letters he wanted to write her, his mind quickly locked as doubts and possibilities slid against one another and ground to a halt.
The hours he’d spent in Hampton resisting the pitches of hawkers left him weary by mid-afternoon. The flight back to the palace felt especially long. He wondered if Nadala would be standing guard. It was nearly nightfall when he caught sight of the palace. The first things that captured his attention were several earth-dragon guards rushing back and forth in the courtyard. The fringes on the back of his neck rose as he sensed something terrible had happened in his absence.
Graxen swooped into the Peace Hall and found a chaotic scene. Humans were shouting at humans in one corner of the room, biologians were bickering in an opposite corner, and the valkyries were nowhere to be seen. Charkon and the other earth-dragons were filing from the room. Charkon glanced back with a look of disgust in his one good eye as Graxen’s claws touched down on the marble. For an instant, Graxen wondered if his arrival had somehow offended the elderly earth-dragon; it took a few seconds to realize the disgust wasn’t directed at him, but toward the bickering humans.
Shandrazel looked glum as he sat perched on the golden cushion at the head of the room. All the optimism and energy that normally animated him had vanished. Behind him, a tapestry depicted the face of his father, Albekizan, glowering down at the room. The emerald green threading of the eyes shimmered against the blood red scales, making the eyes look almost alive.
“Sire,” Graxen said, approaching Shandrazel. “What has transpired? Did Blasphet attack again?”
“No,” Shandrazel said. “A gang of assassins would be relatively easy to deal with. Zorasta and her contingent flew away, saying the talks are over. The humans won’t agree on anything, and now even Charkon has left angry. Why is this proving so difficult?”
“What was the point of contention? What caused the crisis?”
“I’ll tell you what caused the crisis,” the young Bitterwood called out, having noticed Graxen’s arrival. The tall blond man looked quite agitated, completely unlike the wise and fatherly friend who had counseled him on how to approach Nadala.
Bitterwood walked before Shandrazel, addressing his words to both Graxen and the king. “Zorasta condones human slavery. She wasn’t here to discuss freedom. She wants to keep all men in chains!”
Shandrazel sighed. “That really wasn’t the issue being discussed. Zorasta merely proposed that bows be outlawed. It is the weapon of choice for a human to use against a dragon. Her proposal shouldn’t have produced such a violent reaction from you humans, if you’d only stopped to consider the point. My brother was killed with a bow, as was my father. It strikes me as a reasonable item to be discussed.”
“Are dragons being asked to give up their teeth and claws? Are they being asked to stop flying above us with spears? A bow is the only weapon that gives a human a chance of defense!” The young Bitterwood was shouting in a most disrespectful tone, Graxen thought. Perhaps the matriarch was correct in saying humans couldn’t control their emotions.
“There will be nothing to defend against,” said Shandrazel, sounding weary, as if he’d repeated the words many times before Graxen’s arrival. “Dragons will no longer hunt humans under the new laws. What need do you have you for arms that have no use other than killing dragons?”
“Most bows have never been raised against dragons,” Bitterwood said. “We use them for hunting, or to—”
“Hunting?” Shandrazel scoffed, incredulous. “Humans plant crops. You fish. You herd cattle and sheep. Hunting plays no real role in your diet.”
“You called this meeting to grant humans rights. On the second day you’re already talking about taking a right away.”
Graxen leaned forward and interrupted the argument. He didn’t care whether humans had bows or not. He did care that Nadala might no longer be in the palace.
“Sire, did you say the valkyries flew away? Did they return to the Nest?”
“I assume that is their destination,” said Shandrazel.
“With your permission, sire, I’ll give chase to their party. Perhaps I can persuade them to return.”
“Zorasta doesn’t want to return,” Bitterwood said. “She arrived wanting to thwart these talks. We should just move ahead without her.”
Shandrazel thought the matter over. Graxen waited impatiently, feeling the miles between Nadala and himself growing by the second.
“I doubt you can change her mind, but if you choose to try, I wish you good fortune,” Shandrazel said. “Go.”
Graxen dashed toward the balcony, the weight of the bead-belt heavy in the satchel slung over his shoulder. If he didn’t catch Nadala before she made it to the Nest, he might never see her again. Though he was already tired from his trip to the coast, he threw himself into the air beyond the balcony and beat his wings with all his strength, flying as fast as he had ever flown before.
GRAXEN NEVER CAUGHT SIGHT of Nadala and her party as he chased after them. He’d hoped that a group of armored sky-dragons might stop frequently to rest. Despite sky-dragons’ prowess in the air, flying could be an exhausting endeavor. While a dragon with Graxen’s youth and stamina might cover a hundred miles without stopping for rest or water, the average sky-dragon seldom put their endurance to the test. Flying to the point of exhaustion was dangerous—a muscle cramp striking a human runner might cause a stumble; a similar seizure in a dragon even a few dozen feet above the earth could prove fatal. Combined with the facts that male sky-dragons often led sedentary lives of study, and female sky-dragons seldom strayed out of sight of the Nest, this meant that most sky-dragons broke long journeys into smaller flights of ten or twenty miles at most.
Unfortunately, while the need to rest apparently wasn’t slowing the valkyries, Graxen himself was trembling with weariness. When he’d returned to the palace, he’d already flown over three hundred miles that day. Adding another hundred fifty to it meant that as he neared Dragon Forge he was pushing a limit he’d never fully tested. At what point would his wings simply fail?
His heart wanted nothing more than to see Nadala again, but his mind was wracked with doubt. He was too late. If they’d already made it to the island, there would be fresh guards preventing his entrance. His earlier stunt of invading the island was one he doubted he could duplicate. He’d caught the guards unaware, and surprised them with his speed. Now that they knew how fast and agile he was, they would take no chances, and simply overwhelm him with numbers.
His lungs burned. His shoulders felt as if the muscles were riddled with fish hooks, tearing deeper with each flap of his wings. The day was now long gone, and he found it difficult to judge his distance above the earth in the dark. Several times he’d been forced to pull upward as he discovered himself only a few feet above the treetops.
Ahead, he could see the glow of the foundries, still some miles distant. The air carried the faint trace of burning coal, which mingled with the more woodsy smoke of the hundreds of campfires dotting the landscape beneath him. Graxen grew curious. He knew that human gleaners lived near Dragon Forge, but were they truly so numerous? The campfires below spread across the hilly landscape for the better part of a mile. Was this some human festival he was unaware of?
Curiosity combined with his exhaustion finally drove Graxen to find a place to land. His keen eyes located the main road beneath him. His wings wobbled as he attempted to hold them steady. The ground came up faster than he’d anticipated and his hind-talons buckled as they slammed against the hard-packed earth. He tumbled tail over snout, skidding to a halt on ground worn bare by generations of travelers. He landed on his back, his wings spread limply to his sides.
Dragons didn’t normally lie upon their backs, but Graxen found the position unexpectedly comfortable. He stared up into the stars, which twinkled softly behind the haze of smoke. Rocks polished by countless footsteps pressed into his shoulders and hips, but this discomfort was outweighed by the relief of absolute surrender to gravity after a long day in the air. He felt as if it would be a welcome sensation simply to sink deeper into the earth.
He closed his eyes, feeling lost and alone. What was he doing out here in the darkness, pushing himself beyond all safety and sanity on such a hopeless mission?
“Nadala,” he whispered. “Where are you?”
He listened to the night, as if expecting a reply.
There was a crunching sound from the nearby brush. Someone was moving. Several someones. Humans? They sounded like human males as they spoke in soft hisses. Graxen could only catch ever other word: Dead? Fell. Spy? Kill?
Realizing there was the very real possibility that he was the subject of their conversation, Graxen opened his eyes. Why would gleaners be worried about anyone spying on them? Was there some especially valuable chunk of rust left unclaimed this close to Dragon Forge?
Graxen rolled over, his body stiff and protesting. He tried to rise, and found sudden motivation as the nearby whispers turned to shouts.
“Get him!” a man commanded. Footsteps slapped against the ground all around him. In the darkness, Graxen counted two-three-four-five shadows rushing toward him.
Graxen instinctively whipped his tail toward the men. The gambit worked, tripping the man who led the charging quintet. The second human stumbled over the first, dropping a jagged sword as he fell. The third man leapt over his brothers, looking quite athletic and heroic as he sailed though the air, brandishing a pitchfork overhead, preparing to drive the sharp prongs into Graxen’s brain.
Graxen jumped forward, leaning toward the man, allowing the pitchfork to pass over his head. The prongs scraped along the scales of his back as he sank his teeth into the man’s stomach. The man gave a gurgling howl as Graxen pushed him aside in time to see his fourth assailant swinging a club in a swift arc toward his snout. Graxen jerked backward, the wind from the blow filling his nostrils. He jumped up and flapped his wings, kicking out with his hind-claws, tearing a long and messy strip of flesh from the clubber’s rib cage.
The fifth man never reached him, wheeling in the space of a single step to dart back toward the woods shouting, “Spy! A blue one! We need bows!”
The two humans he had tripped were almost back on their feet, though one was still unarmed. Graxen skipped backwards, getting clear, before tilting his head up and jumping toward the stars. He wanted to be well out of range before the archers were ready. The adrenaline that surged through him from the brief stint of combat proved a perfect remedy for his exhaustion.
A blue one? thought Graxen, climbing higher. In the dark, all sky-dragons must look alike. He took a deep breath, the oxygen clearing his mind and renewing his spirit. He decided on a new destination. He would no longer try to reach the Nest. But he would find the abandoned tower and rest for the night. When morning came, he would write Nadala her letter.
THE NIGHT TURNED CRISP and cold by the time he located the tower. The structure wasn’t terribly imposing: four vine-draped walls of ancient red brick, perhaps forty feet high. Back at the palace there were single rooms in which this “tower” could have fit. The walls looked as if a hard wind could topple them. Graxen picked the most solid-looking point on the walls and glided to a landing. His muscles had stopped burning—they’d stopped feeling anything at all. He was numb with weariness.
The tower was built on a square floor plan, about half as wide as it was tall. The roof of the structure had long since caved in. Peering down, he could see in the tangled darkness faint hints of what had once been stairs and wooden floors long succumbed to rot. Dim light seeped through windows lined with jagged shards of glass. Graxen guessed the tower was the handiwork of humans, but what purpose the building had served he couldn’t deduce. The landscape surrounding the structure was nothing but wilderness. It was as if the building had wandered off from a more developed setting and gone feral.
As Nadala had described, at the southwestern corner of the building a single stone gargoyle was perched, staring down at the weeds below. Its jaws were opened to reveal lichen-covered fangs, with just enough of a gap between them to allow a folded note to be tucked into the mouth where it would be protected from the elements.
The gargoyle looked like large cat with a mane, with wings sprouting from its back in a way that made no sense to Graxen. Did this sculpture depict an actual animal? Sky-dragons usually engaged in representational art, depicting creatures and events found in reality. It seemed unsettling to think that someone had deliberately carved an animal that so obviously had no place in the physical world. What kind of mind would be moved to construct such an impractical hybrid?
However, the longer he studied the sculpture, the more he felt a sense that it wasn’t so alien after all. This thing should not have existed; it was the product of unknown creators that had long since abandoned it to a world that cared nothing of its existence. Graxen placed a fore-talon on the creature’s stony mane, suddenly feeling a sense of kinship.
He reached into his satchel and produced a small bound book. Like most biologians, he never traveled without a notebook. He opened it, seeking a sheet of fresh parchment. He produced a jar of ink and a quill made from one of his own feather scales and used the gargoyle’s back to form an impromptu desk.
He uncapped the ink, releasing the pleasing aroma of walnut and vinegar. He dipped the quill into the jar, and then placed the tip against the parchment.
He stood there without moving a muscle, the seconds passing into minutes, the minutes building into what must surely have been an hour, unable to scribble the first letter. His mind became a maze that not even the simplest thought could navigate.
Dearest Nadala? Dear? Was “dear” a presumptuous greeting for a soldier who was still in so many ways a stranger? Perhaps just start with her name. Nadala? Was Nadala spelled n-a-d-a-l-a? It sounded like it should be spelled that way. But Graxen sounded like it should be spelled g-r-a-k-s-i-n, and it wasn’t.
Part of him wanted to toss aside all caution and fear. Beloved Nadala? No, that bordered on insanity. Love was an emotion of sun-dragons and humans; as a verb it was normally employed by sky-dragons only when discussing books. What was he doing here? This was an exercise in futility. A sane dragon would go to sleep and reconsider this whole matter in the morning. Of course a sane dragon wouldn’t have flown so far in the darkness, beyond all exhaustion and hope. He’d already established his lack of sanity. My darling Nadala? Perhaps he should let her see the madness that consumed him. If she became frightened, so be it. Better she should know the truth.
He noticed, as the night grew ever colder, that he was shivering.
He remembered the first words he’d said to her.
He wrote, in shaky, uneven letters, “It’s chilly tonight.”
A moment later, he ripped the page from the book and crumpled it, before tossing it away. He watched the white ball of paper fall. In the first second of its flight, he realized how much the wad of paper served as an adequate representation of himself—a thing filled with meaningless words, falling through the air toward the litter of the forest floor. If words were written and never read did the words ever exist?
The paper fell in a slight arc away from the wall for a few more seconds. Inches from the ground, a large dark shape swooped in and snatched the paper from its fall. The leaves on the forest floor swirled as the winged creature pulled up from its dive. Graxen’s heart skipped as the dark shape took on recognizable form, a beat of long blue wings pushing it higher, up above the roof of the building. The stars were suddenly blotted by the distinctive profile of a sky-dragon passing overhead.
The dragon swerved and spun, dropping down to a landing crouch on the opposite corner of the building. Even in the darkness, he recognized her scale patterns, her sleek and symmetrical musculature. She had shed all her armor and carried only a small leather pouch hanging from a cord around her neck.
“Nadala?” he asked, feeling as if he might have slipped into a dream.
Nadala didn’t answer. She unfolded the crumpled ball of paper and studied it. Her brow wrinkled.
“It’s chilly tonight?” she said. “Perhaps, in your future letters, you can write of more significant topics than the weather?”
“I . . . in all fairness, I had discarded that,” he said. “I’ve yet to write your true letter.”
“You’ve flown all this way without bothering to write the letter first?” she asked.
“I didn’t know you would be here,” he said.
“I didn’t know you would be here,” she said, “but I wrote you a proper letter before I arrived.” She patted the leather pouch with her fore-talon.
“I was hoping to catch your party before you made it to the Nest,” he explained. “I gave chase, wanting to convince Zorasta to return.”
“She’ll go back eventually,” said Nadala. “Our leaving will throw the talks into chaos. Shandrazel will expend much of his diplomatic capital convincing Zorasta to take part. Then, just as he gives up and proceeds without her, Zorasta will return to the talks and once more obstruct the process. She can delay progress for months, even years with this tactic.”
“Why?” Graxen asked. “Why obstruct Shandrazel’s reforms?”
“The matriarchy has an interest in maintaining the status quo. Zorasta will not permit radical changes to the world order.”
“How strange,” said Graxen. “All my life, I’ve craved change. I honestly don’t care what the consequences will be if Shandrazel succeeds in creating a new form of government. I simply welcome a tomorrow that I know will be different than today. I welcome a world where nothing can be truly thought of as permanent.”
Nadala flapped her wings and hopped to the same wall Graxen stood on, though still keeping her distance. “Would you truly embrace that?” she asked. “A world where nothing is permanent?”
“Some things must be permanent, I suppose,” he said. “The sun will continue to rise and fall for all eternity; the moon will forever wax and wane among the stars. Ten thousand years from now, the ocean waves will still beat against the sand, and crickets will still chirp through summer nights. But I won’t be here to see these things, and all the books of the biologians will have long since crumbled to dust. We already live in a world in which we’re not permanent; to believe otherwise seems to require the willing embrace of an obvious untruth.”
“Ah,” said Nadala. “You have a flair for poetry after all. These are the sorts of words you should put in your letters.”
“Wouldn’t reflections on our impermanence be a depressing topic for a love letter?” asked Graxen.
“Oh,” she said, with a coy tilt of her head. “Are they love letters now?”
Graxen was too tired to be flustered. The word had slipped out; there was no point in pretending otherwise.
“From the moment I saw you, it’s been love,” he said, looking at her directly.
“You’re lying,” she said, hopping closer. “The first moment you saw me you wondered if I was going to kill you.”
“True,” he said, still meeting her gaze. His exhaustion and her presence had left him feeling slightly drunk. Words that he couldn’t have imagined uttering earlier now spilled out of him. “But I felt love from the moment you chased after me to return my satchel. Your kindness was more than I expected or deserved. The grace of your act made the world a more hopeful place.”
“It’s a lucky thing I missed when I tried to skewer you, then.”
“If you had killed me, you would only have been doing your duty.”
“If my sisters discovered me here with you, they would kill us both. Would you still be so forgiving in the name of duty?”
“I know you’re taking a risk in coming here,” he said. “Yet, you did come. Why?”
“Because I too crave change,” she said, looking down into the tangled darkness in the tower’s interior. “What you said about impermanence, about how we won’t be here in ten thousand years . . . these words resonate with me. What does a valkyrie’s pledge to duty matter when the years will eventually wash away even her memory? The only slim thread of immortality in this world is to produce offspring, and hope that they will produce offspring. Perhaps some small echo of the self will endure through the ages.”
“I’ll never produce offspring,” said Graxen. “Perhaps this is why I’ve come to my views on impermanence.”
Nadala flapped her wings once more, hopping directly beside him. She was close enough he could smell her, a soapy scent, sandalwood and rosewater. She’d apparently had the opportunity to bathe after her return to the Nest. Graxen suddenly felt unclean, his skin sticky and musky.
She leaned her head close to his, her nostrils wide as she breathed in his scent.
“I like the way you smell,” she said, closing her eyes, her voice sounding dreamy. “There’s something primitive about it. Bestial. Beneath the veneer of culture, we are, in truth, only animals.”
“There’s nothing bestial about the way you smell,” Graxen said, his nostrils hovering over her scales. “It’s the scent of a civilized being, a smell like architecture and music.”
“Oh, that must definitely go in your letter.”
She opened her eyes and their gazes locked. Their nostrils were so close together they were breathing each other’s breath. They stood facing for a long silent moment, he inhaling as she exhaled, she reciprocating an instant later. The air passing between them was hot and humid. They were sharing the very essence of life itself.
She leaned her snout against his and pushed. Their cheeks rubbed against each other with a slow, firm pressure. Her smooth scales were the perfect surface for his own scales to rub against, the most satisfying thing that had ever touched his hide. She continued to slide along him, her cheek slipping along his neck, until their shoulders met and each had their head nestled against the other’s spine. Her aroma left him dizzy; the warmth of her skin and the firm yet yielding texture of her muscles beneath caused a thousand tiny storms to erupt within him. He felt full of lightning—energized, but also on the verge of being torn apart.
At the thought of being torn apart, he pictured Nadala’s fate if they were discovered by other valkyries.
“We can’t do this,” he whispered. “I don’t care if your sisters rip me to shreds; if they harmed even a scale on you I couldn’t live with myself.”
“We can’t do this,” she whispered back. “But not because I fear death. I don’t. I’ve always been willing to die for a cause. Now I’m willing to die for you.”
“Oh,” he said, feeling the storms within him raging even stronger. “Then I guess we can do this.”
“No,” she said, pulling back, stepping away from him. The sudden absence of her warmth left him shivering. “We can’t do this because I don’t know how.”
Graxen was confused. “You don’t know how to love?”
“No,” she said. “I mean, yes, I believe I know how to love. Perhaps. I don’t know what love is; it’s more the domain of poets than warriors. I only know that I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything.”
Graxen was now even more confused. “Then, what, exactly, is it that you don’t know how to do?”
Nadala looked away demurely. She said, in a low voice. “I mean, I haven’t had training. In reproduction.”
“Oh,” he said.
“Those initiated in the process are under strict vows of secrecy,” she explained. “But perhaps the biologians . . . ?”
“No,” Graxen sighed. “I’ve heard . . . whispers. But I’ve never received an education in these matters either.”
“Then we’re shackled by our ignorance,” she said, sounding bitter. “That veneer of culture I mentioned has separated us from our animal natures.”
Graxen nodded. “Perhaps we could simply proceed and let our instincts guide us?”
Nadala shook her head. “It may be just stories meant to frighten us, but I’ve been told that mating without the proper training can lead to injury. I want you, Graxen. I just don’t know what to do with you.”
“I, um, am very good at research,” Graxen said, thinking of the Grand Library back at the palace. Certainly some biologian had recorded the technical details of reproduction among those countless tomes. “I’ll return once I learn the details.”
“How long will this take?” she said.
“A few days, perhaps?” he said. “That should be time enough . . .”
“I don’t know if I can wait that long,” she said. “I feel as if I’m going to be torn apart by the desires within me.”
“I understand better than you think,” he said, though the storms within him were fading now that he had put his mind to the thought of research. “I promise to read as quickly as I can.”
She wrapped her wings around him, still facing him. It wasn’t a correct fitting somehow; their bodies felt pleasant pressed against one another, but somehow mismatched. Whatever the actual reproductive act entailed, Graxen suspected they wouldn’t be facing one another.
Wordlessly, she pulled away. Her eyes glistened as she studied him for a long moment, then leapt, straight up, climbing toward the sky.
He thought of the beaded belt in his satchel; the gift could wait for another time. A moment later, a small leather pouch fell from the stars. He caught it in his fore-talon. The satchel smelled like she smelled. He opened it to find a neatly folded square of translucent paper, the black outlines of letters visible through the surface. He didn’t open it. He felt so full of Nadala’s presence that he wasn’t yet prepared to replace the words she’d spoken with the words she’d written. The melody of her voice was still fresh; he would hold onto it as long as he could.
Soon, her dark form vanished into the night. He watched the stars for a long time before spreading his wings and drifting off into the sky, light as hope.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
* * *
BROKEN SKY
JANDRA KEPT A SOFT, EVEN GLOW around them as they traveled. They rode in silence through long and twisting tunnels of black rock. Bitterwood sat astride the long-wyrm behind Adam, while Jandra rode Hex. The journey had taken place so far in an uncomfortable silence. Bitterwood and Adam had barely spoken. Jandra was herself an orphan; if she ever met a surviving family member, she couldn’t imagine remaining silent. Vendevorex had informed her that her parents had died in a fire while she was an infant, conveniently leaving out for fifteen years the detail that he had been the one who ignited the blaze. Beyond this, she knew nothing of her family. She didn’t even know if Jandra was a name she’d been given by her parents or a name Vendevorex had chosen for her. He had told her that the name meant “God is gracious” in some old human tongue, which hinted that he hadn’t chosen it. Vendevorex didn’t believe in gods. Indeed, he was openly scornful of religions and the supernatural in general.
“The world thinks we are supernatural beings wielding powers drawn from some invisible world,” Vendevorex ikhad said when he had first given her the tiara ten years ago and began training her in his art. “In truth, there is nothing supernatural about our abilities. The invisible world we manipulate is the very foundation of what is natural. It is a world of magnetism and light. All matter as an assemblage of infinitesimal building blocks. In time, I’ll teach you to manipulate these blocks with the assistance of equally small machines.” As he’d spoken these words she’d placed the tiara on her head and her world had changed. She became aware of a fine silver haze that coated every inch of her skin—the residue of Vendevorex’s powers. Vendevorex had opened her hand and allowed a trickle of shimmering powder to drift from his fore-talon into her palm.
He’d told her, “I will show you wonder in a handful of dust.”
She pulled herself from her reverie as the tunnel they traveled through joined with a larger shaft. The shaft was almost perfectly rectangular. She could see from the gouges in the rock that this tunnel had been carved by some machine wielding massive steel teeth. She could still see traces of the iron scraped into the rock, now turned to rust by the ages.
Adam broke the silence. “I’ve been told this was all carved by men, long ago,” he said. “The world wasn’t always ruled by dragons.”
“The very rocks that surround us disprove you, Adam,” Hex said. “The libraries of the biologians are filled with fossils of the giant reptiles that eventually became the dragon races. We inherited the world from these ancestors. The evidence is clear that humans are merely apes who’ve gained the ability to speak only recently, from a geological perspective. I say that with no malice; it’s simply a truth written into stones. A few radical biologians argue that the ruins of the world show evidence of a once dominant human culture. But if your kind was ever more technologically advanced, it must surely have been under the guidance of dragons. If humans were as advanced as some argue, how did they possibly lose control?”
Adam shrugged. “The goddess judged the time of human dominance to be at an end.”
“The goddess?” the elder Bitterwood scoffed, his voice low and firm. “We worshipped Ashera in the village of my birth. I was later shown that she was nothing but a block of polished wood. The carving was destroyed and the world carried on. The seasons still changed, the rains still fell, the sun continued to rise. Everything we were taught about her power was demonstrated to be a lie.”
Adam didn’t look angry at his father’s words. He answered in a patient voice, “You saw only an idol of the goddess. The true goddess is the living embodiment of the earth. She’s the model for all the statues that have been carved of her, but that is all they are—statues.”
Jandra found herself intrigued. Her upbringing had left her certain, despite Adam’s eye-witness testimony, that they weren’t truly being led to a goddess. Jandra couldn’t help but wonder: Were they being led to a woman who wielded power similar to her own? Invisibility, command of elements, a healing touch—it wouldn’t be too difficult to convince some people that these were the powers of a god.
Vendevorex said he’d stolen the helmet. What if he’d stolen it from her parents? Could it be that this so-called goddess might be related to her? Jandra tried to suppress the thought, knowing it was absurd. And yet . . . she hadn’t simply sprung from dust. She had parents. She had to be related to someone in this world. If she were to ever meet a brother or sister, would she recognize them?
Would she be any less tongue-tied than Bitterwood and Adam?
They walked on in silence once more. Hex slowed his pace slightly. Jandra, astride his shoulders, wondered why he was creating the additional distance between them and the Bitterwoods. Hex twisted his serpentine neck back toward her and said, softly, “I notice you’ve had little to so say to me since I killed that long-wyrm rider.”
She was surprised he’d interpreted her silence so effectively. Vendevorex had never known what to make of her quiet moments; Bitterwood and Pet hadn’t displayed much skill at it either.
“I don’t think it was the killing that bothered me,” she whispered back. “It was the way you swallowed him, and then announced that he tasted good. I know that Albekizan used to hunt humans for sport. Did you?”
“Of course,” said Hex. “It was part of my upbringing.”
“Did you always eat the men you killed?”
“It would have been wasteful not to,” he said.
“When I first met you, you denounced the oppression of the weak by the strong. How can you justify eating humans if you truly believe the things you say?”
“I haven’t hunted men for sport in thirty years,” said Hex. “I didn’t hunt that long-wyrm rider; he attacked you, and I acted in your defense. I wasn’t making a political statement by eating him. I had meat in my mouth; I swallowed. Pure instinct. I’m sorry that this disturbed you. I’ll be more careful in the future.”
Jandra again found herself surprised by his words. Dragging an apology out of any other male she’d ever known had been almost impossible.
“I’m not angry with you,” she said, realizing that, in truth, she wasn’t. “I suppose I’ve just been having an identity crisis. I grew up among dragons. I’ve come to think of dragons as my family. It’s always a shock when I’m confronted with the reality that I’m human, and that dragons aren’t my family, but are, quite possibly, my mortal enemies.”
“I’m not your enemy,” he said.
“I know,” she sighed.
“As long as we’re on the subject of enemies, however,” Hex said, “is your friend the true Bitterwood? Is he the man that killed my brother and father?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I worried you’d kill him when we met him.”
“Would he not deserve it?”
“No,” said Jandra. “You yourself said your father deserved his fate. Bitterwood has given me his vow he won’t harm you. I don’t want you seeking revenge against him.”
“Unlike my father, I haven’t a vengeful bone in my body,” said Hex. “Endless cycles of revenge poison all our cultures, both dragon and human. I do, however, have a strong sense of self-preservation. If your friend so much at looks at me with evil intentions, I won’t suffer the least remorse when I bite his head off. However, I will promise not to swallow.”
Hex’s words sounded loud to her in the relative quiet of the mine shaft. By now, Trisky was several hundred feet ahead of them. Could the Bitterwoods hear their conversation?
BITTERWOOD, ASTRIDE THE LONG-WYRM behind his long dead son, listened closely to the whispered voices behind him. Were the sun-dragon’s words a ruse? Perhaps Hex was attempting to lull him into lowering his defenses. He sensed that this dragon was craftier than others he’d tangled with over the years.
Bitterwood welcomed this threat so near his back. He’d grown used to the life of the hunt. He’d become accustomed to the daily risk; the knowledge that the next dragon he faced might be the one to spot him at the last second and lunge, faster than he could react. What did it mean that he only felt alive when he faced such danger? When he’d killed Bodiel, he could have put an arrow into his brain on the first shot. Instead, he’d targeted his arrows into non-lethal spots, crippling the giant dragon, leaving him struggling in the mud, slowly bleeding to death. He’d taken his time, savoring Bodiel’s anguish. Was he courting death by indulging in such sadism? Was he, in truth, as much a monster as his prey?
The close presence of a potentially hostile dragon gave Bitterwood a welcome distraction from the obvious question of why his son was alive, in service of the goddess, and dwelling beneath the earth.
Adam, perhaps growing tired of waiting for questions that never came, began to answer them.
“I was too young to remember, of course, but I’m told I was discovered by Hezekiah. He found me in the well in Christdale and gave me to the angel Gabriel, who brought me here to the goddess.”
Bitterwood’s guts twisted at the mention of Hezekiah. “Hezekiah disdained the goddess. And Gabriel isn’t associated with the goddess myth at all. You’ve gotten your religions confused. Gabriel is the Biblical angel who informs Zechariah that his son will be John the Baptist.”
“The Bible is a false document. Hezekiah is a false prophet. The goddess created him to play the role of deceiver; she said Eden wouldn’t be paradise without a serpent.”
Bitterwood saw no point in arguing his son’s fractured theology. Adam’s tone was that of a true believer. Had Adam inherited this gullibility from him? He’d been deceived by Hezekiah. Adam was correct, at least, in calling Hezekiah a false prophet.
Adam continued, “The goddess told me you were still alive. She said that the fabled Bitterwood that dragons feared so greatly was, in truth, my father. I asked permission to find you. She said I wasn’t ready. Now I see that she planned to guide you here all along.”
“No one guided me here,” said Bitterwood. “No supernatural force, at least.”
Adam turned around to face his father. “You’ve been somewhat argumentative since we met. Have I in some way offended you?”
Bitterwood swallowed. It was impossible to look at his son without seeing the echoes of Recanna. He glanced away as he said, “You’ve committed no offense. All the sin is mine. I’m sorry.”
“There’s no sin,” said Adam. “You’ve nothing to apologize for. You didn’t know I survived.”
“No. I didn’t search the village. Hezekiah told me if I didn’t repent he would kill me. I fled from Christdale in grief and fear. The only emotion that gave me strength was my hatred. A more loving or courageous man would have stayed to search the ruins and bury the dead. I would have found you had I been a better man.”
“You couldn’t know,” said Adam. “And if Hezekiah told you he would kill you, he would have. While he wore the clothes of a human, he was, in truth, an angel like Gabriel. No human could have stood against him.”
“Hezekiah was no angel,” said Bitterwood. “It took me years to learn the truth, but he was nothing but a machine. I don’t understand his workings, but he was no angel.”
“Wasn’t he?” asked Adam. “Perhaps angels are machines built by a mind beyond the understanding of men?”
Bitterwood could see no way to argue this point. He was distracted, anyway, by a change in the atmosphere. The rotten-egg stench of the mine was slowly giving way to fresher air. He could smell the faint hint of flowers carried by an underlying brine-tainted breeze.
In addition to the change of scent, the tunnel ahead no longer stretched into dark infinity. A bright square showed the tunnel was leading toward a daylit sky. Twenty minutes later, they came to a ledge awash in warm sunlight.
Hex drew up on the ledge next to Trisky. A valley stretched before them, long and green, untouched by the early winter they had left behind on the surface. A placid lake, its waters deep and blue, filled much of the valley. The odor told Bitterwood the waters were saltwater, not fresh. In its center sat an island speckled with flowers of every color. Thick forests covered the island, the tree branches sagging with fruit. In the center rose the marble pillars of a temple. Bitterwood recognized the structure instantly; it resembled the temple that had stood in his home village, only on a much larger, grander scale.
JANDRA STUDIED THE VALLEY, feeling dizzy as her enhanced senses struggled to catalogue the scents, colors, and sounds before her. The songs of countless exotic birds filled her mind with images—parrot, canary, gull—though the birds were only specks of color in the distance. The walls of the valley were sheer rock covered with vines, stretching so high that it seemed as if the sky was merely a painting resting upon them.
“Daylight!” said Hex, sounding joyous. “I thought we’d never leave that cursed tunnel!” Jandra dug her fingers into his neck fringe as he suddenly bounded toward the edge of the cliff.
“Wait!” shouted Adam. “It’s dangerous to fly here!”
“It’s dangerous to fly anywhere,” Hex answered, as he leapt into space and soared toward the blue above. “Every dragon lives with the knowledge that his next flight could be the one where gravity wins!”
Hex said the words with such defiant joy that Jandra felt joyous herself. Hex seemed utterly fearless as he climbed upward. Jandra clenched her legs tighter around his neck as he spiraled toward the upper reaches of the stone walls and the open sky beyond. The hairs on her neck rose as her eyes began to pick apart the sky racing toward them. Suddenly she realized that the expanse above was mere illusion.
“Watch out!” she shouted, thrusting her right hand forward, willing the blue sky to vanish. As she willed it, the sky obeyed, parting in a wave, revealing the valley to be capped by the same stone as the tunnel, a solid ceiling now mere yards away. Hex twisted in the air, nearly dislodging Jandra. She fought to maintain her hold, grateful for her improved strength and reflexes. Hex had pulled his head back in time to avoid a collision, but there was a terrible jolt as his tail smacked into the stone. He fell toward the water, seemingly in complete surrender to gravity.
Then, Hex’s wings caught the air and their descent quickly halted. Hex soared over the lake in a long circle, turning back toward the cliff they’d leapt from. The bright sunlit room was growing dim. The sky continued to ripple like water into which a heavy object had been dropped, the waves growing in violence. In places the sky was ripping, with large fragments of blue sloughing away in sheets. A snow of silver dust filled the air as the sky crumbed, revealing that they were still completely encased beneath rock. A moment later, only a few shards of blue sky still stubbornly persisted, carrying on as if unaware that the illusion was now pointless.
Jandra let some of the silver dust settle on her outstretched hand. They were part of a Light-Emitting Nanite System—a LENS—something she herself knew how to use to create images from light. But, the sky had covered miles . . . Who could possibly have the concentration to maintain such an illusion?
Hex alighted next to the long-wyrm. It coiled backward, skittish at his approach.
“Steady,” said Adam, stroking Trisky’s neck.
“What witchcraft is this?” Bitterwood said as he stared wide-eyed at the shattered sky.
“This is no witchcraft,” Adam said. “The goddess transformed this cavern into the paradise you see. Have no fear. The sky will repair itself.”
Jandra had a hundred questions about the goddess. Before she could ask even one, however, there was an angry shout from the island, loud enough to be heard even though it was miles away.
“My sky! Who broke my sky?”
A woman emerged onto the stone steps of the temple. Jandra again found her eyes confused by the strange perspectives of the cavern. Either the island and the temple were much smaller than she’d judged, or the woman was at least twelve feet tall. The trees around the marble columns must have been half the height Jandra had assumed. The woman looked toward the cliff where Jandra stood. She walked toward them, growing with each step. After two steps, the trees were no higher than her waist. After four steps, they were at her knees. Then, she had left the trees entirely and walked across the lake, her body now hundreds of feet high, her eyes at the level of the cliff where they stood. The lake water dented beneath the woman’s footsteps, yet the waters held her.
“The goddess, I presume,” said Hex, his body tensing as if preparing to fight.
Jandra suspected Hex had good reason to anticipate combat. The goddess didn’t look happy. Her face was mostly human, but her eyes glowed like twin bonfires. Her skin was the color of new spring grass, with her lips a darker, mossy shade. Her hair was a tangle of kudzu, the locks draping down her shoulders to cover the nipples of her otherwise bare breasts. Whether the draping was due to modesty or chance was debatable, however, for there was no such cover for the lower parts of her body. Her pubic mound was a tangle of thick, dark ivy. Her broad feminine hips rested upon shapely legs, long and artful.
Jandra was used only to her own, girlish proportions. The goddess was of a more womanly shape, heavy-breasted and lushly curved. She walked with a hip-swaying gate that Jandra found slightly obscene. As the goddess drew near, the heat radiating from the fury of her eyes caused Hex to step backwards. Jandra raised an arm to protect her face. Beside them, Trisky lowered herself to her belly and Adam dove to the ground, pressing his face to the stone in either fear or reverence. Bitterwood had drawn his sword and was crouched low beside the great-wyrm.
“A sun-dragon?” the goddess said, sounding both puzzled and pleasantly surprised. Her voice was powerful yet not overwhelming and, save for its volume, not that different from the voice of a woman of normal size. The flames in the green woman’s eyes faded, revealing orbs of a more human structure, albeit still over a yard across. The irises were made of brilliant turquoise. Within the dark circles at the core, stars twinkled in the void.
“I haven’t seen one of your kind in my little kingdom in centuries,” the goddess said, focusing on Hex and ignoring Jandra. “I’ve taken precautions to keep you away, in fact. How curious that you overcame your fears to come here.”
Hex stepped forward, drawing up into the normal two-legged stance of the sun-dragons. Jandra leapt from his back, not wanting to weigh him down if he was about to do something risky. Hex inhaled, puffing out his chest in a manner that reminded her of Albekizan, and announced, “My name is Hexilizan. I have no fears to overcome; I’m of royal blood. Courage is my birthright.”
“Aren’t you the bold one?” asked the goddess. “Boldness can be dangerous here, dragon. You’ve discovered that things aren’t always as they seem. I’m curious . . . How did you break my sky? Mere collision shouldn’t have caused such chaos.”
“I don’t know,” said Hex. “I was flying when it parted of its own will.”
Jandra stepped around him, facing the goddess, raising her hand in a shy wave.
“Actually,” she said, “It was my will. I, um, sensed what it was made of at the last second. I didn’t mean to cause so much damage. I just lost control.”
The goddess narrowed her eyes. It was difficult to tell due to the scale of her gaze, but it seemed to Jandra that she was focusing on her helmet.
“That is an interesting toy, little one,” the goddess said.
“Perhaps we should sit down and talk about toys,” said Jandra.
“That could be amusing,” said the goddess, the corners of her mouth pulling into what Jandra assumed was a smile. It was difficult to read facial expressions when that face was too wide to take in all at once. “Very well. Meet me at my temple.”
After she spoke, her body broke apart, becoming a swarm of insects. Everyone coughed and covered their mouths as whirlwinds of iridescent green bottle-flies spun through the air for several minutes before dispersing.
Afterwards, Adam stood and guided Trisky as she rose. Everyone stared at him, as if expecting him to explain everything with one sentence.
“I told you,” he said, with a knowing smile. “The goddess.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
* * *
MERCIFUL
PET SAT UP, mildly disoriented. He blinked his eyes, feeling as if he’d moved back in time a year to his old life of comfort and privilege. He was in room with a vaulted ceiling and a stained glass window similar to the ones that had adorned Chakthalla’s castle. He was sleeping on a large red silk cushion, the sort of cushions Chakthalla used to sleep upon with him curled up beside her. As he rubbed the sleep from his eyes he remembered he was in Shandrazel’s palace. As leader of the human diplomats, he had been granted these plush accommodations.
It was just after dawn judging from the soft light coloring the high windows. He was freezing, naked upon the cushions without an inch of blanket. The thick wool covers were all pulled off to the side of the cushion and wrapped around the slender figure of a sleeping woman. Pet stared at her for a long moment. Who was she? How had she gotten here?
She had her back to him. Her long brown hair was tousled from the night’s activities. Pet started to wake her, but his fingers stopped inches from her shoulders. He decided to let her sleep. He couldn’t recall her name, but the memory of meeting her was beginning to resolve from his mental fog. After the fiasco of the previous day’s talks, when the valkyries had stormed out, Pet had decided it was time to get out of the palace and run far, far away. He’d only made it as far as Richmond when he’d decided to fortify his resolve with an ale or two at the local tavern. A trio of musicians had been performing and the girl beside him had been their flute player. He recalled how she reminded him of Jandra in the color of her hair and the shape of her jaw. Yet, while Jandra was never impressed by anything Pet did or said, this girl had been quite enamored by Pet’s claims that he was an advisor to Shandrazel. He vaguely remembered inviting her back to his room, deciding he could put off fleeing the talks at least one more day. His memory grew cloudier after that. In truth, he hadn’t drunk enough to affect his memory, though it was possible she had—she’d accepted his generosity in buying rounds readily enough.
Pet suspected the real reason he couldn’t remember the further details of their encounter was that he’d simply found it boring. His true pleasure in seduction came in the early stages, when women were attracted by his smile, his wit, and his fine breeding. The sun-dragons who found it fashionable to keep humans as pets engaged in selective breeding to exaggerate certain desired traits. Pet’s lineage was that of a purebred, and he enjoyed being admired for his physical perfection.
Pet rose and went to the mirror. His body was a work of art; he knew that women enjoyed feasting upon him with their eyes, and more. It was the rare woman who could resist reaching out to touch his flowing golden locks, or feel his broad and well-formed shoulders. He was proud of his appearance, and took care with his diet and exercise to hone its finest details. His face possessed the same perfection. He paid attention to the smallest items that could detract from his appearance. He tried to maintain even numbers of eye lashes, for instance, and was ferocious in seeking and snipping any split ends in his hair. He possessed an array of fine brushes he used to clean and polish his teeth after every meal; he even washed his tongue three times daily to ensure the freshness of his breath.
Yet, staring into the reflection of his brilliant blue eyes, Pet wondered if all his outer perfection had left him tarnished on the inside. He’d witnessed purebred dogs. The prettier the breed, the crazier they tended to be. Had breeding him for physical perfection left him with a damaged personality? He frequently seduced women he didn’t truly desire. He only wanted Jandra, he suspected, because she didn’t want him. Was this perverse? To impress her, he’d repeatedly risked his life. This couldn’t be healthy. And as irrational as his behavior was around Jandra, his actions around dragons were becoming outright insane. Why had he yelled at Shandrazel over the whole bow thing? What did he care if men had bows? Perhaps his long years of subservience to sun-dragons had left him with a pent-up need to yell at one?
Or perhaps he could only summon passion when he was pretending to be someone else. He embraced the role of Bitterwood because the man was a hero. Pet was only, well, a pet. He was the exact philosophical opposite of a hero. If he were honest with the other humans at the talks, he would tell them what he truly believed: Humans would have better lives if they just worked harder to make dragons happy. Treat a dragon with flattery and obedience, as he had Chakthalla, and you would be rewarded with a life of ease.
Would he dare march into the Peace Hall and speak the truth to his fellow men?
He sighed, shaking his head. If the truth ever came out of him, they’d lynch him. Better to be praised for a lie than hung for the truth.
Feeling he’d had his fill of introspection for the day, he dressed himself quietly and crept from the room, careful not to wake his guest.
AS PET ENTERED the Peace Hall for the third day of talks he noticed that the room seemed empty. None of the dozen sun-dragon representatives had arrived yet. Shandrazel, Charkon, and Androkom were huddled together in conference. A few of Pet’s fellow humans were gathered across the room, murmuring among themselves, looking worried. Only a handful of the biologian representatives were present, and there was no sign that the valkyries had returned.
Pet bypassed the humans and walked straight to Shandrazel. The giant dragon looked agitated. Before Pet reached the throne pedestal, a trio of earth-dragon guards stepped into his path, blocking him. They barked out, “Halt!”
Pet stopped, confused. “Are you new or something? I’m supposed to be here.”
“No humans are to approach the king!” one of the guards snarled, lowering his spear until the point was aimed at Pet’s neck. “Any closer and we’ll run you through!”
Fortunately, the commotion caught Shandrazel’s attention. “Lower your weapons!” he commanded. “I gave no such order!”
“I did,” Androkom said. The high biologian was less than half Shandrazel’s size, but somehow this morning he looked more composed and in charge than the young king. “I felt it would be a logical precaution.”
“A precaution against what?” Pet asked as the guards lowered their spears.
“It may be nothing,” said Shandrazel. “But, during the night—”
“During the night all of the sun-dragon representatives vanished,” Androkom said.
“What do you mean, vanished?” said Pet. The word “vanished” had taken on subtle shades of meaning ever since he met Jandra. Just because something couldn’t be seen didn’t mean it wasn’t there anymore.
“No messages were left,” said Shandrazel. “And there were no signs of struggle. I’ve sent out members of the aerial guard to try to—”
“We believe it was the work of Blasphet,” said Androkom, sounding impatient. “And there are signs of struggle; there are seven dead earth-dragon guards.”
“I meant we’ve found no signs that any of the sun-dragons were harmed,” Shandrazel said.
“The guards died from puncture wounds crusted with black poison,” said Androkom.
“The sisters attacked again?” Pet asked. “Why didn’t anyone hear them? They were sort of loud last time.”
“No one heard anything,” said Shandrazel. “We still have more questions than answers.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” said Pet. “I mean, yes, they could sneak in during the night and kill some guards. But how could they kill a dozen sun-dragons without making a sound? What could they have done with the bodies? I don’t see how the Sisters of the Serpent could be responsible for this. Maybe the sun-dragons learned that Blasphet had assassins in the palace once more and fled?”
Charkon, the boss of Dragon Forge, cleared his throat.
“Sire,” the elderly dragon said. “Blasphet remains on the loose and you are unable to protect even your own castle. I regretfully must withdraw from these talks. My duty to my brethren at the forge must be my first concern. When you’ve established security in your kingdom, I’ll come back.”
“Charkon, you’re the wisest of earth-dragons,” said Shandrazel. “If Blasphet is planning some master scheme, I would find your presence at my side most helpful. Since Kanst died, my armies have been without a field commander. I’d like to offer you this position.”
“Sire?” Charkon said, his one eye opening wide. “No earth-dragon has ever held such rank. It is the birthright of sun-dragons to fill such roles.”
“Those are the old ways, Charkon. From this day forward, positions will be filled not by birthright, but by merit. No one can surpass you in experience and judgment, noble Charkon. You’ve fought in countless battles, and proven yourself a worthy leader as boss of the forge. I can think of no better candidate.”
Charkon raised a thick paw to scratch at a patch of flaky flesh just behind the scar-tumor where his eye had once been. He looked lost in thought.
“It will be my honor,” said Charkon. “I’ll start by increasing security here in the palace. You’ve allowed the gates to be too open. Humans are coming to and fro with impunity.”
“Humans who were invited to these talks” said Pet, bothered by Charkon’s tone. “However Blasphet’s assassins are getting in, I don’t think they’re walking through the front door. Beefing up security at the gates is pointless.”
“You would say that . . . human.” Charkon stepped close to Pet, his eye narrowed into a thin slit. “I’m not making accusations. But the ease with which the sisters pass suggests that they must have inside help.”
“And you’re saying that I—”
“I’m saying that your loyalties lie with humans, and the Sisters of the Serpent are human.”
“Charkon,” said Shandrazel. “Your theories have been noted. Your desire to improve security is reasonable. Do what you must; however, the free movement of the human diplomats must be allowed. I trust you’ll find an appropriate solution.”
Charkon punched his gauntleted fist to his steel breast plate with a loud clang. “At once, sire,” he said before marching from the room. The contingent of armored dragons who traveled with him followed. Once in the hall, Charkon began to bark out commands.
Shandrazel sighed wearily. He was still a young dragon, no older than Pet, but recent events were taking their toll. The skin around his eyes was puffy, as if he hadn’t been sleeping well. He slouched on his golden cushion, and the feather-scales of his wings weren’t groomed as well as they should be. He sounded on the verge of despair as he said, “My father kept Blasphet imprisoned for over a decade. Why am I so powerless to halt his schemes?”
Pet searched for the words to console the sun-dragon. “It was your father who set Blasphet loose, and then gave him an army of construction workers to build the Free City. Blasphet could have a constructed a score of secret entrances with the resources at his command.”
“Perhaps,” said Shandrazel. “Yet I could have ended his threat. I could have ordered his execution.”
“Why didn’t you?” Pet asked.
“I don’t believe that death should be used as punishment,” said Shandrazel. “I know of innocent dragons accused of false crimes and slain by my father for political gain. I wanted to break with the past, and put an end to executions.”
“That’s a noble goal,” said Pet. “But perhaps, for Blasphet, you can make an exception.”
“Perhaps not just for Blasphet,” said Shandrazel. “The events of the past few days have opened my eyes. I believed that concepts such as equality and freedom would appeal to the reason of any thinking creature. I held, in my heart, that these truths were self-evident. Obviously, I was deluded. The world has been controlled by force for too long. Rule by brute strength didn’t start with my father, and cannot end with him, I fear.”
“What are you saying?”
“It’s time for me to stop wishing that peace and justice will spontaneously arise. If I’m to be the king who brings an end to kings, it seems I must first embrace the role of king.” Shandrazel looked toward the tapestry that depicted Albekizan crushing the human rebellion at Conyers. “I must establish safety and security by capturing Blasphet. I must win back the respect of my fellow sun-dragons by showing that I’m still in control of the greatest army this world has known. And, if I wish to have valkyries present to discuss the future of this Commonwealth, it seems I must drag them here in chains.”
“Don’t overreact,” said Pet. “You’ve suffered setbacks, yes, but—”
Before Pet could finish his sentence, an earth-dragon guard approached. He was holding a wooden bucket, the interior nearly glowing with the remnants of a lemon-yellow paste.
“Sire, we’ve found several of these buckets. I thought you’d want to see one.”
Androkom took the bucket, examining the contents. He lowered his snout inside and sniffed. “Honey and citrus oils,” he said. “And . . . an undertone of jimsonweed.”
“Jimsonweed?” Pet asked.
“There’s a whole chapter devoted to it in Dacorn’s treatise on botany,” Androkom explained. “When ripe, it produces a spiky seedpod filled with pink berries. The juice has hallucinogenic properties. There’s only a two or three day window of ripeness when it is effective as a drug, however. If ingested at the wrong stage, it’s poisonous.”
The earth-dragon guard had something further to say. “Sire, I’ve also been told that one of the guards on the roof saw two sun-dragons flying away in the night. They didn’t appear injured. The only thing that struck the guard as odd was that it looked like they were being ridden.”
“Ridden?” asked Androkom.
“By humans,” the guard said. “Females, he thinks.”
“The Sisters of the Serpent, no doubt,” said Androkom.
“What evil is Blasphet planning now?” Shandrazel said, rising from his cushion and stalking to a long sheet of parchment hung on the wall. The parchment bore a map of existing political boundaries in the kingdom. Various cities and landmarks were sketched upon the sheet with dark charcoal. Shandrazel tore the map down and rolled it up roughly. He turned to Androkom and said, “Follow me.”
“Where are you going?” Pet asked.
“This is none of you your concern,” Shandrazel snapped. His eyes were narrowed in anger as he moved toward the hallway. Androkom gave a nod toward the earth-dragon guards. As Pet attempted to follow, the guards rushed forward, blocking his path.
Pet backed away, wondering what to do next. He cast a glance to the other humans in the room. Kamon, the elderly prophet from the mountains, approached. “What’s happening?” he asked in a hushed tone.
“I don’t know,” Pet said. “Apparently Blasphet has done something to the sun-dragon representatives, and now Shandrazel is mad at us.”
Kamon took Pet by the arm and led him further from the earth-dragon guards. “Do you think he’s heard of Ragnar’s exploits?”
“He hasn’t said anythi—exploits? What have you heard?”
“Ragnar’s men have been recruiting soldiers from throughout the kingdom,” said Kamon. “So far, they haven’t killed any dragons. This may be why Shandrazel remains ignorant. The movements of humans throughout the kingdom are of little interest if no dragons are being harmed.”
Pet ran his hands through his hair. With Shandrazel looking for a way to prove he was still in charge, the worst thing possible would be for Ragnar to actually start killing dragons. Pet had caught a subtle look of hunger when Shandrazel had looked at the tapestry of Albekizan tearing apart humans. “What’s Ragnar hoping to accomplish? Shandrazel isn’t Albekizan. He wants peace; if we humans would work with him and try to keep him happy, he’ll grant us our freedom.”
“It doesn’t matter what Shandrazel wants,” said Kamon. “You’ve heard the hatred of his fellow dragons. He’s alone in his desire to grant us rights.”
“At least we have a dragon on our side right now,” said Pet. “Shandrazel was just talking about how he may need to use his army to gain respect. If Ragnar provokes a war, Shandrazel’s going to crush him.”
Kamon leaned closer, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “What if the dragons were deprived of Shandrazel’s leadership?”
“How? What are you getting at?”
Kamon reached out a boney hand and took Pet by the arm. He pulled Pet further across the room from the guards, guiding him until they were behind a marble pillar, out of sight of the earth-dragons. Standing beneath a tapestry that displayed Albekizan in flight, his forty-foot wingspan depicted life-size, Kamon whispered, “Shandrazel trusts you. Daily you stand close enough to end his life with a single thrust of a poisoned dagger.”
Pet peeked back around the pillar, expecting the earth-dragon guards to be running toward him. They stared in his direction, but gave no sign of having overheard Kamon. Pet found himself feeling dirty for even having heard the idea.
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” Pet said. “We finally have a dragon king who wants to treat mankind fairly and you’re proposing we poison him? I know he sounded angry when he left the room a few minutes ago, but this is only a minor setback. I just need to talk to Shandrazel in private. Get his mind back to where it naturally wants to be. I’ve had a lot of experience dealing with moody dragons. Chakthalla could get into funks over the smallest things, and I could always cheer her up.”
Kamon’s face fell. He looked as if he’d just heard the worst news in the world.
“What?” said Pet.
“It’s true,” said Kamon. “There have been . . . whispers. Some have said that you aren’t the dragon-slayer Bitterwood. That you’re an imposter, who lived a life of comfort as the pet of Chakthalla.”
“Oh,” said Pet. “That. Didn’t you know that I just acted as her pet so that I could pass unnoticed among the dragons?”
“If you’ve killed so many dragons, why did a look of fear pass through your eyes when I mentioned killing Shandrazel? The men of the Free City believed you were Bitterwood because of Albekizan’s public accusation. Has it all been a lie?”
“I’m not going to waste my breath arguing with you,” said Pet. “You stood before the crowd and proclaimed me the savior of humanity. You said God had revealed the truth to you. Are you going back to your followers now and tell them God screwed up?”
Kamon looked as if he’d swallowed a bug.
Before they could resume their argument, a faint sound caught Pet’s attention. Though muffled by stone, Pet recognized the cry of a woman in tremendous pain. He remembered the musician he’d left in his chamber. This wasn’t a good morning for an unidentified young woman to be discovered in the palace. His guts knotted as he thought of the consequences of his pointless passions. If the girl was harmed, he’d never forgive himself.
Pet moved toward the exit. The earth-dragons lowered their spears to block him. Pet kept advancing, coming right up to the tips of their weapons. He couldn’t hear the girl now. Had they stopped hurting her? Or had something worse happened?
“Move back, human,” one of the guards said.
“Has no one told you who I am?” Pet said, lowering his voice to a chill growl. “Have you never heard of Bitterwood? The Death of All Dragons, the Ghost Who Kills?”
“Bitterwood isn’t real,” the first guard scoffed.
“I heard his legend years ago,” the second guard said. “You’d have been in diapers.”
“I’m older than I look,” said Pet. “Also, faster.”
Before the guards could react, Pet dove for the hall beyond them, slipping beneath their outthrust spears. Earth-dragons had many virtues as soldiers—strength, toughness, loyalty—but rapid reflexes weren’t among these attributes. Pet was halfway down the hall before the guards made it out the door. He turned the corner as a second wail of pain came from below. It wasn’t coming from the direction of his bedchamber. Had they taken her to the dungeons?
The stairs down had two parallel tracks, a broad set of steep steps for sun-dragons, and a smaller, more shortly-spaced set of stairs for earth-dragons. Pet leapt his way down the sun-dragon stairs. His long years as a companion of a sun-dragon had left him well-practiced in traversing the landscape of giants.
Soon he found the torch-lined tunnel leading to the dungeon. A crew of earth-dragons stood guard, their heads turned to listen to the cries of anguish that came from an iron door standing open at the end of a short hall. Dim lantern light spilled from the chamber, and the jagged shadow of a winged dragon danced into the hall. Pet raced past the guards before they could blink. Their reptilian brains barely realized he’d passed them before Pet reached the lantern-lit chamber.
Pet froze, at first unable to untangle the scene before him, the mix of shapes, light and dark. The sounds of the woman screaming echoed so loudly within the windowless chamber he couldn’t instantly tell where her voice was coming from. His nose was the first sensory organ to ground him in the reality before him. Deeply wired channels in his brain recognized the smell of urine and vomit, and the stale, acrid stench of a human body unwashed for days. Slowly, his eyes made sense of the nightmare before him. The giant moving lump in the center of the chamber was Shandrazel. Half his body was in shadow, half lit by a single bright lantern. His emerald eyes glowed in the gloom like a cat’s. Androkom stood opposite Shandrazel, his blue, shadowy shape ghostly in reflected light. The high biologian’s eyes were fixed on a limp thing in Shandrazel’s fore-claws, something pale white and shaped vaguely like a human woman. The serpentine tattoo on her scalp identified her as the assassin Hex had captured. Her limbs were twisted in ways a human body shouldn’t bend. Both her ankles were broken, and her fingers were knotted in unnatural configurations. Nonsense grunts spilled from her blue lips and tears wetted her cheeks. Her eyes were filled with terror as Shandrazel shook her.
On the floor beneath her was the map Shandrazel had ripped from the wall.
“Show me where his temple is,” Shandrazel shouted, his deep draconian voice nearly deafening Pet. “Show me or I’ll break you further! Show me!”
“Put her down!” Pet shouted, clenching his fists. “Have you lost you mind? Let her go!”
Shandrazel’s tail swept through the air, catching Pet in the chest. It knocked him from his feet as easily as Pet could have kicked aside a yapping lap dog. Pet smacked into the stone wall. His knees buckled and he slid down to rest on the slimy floor.
Shandrazel’s face was suddenly inches from his own. Shandrazel was normally such a gentle soul, Pet forgot just how big and powerful the full-grown bull sun-dragon truly was. His teeth were longer than Pet’s fingers. Pet had time to get a good, careful look at those teeth as Shandrazel growled at him.
Finally, Pet’s breath returned in a painful rush. “What’s happened to you?” he asked, his voice on the verge of tears. “You’re one of the good guys. You don’t torture women.”
Shandrazel snorted. “You self-righteous fool. I’m doing what I should have done the moment we captured this woman. She knows where Blasphet is. Blasphet is only a danger because humans treat him like a god. Why haven’t your kind stepped up to the responsibility of stopping him?”
Pet swallowed, fighting back his fear. He’d barely heard Shandrazel’s words as his attention remained focused on the white teeth flashing only inches from his face. Was Shandrazel somehow blaming humans for Blasphet?
“Blasphet was trying to wipe out humanity in the Free City!” Pet protested. “It’s insane to think I’m helping him.”
“We hadn’t accused you of helping him,” said Androkom. “Though, if you were, it would explain many things. Isn’t it odd that the Sisters of the Serpent knew to find Shandrazel in the bath while you were there?”
“What?” Pet felt as if he’d gone crazy. “The sisters were attacking at random! And they attacked me! Shandrazel, don’t let the actions of a few misguided girls turn you into a monster like your father.”
Shandrazel swooped Pet up in his fore-talons, his claws biting into Pet's biceps. He lifted Pet with no more effort than a man would expend picking up a kitten. He shouted, “I am nothing like my father!”
Pain blanked Pet’s mind and fear locked every muscle. He wanted to beg for mercy but couldn’t find the words and couldn’t have spoken them if he had.
Behind Shandrazel, Androkom craned his neck down to the face of the captured sister, who lay crumpled on the map where Shandrazel had discarded her.
“I fear Pet’s distraction has cost us,” Androkom said. “This human has stopped breathing.”
Despite being trapped in Shandrazel’s grasp, Pet felt himself stirred to rage at Androkom’s words. Suddenly, his mind unlocked, and words gushed out of him. “Are you happy?” he shouted at the sun-dragon. “You’ve killed a helpless girl! Do you feel strong now? Do you feel like you’re the king your father wanted you to be?”
“Silence! My father will be remembered as a tyrant! I will be remembered as the king who brought an end to kings!”
Shandrazel punctuated this sentence by spinning Pet around and slamming him face-first into the bedrock of the dungeon.
Shandrazel growled again, his anger building, “History will proclaim me Shandrazel the just!”
Again the bull-dragon slammed Pet into the stone. Pet heard snapping noises echoing through his skull. With an odd sense of detachment, he realized that his front teeth were loose against his tongue. He pushed them out of his mouth and felt them slide down his chin amid the drool and blood.
Shandrazel dropped him. Pet rolled to his back, staring dumbly at the towering reptile above him. His limp right arm fell against the broken fingers of the dead woman. He coughed as the blood in his mouth hit the back of his throat. Shandrazel gazed down at him with a look that was half rage, half fear.
“Shandrazel . . . the wise,” the sun-dragon said, his voice growing calmer. He swallowed hard as he stared at Pet. Pet could see himself reflected in the sun-dragon’s eyes. His once sharp and shapely nose was now flattened against his face. He was bleeding freely from a gash over his right eyebrow. Slowly, his vision faded. Shandrazel’s voice sounded dreamy as he said, “Most of all, I shall be remembered as Shandrazel . . . the merciful.”
Pet closed his eyes. He was vaguely aware of the sounds of chainmail jangling; the guards from the hall had finally arrived.
Androkom’s calm, authoritative voice said, “Cart the corpse away. This cell has a new occupant.”
Distantly, an earth-dragon voice barked out a reply, but Pet could no longer understand the words. His ears filled with a sound like rumbling surf. He felt as if those waves were lifting him, leaving him adrift, tugging him ever further away from the shore of awareness. He floated into darkness, utterly alone.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
* * *
ATTRACTIVE SOULLESS MONSTERS
THE SCHOLAR’S GATE was a thick oak door hung on iron hinges. The door was tall enough that a sun-dragon could enter, and so heavy that Graxen feared he wouldn’t have the strength to open it. Beyond the Scholar’s Gate was the Grand Library, the domain of the high biologian, a research collection surpassing the contents of all other libraries in the kingdom. Only the high biologian and a few chosen attendants could freely enter the Grand Library. A student needed the high biologian’s consent to pass through the gate, and this consent was rarely granted.
Fortunately, Graxen wasn’t a student any more. He was Shandrazel’s messenger, and as such had permission to travel anywhere in the kingdom. What’s more, by tradition, copies of the keys to all libraries were given to the king, and as messenger Graxen had access to them. The ceremonial key was a work of art, a rod of iron over a foot long with a head shaped like a dragon’s skull, the teeth plated with silver. Silver letters were scrolled along the black shaft, spelling out a quote from the Ballad of Belpantheron. The string of syllables was interpreted by some scholars as reading, “My lord is wise according to the wisdom of an angel, to know all things that are in the earth.” The words were meant to remind kings that the battle between dragons and angels wasn’t won by brute force. Dragons had once fought only with tooth and claw, while angels fought with swords and spears. Victory came, according to the poem, when dragons stole the knowledge of angels, and learned to forge metals and create their own weapons and armor.
Graxen wasn’t certain the key would actually work, or if it was merely for decoration. To his relief, the key slipped into the lock easily. The lock clicked open. The massive door then swung away from Graxen with only the slightest push, its balance a testament to the engineering prowess of the biologians.
As he stepped within, Graxen froze at the magnificent vision before him. The Grand Library was nearly a hundred yards across, a vast open tower filled with all the knowledge of the dragon races. The roof high overhead was a giant dome intricately crafted of steel and glass, allowing the pink rays of sunset to spill into the chamber. Iron staircases twisted in elaborate intertwining helixes giving access to rings of walkways lined with tall bookcases. Looking up at the tomes that lined the room, it seemed impossible that the world was old enough that so much could have been written down. All the books he had dusted in the College of Spires might possibly have filled this central chamber, but dozens of hallways opened from each floor leading to more book-filled rooms. Graxen felt a sense of vertigo as he tried to take in the sheer scope of the information before him. Certainly, the knowledge he desired would be somewhere in this library.
Besides the books, the library featured an impressive collection of fossils and sculptures that showed the ancestry of the dragons. An enormous skeleton of a tyrannosaurus rex dominated the center of the room, its huge jaws dwarfing even those of sun-dragons. High above, sculpted recreations of pteranodons hung from chains, seemingly frozen in mid-flight among the stacks. He’d long heard the argument that the winged dragons were descendents of pteranodons, but it was a claim he found dubious. While the torsos and wing limbs held an undeniable similarity, he found their stubby hindlegs almost comic, and had always felt the primitive beasts must have been horribly clumsy in the air with no tail to serve as a rudder. Of course, bats flew gracefully without significant tails, so he knew intellectually it wasn’t barrier to flight. Still, when he was in the air, his tail was as important to the fine tuning of his maneuvers as his wings. On a gut level, it didn’t make sense that these ancient reptiles led in a direct path to him.
Graxen moved across the smooth floor, passing through the shadows cast by the replica reptiles above him. As much as the sheer scope of the library stirred his hopes, it also filled him with a sense of despair. No two libraries were ever organized the same. Centuries ago, clans of biologians had engaged in armed conflict to impose a standard system for categorizing information. The War of Words had ended with hundreds dead and left libraries throughout the kingdom vandalized, with countless books stolen and restolen by marauding colleges. In the aftermath, all hope of a standardized system was lost. Each library was organized via secret and unshared systems that helped protect the knowledge within them from predation, theft, or destruction by competing scholars. Unfortunately, it meant that Graxen would now need to find one of the few dozen biologians who directly served Androkom to act as his guide, or he would have to figure out the organizing principal of the library on his own, wasting hours, perhaps even days, in his search.
Still, he wasn’t quite willing to walk up to a stranger and announce, “I seek a manual that will instruct me in the art of procreation.” There was the chance that, if Androkom learned of his presence, so would Shandrazel. While Graxen was deeply in Shandrazel’s debt, he couldn’t afford the distraction of checking in with his employer and risking a new assignment. So, trusting to luck, he ventured down a nearby hall. He chose his path it because it was the most poorly lit of all the halls leading from the main room, and he guessed that forbidden knowledge would be entrusted to the parts of the library most enshrouded by shadows.
Using this guiding logic, when the hall he traveled forked, he chose the darker of the two paths, and then repeated this again at his next choice. Now, however, the futility of this search method became clear. Randomly lifting a book off the shelf, he found the lighting too poor to discern the title. Perhaps he would need to find a guide after all. The biologians who knew these stacks could no doubt maneuver through them in total darkness. It was said that the former high biologian, Metron, was able to navigate through the maze of books with his eyes closed and unerringly lay his claws upon any tome he desired.
“Ah, Metron,” Graxen sighed. “I wish you were here now.”
“Truly?”
Graxen spun around, searching for the source of the voice. It seemed to have come from a narrow gap between two shelves. It was difficult to tell, though, if there was a chamber beyond, or if the shadow merely gave the illusion of such. He crept forward.
“Who’s there?” he said, keeping his voice low.
“Metron. The one you seek,” the voice said. Graxen found that the gap between the shelves was filled with a tall stack of books. The chamber stank of dust and aged paper.
“You don’t fool me, stranger,” Graxen said, listening for any further noise. There was a scrape on stone. Behind the shelf? Or on the same row he was on, in the darkness at the end? The long tall rows of books baffled sound, and confused his senses. “Metron was banished. Who are you truly?”
“I am Metron,” the voice said. “And, I am banished, a tatterwing cast out into the wilds.”
“These aren’t the wilds,” said Graxen.
“True,” the voice said. “Fate has led me back to my long time home. No one knows the hidden chambers of this library better than myself. I could elude detection for the remainder of my days. Yet, this is not why I’ve returned. I’ve come seeking an individual dragon.”
“Who?” asked Graxen. Then the answer seemed obvious. “Androkom?”
“No. Androkom and I didn’t part on good terms. The dragon I seek, as difficult as this may be to believe, is you, Graxen the Gray. I’ve returned to the palace to speak with you, since I’ve learned you now reside here in service to Shandrazel. I entered through a passage that only I know of. I didn’t expect to find you in the library, however.”
“This does give me reason to be skeptical of your claims,” Graxen said, straining his neck to try to see over the top of the stack of books. Only dim shadows lay beyond.
“Some biologians argue that there are no coincidences. They see in chance encounters the guiding claws of an architect of fate. Some days, I wonder if my life is not a testament to this fundamental truth.”
“Why would you seek me out?” Graxen asked, still not convinced that the voice belonged to Metron, but willing to accept it until more information emerged. “I know of your betrayal of Shandrazel and your alliance with Blasphet. You’ll find no favor from me.”
“What leads you into this dark corridor, my son?” asked Metron. “Is there something you seek? Why not ask one of the attendant biologians?”
“What I’m looking for is none of your business,” said Graxen.
“Everything in this library is my business,” said Metron. “I’ve had over half a century to organize this collection. It will take Androkom decades to unravel my system. If there is anything you wish to find, there’s no one better equipped to lead you to it than myself.”
Graxen looked down the long hall of books, back toward the distant light of the main hall. How many books were here? Ten million? More? He could spend years looking at them one by one.
Haste was of the essence. Shandrazel was no doubt wondering why he hadn’t reported back from his pursuit of the valkyries. He also knew he should inform the king of the unprovoked attack by the gleaners he’d encountered near Dragon Forge. Yet, he could do neither of these things until he found the information he needed for Nadala.
“You’ve taken a long time to consider your answer, my son,” said Metron.
“Don’t call me your son,” said Graxen. “I know you mean it in a metaphorical sense, due to your greater age, but I find the word distasteful.”
“That’s most unfortunate,” said Metron. “Because I don’t intend the word in a metaphorical sense. I’ve come here, Graxen, to confess my greatest secret to the one most harmed by it. I’ve carried this terrible burden for many years. I’ve watched you grow, witnessed the cruelties you’ve endured, and I stood in silent cowardice. I’ve betrayed you, Graxen, by never admitting to the world that I am your father.”
“What is the purpose of these lies?” Graxen said, his voice loud enough that, should any attendants be near, they would almost certainly hear him. “Metron was famed for his celibacy.”
“You speak of my public refusal of the invitation to the Nest. I did feel that way, in my early years as high biologian. However, the matriarch and I were the two highest authorities among the sky-dragons. We often had contact on a purely professional basis. There are ceremonies at the Nest that the High Biologian attends. The matriarch and I would sometimes retreat to private chambers to discuss the burdens of our shared duties. Neither of us was young. Both of us were past the sanctioned age of breeding; even if we weren’t, breeding between us was contraindicated by our genetic threads. Yet, despite this knowledge—or perhaps, perversely, because of it—we soon found our attraction overwhelming, and succumbed to mutual passions. We carried out our secret trysts for years—until the matriarch reported she was pregnant. There are poisons that can terminate a pregnancy, but they can be fatal for an older female. When you were born, it was her intention to have you killed. I pleaded with her to spare your life. As you were my only offspring, I couldn’t bear the thought of your death. My rank prevented me from claiming you as my own, but through the years I’ve watched your progress with great interest.”
Graxen wanted to dismiss these words as lies, but found he couldn’t. The greatest mystery of his life was why the matriarch had allowed his survival beyond infancy. Of all the sky-dragons, only the high biologian would have had sufficient sway to ensure his survival. Instinctively, he knew Metron was telling the truth. Still, not everything made sense.
“Why did my survival matter? I was a freak, fated to never breed. If the sole value of a child lies in passing along the parent’s genetic material, I was of no value to you.”
“This is not an easy thing to explain, Graxen.” Metron sighed. There was soft scraping sound on the row behind the niche. Was he moving something? “If my sole desire in this life had been to pass along my genes, I had that opportunity many times over. The threadlines dictated a half-dozen valkyries I could have productively mated with. I refused; my brother Pachythan was selected in my place.”
“Why did you refuse?”
“Intellectual arrogance, I suppose. I’ve witnessed the mating behavior of lower animals. The hardwired desire to rut seems to be the driving force of life; only in the sky-dragon has the intellect advanced sufficiently for reason to take command of those baser instincts. At least, so I thought. In reality, the first moment I felt the matriarch’s cheek against my own, all reason left me, and I surrendered to the same animal lust that drives all other creatures.”
“Truly?”
“Truly. I remember the first time I met the matriarch. I cherished her strength and her humor. I recall the gemlike quality of her eyes, and the way that sunlight danced upon her lustrous scales. Every time I met her, my infatuation deepened. I grew fond of her scent; days spent without hearing the music of her voice were as cold and barren as the depths of winter. When at last I confessed my desires, and found she felt the same, it was the first moment of my life when I was wholly alive. Don’t you see, Graxen? I didn’t mate due to some intellectual scheme to produce the perfect scion. I wanted you to live because you were a testament to the feelings I had for the matriarch. I wanted you to live because you were product of my love.”
“Love?” said Graxen. “All my life I’ve been taught that love is a folly of the lesser races, an unworthy emotion for a sky-dragon.”
“I know. I preached this doctrine. I’ve written books defending it. I’ve been a hypocrite of the highest order. Falling in love with the matriarch changed everything I knew about the world. Publicly, due to the gravity of my office, I couldn’t speak out against the chosen method of propagating our species. But, privately, I fear for the long-term prospects of our race. What does it matter if we become as numerous as ants and as powerful as gods, if we breed away all compassion and love from our species?” As Metron spoke, his voice seemed in motion, beginning in the book-filled niche and ending in the hall behind Graxen. Graxen turned to find the elderly sky-dragon, his wings torn to strips. His wounded limbs weren’t fully healed; he smelled of rot and corruption.
Metron continued: “I fell victim to Blasphet because he flattered my intellect and I ignored my heart, which knew what he wanted was wrong. I believe the underlying amorality of sky-dragons led us to stand silent as Albekizan attempted genocide against the humans. We hold the intellect as the highest virtue while denouncing the value of emotion. We mock as philosophical illusions such concepts as good and evil. We’re following a genetic road to becoming a race of brilliant, attractive, soulless monsters.”
“Your words are hollow to me,” said Graxen. “Where was your defense of love when you held power? You once had the authority to change the world. Now that you’ve lost your rank, you confess to your regret?”
“Yes,” said Metron, lowering his head, looking woeful. “Yes, when I held power, I sought to protect the status quo. I may be the greatest hypocrite in all of history, yet it may not be too late for me to make amends.”
“How?”
“While I’ve lost my rank and power, the matriarch remains in her position. I must speak to her. I must appeal to the last embers of her affection and ask her to end the centuries-old traditions that separate the sexes. I believe it’s time to allow love to again play a role in the pairings of sky-dragons. It may be that she’ll have me slain the moment she sees me. But what if she’s as riddled with regrets as I am? The seeds of my words may fall on fertile soil. It’s a slim chance, but I feel I must try.”
Graxen contemplated the words. The matriarch had shown such hostility toward him. Did that hostility mask a regretful heart? Would she listen to Metron?
“Why do you need me?” he asked.
“As a tatterwing, I cannot simply fly to the Nest. I can’t make this journey alone, Graxen.”
“I’ve met the matriarch,” said Graxen. “I don’t think my presence will help your case.”
“But—”
“But I didn’t say I wouldn’t help. I can’t condemn you for falling in love. I, too, have recently tasted this emotion. I’ve met a female who I want to be with and, against all odds, she wishes to be with me. It’s why I was searching through this library.”
“You . . . were going to meet her here?” Metron sounded confused.
Graxen felt embarrassed, but he’d already said enough that he could see no harm in confessing all. “No. I need information. Neither Nadala nor I have been trained in the, um . . . skills . . . of biological pairing.”
“Oh?” said Metron, still sounding bewildered. “Oh! You mean you don’t know how to copulate.”
“I chose not to use such crude terminology.”
“Crude terminology is one of the more enjoyable spin-offs of the process. However, it’s understandable that you don’t know what to do. Mating comes quite naturally to lower animals, but for thinking creatures the act can appear slightly absurd and impractical. I assure you, however, with a little practice everything makes sense. It’s mainly a matter of changing the way you look at your body’s plumbing. You see, the organs of reproduction and the organs of waste lie very—”
“Stop,” said Graxen, raising his fore-talon. “I’m uncomfortable discussing this matter with you. Isn’t there a book I could read? Some manual of instruction?”
“Oh,” said Metron. “Why, most assuredly. There’s a book for everything, you know. In fact, you’re in luck. Albekizan’s father was a collector of such manuscripts. The subjects are all sun-dragons, of course, but the biological differences between our species are mostly a matter of scale. The Prime Codex of Pleasure is an excellent reference work, due to the illustrations. Two of the five known copies reside in this library. I drew quite extensively from its pages during my encounters with—.”
“Enough!” said Graxen. Despite his intense interest in the subject, he was disturbed by the thought of learning details of the encounters between his parents. “Show me the book. Then I’ll take you with me to meet Nadala. I suspect she’ll be interested in your mission. Perhaps she’ll know of a way for you to see the matriarch.”
PET GINGERLY TOUCHED HIS FACE. His left eyebrow was a hard, swollen knot. He wasn’t certain he could open the eye beneath it—in the pitch black cell, there was no difference with his eyes opened or closed. He was missing three teeth, two on the top and one on the bottom. His hair was tangled and glued to his face by dried blood. His nose was too painful for him to explore its new contours. He couldn’t breathe through it, which was just as well. He could taste hints of the odors that haunted the cell. He’d barely been awake earlier when the guards fastened the manacles onto his arms and legs. An earth-dragon had sullenly washed the floors by pouring stagnant water from a wooden bucket onto the area where the girl’s corpse had been. The traces of urine and vomit that crossed his tongue were dreadful; he was glad his broken nose spared him the full impact of the stench.
He drifted in and out of wakefulness. He wasn’t certain how much time had passed; though it felt as if he’d been here an eternity, he suspected he hadn’t even endured a day, since the guards hadn’t yet fed him.
In the tomblike silence, Pet’s attention was drawn to a scratching, clicking noise nearby. A rat? No, the scraping was more metallic, like long needles tapping against iron. A moment later, a loud clank echoed through the chamber, the distinctive sound of a padlock opening. The hinges of the iron door groaned as they inched open. Dim light seeped through the ever-widening gap.
Two women squeezed into the doorway, their faces barely visible in the light of a small vial that glowed with a yellow-white phosphorescence like an oversized firefly. The women had shaved heads tattooed with serpentine designs; their bodies were hidden beneath heavy black cloaks. They moved barefoot across the floor toward Pet.
A yard away, they drew to a sudden stop.
“That’s not Deanna,” one said.
“Help me,” Pet whispered, his voice sounding like someone else’s as it passed through his damaged mouth.
“Kill him,” the sister who carried the light said, drawing her dagger.
“Wait,” the sister on the right said. “I’ve seen him before. He’s the one they chained before the crowd in the Free City. His face is messed up now, but I remember his hair.”
“That’s me,” Pet said, summoning the strength to sit up. “I was the one Albekizan tortured. You were in the Free City?”
“Yes,” the girl said bending down to take a closer look at his face. “Is it true? You’re the great dragon-slayer?”
Pet turned his head, ashamed that these girls were staring at his damaged face. He felt like a monster. “I’m not a great anything anymore,” he whispered.
“We should free him,” the woman said, kneeling and grabbing his chains.
“Are you crazy?” the other one hissed. “This isn’t the mission.”
“Missions change,” the woman answered as she started working her lock picks within the manacle that bound Pet. With a snick, the band loosened. He rubbed his free arm. It felt cold as ice.
“Were you here to save the other girl?” said Pet.
“We heard that Deanna was captured,” the girl said as she worked on the lock binding his ankle. “Blasphet wanted us to make certain she was finally able to complete her suicide mission.”
“Shandrazel completed it for you,” Pet said. “He killed her trying to make her reveal Blasphet’s location.”
“Did she?”
“No.”
The girl holding the light-vial grumbled. “We were going to kill one of our own, but we’re rescuing some stranger now? This is going to be difficult to explain.”
The first girl finished working on the manacle. She stood up as it clattered to the floor. “My name is Shanna,” she said. “My companion is Lin. She wasn’t at the Free City or she wouldn’t question why I’m doing this.”
Pet tried to stand, but his feet were numb, and he wound up flat on his back. He sighed, and said, “I was there, and I’m not sure why you’re doing this.”
“All survivors of the Free City will forever be connected by our shared hatred,” said Shanna. “If you go from this dungeon and kill even one more dragon, you will be fulfilling your life’s most sacred purpose.”
Pet started to point out that Sisters of the Serpent worshipped the very dragon who’d designed the Free City, but decided that this was a bad time and place to launch an argument.
Pet again tried to stand. By bracing himself against the slimy wall, he was able to once more find his footing. His head felt heavier than it should be, swollen and throbbing. He was a foot taller than either woman. Shanna looked up at him with a curious emotion in her eyes. Admiration? Pet was used to seeing attraction in the eyes of young women, but admiration was something new. Lin didn’t seem so impressed. She scowled at him with an expression that told him he would need to watch his back.
“If Deanna is dead, we’re finished here,” said Shanna. “We’ll take you back to the leader. He can no doubt find a good use for the hero of the Free City.”
Pet found the idea of being to put to good use by Blasphet a rather ominous one.
Lin, the scowling girl, said, “He can’t be Bitterwood. He’s too young.”
“Anyone can be Bitterwood,” said Shanna. “He’s not so much a man as a spirit. Anyone can open their hearts to him and become the Death of All Dragons, the Ghost Who Kills.”
“Are you Bitterwood?” Lin asked Pet.
Pet tried to smile, to make some charming quip, but couldn’t. His torn lips reminded him of what he’d lost. His whole life, he’d been little more than a doll, a living plaything valued for his pretty face. And now, he was broken. He wanted to lie, and tell these women what they wanted to hear, but couldn’t summon up his old talents.
So, in the dim, chill dungeon, with the stench of death still tainting the damp air, the truth spilled out of him: “My name is Petar Gondwell,” he said. “I’m the man everyone rallied around at the Free City, though I’ve never killed a dragon. But, as you say, I’m young . . . and I’m eager to learn.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
* * *
BIG PROBLEM
JANDRA AND HEX waited on the shore of the island while Bitterwood and Adam rode Trisky down the steep, rocky path from the high ledge to the lake. As Jandra looked around the cavern, she easily picked out what was real and what was illusion now that she knew to look for it. The restored sky was fake, but the sands they stood upon were real enough, despite their exotic appearance. The sands were made of fine black gravel mixed with sparkling flecks of gold. Jandra surmised the gold was iron sulfide. The waters of the lake should have been highly acidic given the volume of sulfur leaching into them, but the sulfur had been bound with iron to create enough fool’s gold to build an island out of, apparently. The effect of the gold as it glittered under the water line was quite stirring. A person less knowledgeable in chemistry would no doubt think the goddess lived in unimaginable wealth.
The waters of the saline lake were full of strange fishes. Albino, eyeless minnows no longer than her pinky swam in the shallow waters near the shore, but further out dark gray-green creatures as long as sharks knifed through the water. Yet they weren’t sharks, despite their prominent fins. The creatures surfaced from time to time to breathe through a long mouth full of teeth. They were covered with scales that seemed more reptilian than fishlike. Some sort of water-dragon? Jandra had never heard of such a thing, but she’d never heard of the long-wyrms either, and by now Trisky was striding confidently across the surface of the water toward her. She could see the water beneath the long-wyrm solidifying into a thick sheet of ice as the beast loped forward. It was the same sort of phase transition she was able to invoke in water. Was the long-wyrm responsible, or was the goddess doing it remotely?
As Adam guided Trisky to the shore, Jandra noticed the look on Bitterwood’s face—it was a mix somewhere between awe and terror. She imagined the effect that this strange place must have on a mind less trained than hers. It angered her to think that this so-called goddess was only a human like herself, taking advantage of the ignorance of others to make her seem more powerful than she truly was. Not that the goddess wasn’t powerful, of course. Jandra knew she was up against someone with more experience in using the technology. Also, the goddess definitely had more imagination than she or Vendevorex had ever applied to their abilities. Turning invisible, starting fires, changing water to ice or steam—these seemed like parlor tricks compared to building an island paradise deep in the bowels of the earth.
“I would speak with you in my temple,” an ethereal voice said, coming from all directions at once. The bright golden flakes in the sands shifted and congealed, forming a path of gleaming bricks that led into the interior of the isle, vanishing amid the broad-leaved vegetation. Jandra took the lead in stepping onto the path with Hex following close behind. Jandra didn’t feel afraid. Ever since donning the helmet, she’d noticed that her actions were more confidant and decisive. Was the helmet suppressing her fears? Or had her adventures in the previous months simply toughened her so that nothing bothered her now? She only used to feel this confident whenever she’d been around Vendevorex. It had made her feel safe to know that he was watching out for her. Perhaps her growing friendship with Hex was providing a similar boost to her confidence. It wasn’t so hard to walk down strange paths in unfamiliar jungles knowing there was a sun-dragon watching your back.
The air was humid and warm as they moved past the thick foliage walls along the pathway. Butter-yellow birds flitted among the leaves, eating a collection of exotic beetles with carapaces gleaming like jewels. Snakes green as algae draped over branches like vines. Flowers in countless hues perfumed the air.
They soon arrived at the temple, a thicket of tall trees surrounding a platform of aged marble. Jandra walked up the steps to a gap in the trees. In the large chamber beyond a tall mahogany statue stood. It was a carving of the same woman they’d seen before. The figure was disturbingly immodest by Jandra’s standards, with no attempts at concealing the nipples or genitalia. The face of the figure had full lips and a seductive stare. She’d heard rumors that followers of the goddess celebrated the solstices with ritualistic orgies. The statue looked as if it would approve of such unbridled passion. Jandra was surprised Pet had never tried to become a high priest in such a religion.
Adam stopped when Trisky reached the steps of the temple.
“I can go no further,” he said. “I haven’t had the proper cleansing.”
“The goddess invited us,” said Hex.
“Her invitation wasn’t directed at me,” said Adam.
Bitterwood dismounted and followed Jandra up the marble steps, his eyes wide with a look she could only interpret as reverence. Bitterwood crept toward the mahogany idol. He stared at it in silence.
“Have I been wrong all these years?” he asked softly. “Did Hezekiah’s lies turn me from the truth?”
At his words, the statue came to life. The goddess tilted her head and looked down at Bitterwood. A smile crossed her lips. The expression of sexuality changed into the gaze of a mother looking at her child.
“A faith untested is no faith at all, Bant Bitterwood,” the goddess said. He voice was soothing and gentle. “You’ve faced many trials since you left my fold, dragon-slayer. What have you learned? Tell me of your wisdom.”
“I-I’ve been a fool,” said Bitterwood, dropping to his knees, staring up at the living statue. “There’s nothing wise about me.”
“Knowing this is a step toward wisdom,” the goddess said.
Bitterwood lowered his head and stared at the goddess’s feet as she stepped down from the pedestal and placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Forgive me,” he said, his voice on the verge of tears.
It was more than Jandra could take. She could see what was happening quite plainly with her finely tuned senses. The statue was crawling with the same tiny machines that gave life to Jandra’s own illusions. It sickened her to see Bitterwood so callously toyed with. It was obvious from his voice he was in tremendous emotional pain.
“This has gone far enough,” Jandra said, lifting her hands toward the statue. She reached out with mental fingers and grabbed at the machines that animated it, attempting to wrest control. The statue jerked in response, its arms falling limp, its head flopping back and forth, as if someone had taken it by the shoulders and given it a good shake. Jandra felt needles of pain prickling against the interior of her skull as something fought her control. She’d never experienced this feedback before; always in the past, her mind had been the only mind in command of the invisible engines. Now, a second force resisted her.
The eight-foot-tall mahogany statue marched toward Jandra in slow, forceful steps, as if walking against a powerful wind. The fingers of the statue’s right hand extruded into long wooden spikes. Jandra’s muscles strained as she fought to keep the statue from moving nearer. She knew if she relaxed her concentration for even a second, the statue would spring forward and bury the spikes in her heart. Bitterwood still sat on his knees, dumbfounded, watching in useless bewilderment.
“A-a little help here, Hex?” she said, as the statue drew ever closer.
“Of course,” Hex said, as his long scaly neck shot over her shoulder like a jet of red flame. The sun-dragon’s teeth crunched into the statue’s head, splintering it. The statue stabbed upward with her spikes but Hex easily caught the attack with his fore-talon. With a crack, he ripped the wooden arm free of the torso and tossed it across the room. He whirled, catching what was left of the statue with his tail and batting it. It crashed against the living trees that formed the walls of the temple, then clattered to the floor, lifeless.
“Okay, bitch, it’s on,” a disembodied voice growled. The air in front of Jandra was suddenly full of rainbows, and the largest of these rainbows ripped between the yellow and the green revealing a black void beyond. A woman’s arm shot out from the darkness and grabbed Jandra by the wrist.
“Nobody fucks me like this,” a voice on the other end of the darkness shouted. The slender arm yanked Jandra from her feet with superhuman strength. The walls of the temple vanished as Jandra fell into the rainbow. Beyond the colors, everything turned dark. Somewhere in the distance behind her, seemingly miles away, she heard Hex bellow her name. Then the rainbow closed, and she could hear and see and feel nothing at all.
BITTERWOOD ROSE from his kneeling position as Hex stood gaping at the empty space where Jandra had stood. Bitterwood charged across the room and grabbed the broken wooden torso of the goddess. He gripped the statue’s shoulders with both hands and cried, “What did you do to her? Bring her back!”
His voice trailed off as he realized that the thing in his hands was only a heavy lump of polished wood, utterly lifeless. Had he once more slipped into the dreamland between life and death? Was he sleeping, to have imagined this statue had been alive only seconds before?
“Jandra!” Hex bellowed, the force of his lungs causing the leaves of the surrounding vegetation to tremble. “Where are you?”
“This was real?” Bitterwood asked Hex.
“I saw it,” Hex said.
Bitterwood raced toward the steps of the temple. Adam was still outside, sitting astride Trisky. “What happened to Jandra?” Bitterwood shouted. “Where did she go?”
Trisky skittered backward at the sound of Bitterwood’s voice. Adam looked taken aback. “What do you mean? I know less of what’s happened than you.”
“Your goddess attacked Jandra,” Hex said, his head jutting out parallel to Bitterwood’s shoulder. “She was simply standing there when the statue attacked without provocation.”
“The goddess knows our hearts,” said Adam. “Perhaps Jandra was corrupted beyond redemption.”
“Jandra was a good-hearted girl,” Bitterwood said, stepping toward Adam, clenching his fists. “She cannot possibly be as corrupted by this world as I’ve been. Make your goddess bring her back.”
“Father, choose your words carefully,” Adam said. “The notion that the goddess can be made to do anything other than her own divine will is blasphemous.”
“I’ve committed sins much worse than blasphemy,” said Bitterwood.
“The goddess is the embodiment of wisdom,” Adam said. “If she acted in a hostile fashion, you must have faith that your companion was deserving of this judgment.”
Bitterwood wanted to leap over the head of the long-wyrm and tear Adam from his saddle. Perhaps if he beat him to a pulp, Adam would agree to pray for Jandra’s return. Bitterwood was chilled to discover his violent rage rising against his own blood. The memory of his brother Jomath dying at the foot of a temple much like this one rose in his mind. His hatred had ended his brother’s life. Would the darkness within him demand a similar fate for his own son?
Bitterwood let out a long, slow breath. It wasn’t his son who needed to be beaten until he prayed. He slowly sank to his knees. He bowed his head, aware of Hex only inches away, fully cognizant of his vulnerability if the great beast chose this moment to take his revenge. In an act of surrender, he closed his eyes and whispered, softly, “Goddess, please. Show mercy upon Jandra, just as she showed me mercy. Return her to us.”
Above him came the sound of giant wings flapping. It wasn’t Hex—even with his eyes closed, Bitterwood could sense the sun-dragon looming over him.
Bitterwood opened his eyes and looked up.
A bare-chested angel in black pants dropped from the sky toward him, his descent slowed by gentle flaps of gleaming golden wings. The angel carried something in his arms: a human form, judging from the legs jutting out—a girl? Jandra? No, the legs were too small and spindly.
As the angel landed on the steps of the temple, Bitterwood at last caught a flash of blonde hair as the girl lifted her head from angel’s breast.
“Zeeky!” Bitterwood cried, his heart swelling to discover she was alive. He experienced a strange and unfamiliar sensation. Could this be joy he felt, after so many years of knowing nothing but hatred and regret?
“Mr. Bitterwood!” Zeeky shouted as she dropped from the angel’s arms and ran toward him. “You’re okay!”
Bitterwood caught the girl as she sprang up to hug him. Her arms around his neck stirred memories of his own daughters, now dead. Yet somehow the memories were altered by the presence of Zeeky, becoming bittersweet rather than simply bitter.
“Where’s your pig?” Bitterwood whispered.
“Poocher’s okay,” Zeeky said. “We gave him a bath.”
Hex cleared his throat. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”
Bitterwood lowered Zeeky to the ground.
“This is Zeeky,” he said. “She’s my . . . friend.” The word felt foreign to his tongue. It had been many years since he’d used it. “Zeeky, the dragon is Hex. The man on the long-wyrm is—”
“Adam!” Zeeky said, waving. “You made it back!” She ran down the steps and hugged the snout of the long-wyrm. “Good to see you, Trisky!”
Bitterwood looked up from Zeeky to once more study the angel. The creature had long white hair and stood as tall as the statue that had just attacked Jandra. The angel’s wings folded in an elaborate origami, the feathers tinkling musically as they furled up behind his broad shoulders until they vanished. The angel took the long piece of black cloth draped over his shoulders and shook it, revealing it to be a coat. He pulled the coat on and from somewhere within its folds a hat appeared in the angel’s hands. It was broad-brimmed and black—exactly like the hat Hezekiah used to wear. Indeed, Hezekiah and the angel were almost identical in stature and garb, with only hair coloring and tones of skin to differentiate them. Bitterwood tensed. The only thing he despised more than dragons was the prophet Hezekiah. Of what relation was this angel to him?
The angel smiled once he was done adjusting his garments.
“As long as introductions are being made,” he said, “call me Gabriel.”
AFTER A BRIEF SECOND of nothingness, Jandra was pulled into blinding light. She couldn’t see a thing as two strong hands grabbed her shoulders and slammed her up against a wall. Her helmet striking the surface caused her head to ring like a bell.
“I run the show down here,” a throaty female voice hissed, inches from her face. “If you were told I’d let some Atlantean skank waltz in here and piss all over my territory, you’ve been sadly misinformed. Who sent you? Cass? It was Cass, wasn’t it?”
“I don’t know who Cass is,” Jandra protested, her eyes struggling to adjust to the light. The woman before her was little more than a dark outline, taller than Jandra by several inches, and judging from her grip, much stronger.
The woman slapped her hard. Jandra sucked her breath as the pain followed an instant later.
“Don’t lie to me! My sister has ruined one plan after another and I’m sick of it. I’m going to use you to send a message. There won’t be enough of your DNA left for her to clone your turds when I’d done with you!”
Jandra rubbed her cheek and cringed as she said, “I probably can’t stop you from killing me but would you please stop cursing while you do so?”
The woman chuckled and released her shoulders. “Really? That’s your big problem with me? My potty mouth?”
“No,” said Jandra, straightening up. “My big problem is you pretending to be a goddess and letting my friend humiliate himself. Bitterwood may not be a saint, but I don’t want to see him grovel in front of anyone.”
As she blinked her eyes, Jandra slowly began to see the woman more clearly. She was tall, with broad shoulders and sharply chiseled facial features. With her big hips and ample breasts, she was obviously the model for the goddess statue. Thankfully, she was clothed, wearing a loose white cotton blouse tucked into tightly-fitting blue pants. She was barefoot and her toenails were painted green, matching her hair, which had a dark, grassy hue. The woman was staring at her intently. Her eyes softened from anger into thoughtfulness. She chuckled again, and backed away.
The green-haired woman moved to a metal table that sat in the middle of the cluttered space. The room they were in was long and relatively skinny, filled with tables and shelves. There were no visible doors or windows. The most eye-catching items in the room were the multitudes of frames lining the walls, filled with strange paintings that seemed made of light and motion, showing creatures and landscapes of countless variety.
The surface of the metal table was covered with hundreds of sketches, most in gray pencil, a few inked and colored with washes of faint pigments. The woman picked up a white cylinder of paper and put it between her lips. She raised a finger, its nail also painted green, but chipped from heavy usage. She touched the finger to the paper cylinder and a small puff of smoke rose from the point of contact. The woman took a long slow drag, bringing the embers at the end of the cylinder to a bright cherry red. She then opened her mouth and released a long stream of smoke. The acrid fumes stung Jandra’s eyes.
“You know why I keep the human race around?” the goddess asked.
“I didn’t know you’d been the one to make that decision,” said Jandra.
“Tobacco,” the goddess said. “I can build an exact replica of this cigarette molecule by molecule using nanites. Under a microscope, no one could tell the difference. But the taste just isn’t right unless the tobacco has come through the whole process; the growing, the drying, the rolling. So, I decided to let humanity live, as long as they kept planting my favorite drug.”
“I see,” said Jandra. She had known that the goddess would be fake. She hadn’t considered the possibility she might be insane. Jandra backed away from the smoke, trying to get a feel for her surroundings. Instinctively, she felt they were still underground. Her eyes were drawn from one flickering image in the frames to another. Was that Shandrazel? In another frame, she saw sky-dragons conversing in a room filled with tapestries. Something was odd about them . . . were they female? The valkyries? Jandra had never seen them before. Finally, Jandra felt her heart leap as she spotted the island temple in one of the frames. Hex and Bitterwood were on the steps, looking as if they were shouting at Adam. Even if she didn’t know where she was, it was comforting to know they were still okay.
“You seem easily distracted,” said the goddess.
Jandra brought her attention back to the woman.
“What are all these pictures?” she asked.
“I like to keep watch over my various projects,” the goddess said.
“Your projects?”
“Little social experiments I’ve nudged along over the centuries. Living for a thousand years means you have time to follow a lot of different plotlines. I like to tune in from time to time. They’re like my soaps, you know?”
Jandra didn’t know. She couldn’t see any correlation between the images and something you would use to bathe yourself.
“Judging from that glassy stare, you’re not getting my jokes,” the goddess said, crossing her arms. “Which clenches it that you’re not Atlantean. Know what first tipped me off?”
“No,” said Jandra.
“Your accent. Dragons speak a variant of English, but they do it without the benefit of lips, so the sounds are all shifted. They fake sounds like ‘b’ and ‘p’ by pressing their tongues against the roofs of their mouths in a slightly different location than ‘d’ or ‘n’. You do the same thing despite having perfectly serviceable lips. I could hear it when you said, ‘big problem.’ It sounds like ‘dig drodlen,’ sort of. Which gives me a good clue who you must be. You’re that dragon’s daughter. Jandra, I think it is? And your father—for lack of a better term—was Vendevorex?”
“Did you know him?”
“Maybe,” said the goddess. “It’s not important. What is important is that I’m not going to tear you apart atom by atom and scatter your component parts out in a long smear through underspace. You didn’t know what you were doing. Punishing you would be like slapping a retard for breathing through her mouth. It’s not something a socially conscious ex-hippy such as myself is comfortable with.”
“Are you an Atlantean?” Jandra asked.
“Lord no.” The goddess rolled her eyes as if it was an absurd suggestion. “I’m the exact opposite of an Atlantean. An anti-Atlantean, if you will. I crippled the damn city when it first came to earth. If the Atlanteans ever figured out how badly I screwed them I’ll be the one who ends up as a skid mark in underspace. I’ll be . . . You don’t have a clue what I’m talking about, do you?”
“I confess, I’m having a difficult time following what you’re saying. Your accent is odd to me. And you really expect me to believe you’re a thousand years old? And you kept the human race alive to grow tobacco?”
“1174, with a birthday just around the corner. The candles on the cake will be seen from Mars. Just kidding. About the cake. God, you have the glassiest expression when I’m talking over your head. You should work on that. Make your default listening face kind of a grin. Seriously, you’ve got good teeth for a girl living in an era without dentistry. Show them off.”
The goddess walked closer to her again. Jandra started to back away, but found herself paralyzed. She couldn’t move a muscle as the green-haired woman came to within a few inches of her.
“Know what I’m doing?” the goddess asked.
Jandra couldn’t speak.
“Oh, sorry, let me give you back your jaw.”
Jandra’s mouth returned to her control. “Why can’t I move?” she asked.
“You haven’t put any locks on your genie, sweety,” the woman said, reaching out and rapping Jandra’s helmet with her knuckles. “You really don’t know how to use this thing at all, do you?”
“I’ve survived this far,” Jandra said, straining to even wiggle her fingers. The same tingling sensation inside her skull she’d felt fighting the statue returned, only now a hundred times as intense.
“For starters, wearing it as a helmet isn’t terribly flattering. You have nice hair. Don’t hide half of it.” The goddess ran her fingers through Jandra’s locks. Jandra’s head felt suddenly lighter. The helmet seemed to be melting off her scalp and dribbling down her spine.
“Reconfiguring it to run along your spinal column will make you modestly faster and stronger,” the goddess said. “The real benefit is appearance, though. You have a lovely face; this will let people see more of it. I like the natural, no make-up look. Fresh and healthy, almost virginal. Still, you could benefit from a little tarting up. Lower the neckline on that fancy blouse of yours. Show some cleavage and you could make men stupid.”
At the mention of the word cleavage, Jandra couldn’t help but think of Pet.
“The men in my life are stupid enough, thank you,” she said.
“Heh,” the goddess chuckled. Suddenly Jandra felt free to move again. “Yeah, a thousand years of evolution has really improved the brains of dragons, but I can’t tell a damn bit of difference in men. Of course, humans haven’t benefited from my benevolent intervention like the dragons have.”
“Now you’re claiming to have created dragons?” said Jandra, feeling her hair. Her helmet was gone; only a few thin fingers of metal ran along her scalp beneath her hair line. The rest of the metal had turned flexible and clung to the back of her neck, trailing down to the tip of her spine beneath her clothing. She again felt her senses altering ever so slightly. What had the goddess done to her?
“I didn’t create the dragons. I just tweak them from time to time. When Atlantis triggered the great collapse, there were only a few dozen dragons around. My friends and I helped them survive those rough early years. Then the sky-dragons diverged from the sun-dragons and started that brilliant eugenics program. Following the ninth plague of the humans, the dragon population really exploded. After that, the earth-dragons showed up and . . . You following this, honey? Am I talking too fast? Maybe you should start taking notes?”
The goddess shuffled through the papers on her desk. Jandra spotted a sketch of a long-wyrm with a cryptic note penciled in the margin—mutagenic expression of multiple limbs. The goddess found a sheet of blank paper and held it out to Jandra, along with a pencil.
Jandra shook her head. She’d had her fill of note-taking under her tutelage of Vendevorex. “I didn’t know there was going to be a quiz,” she said.
Over the goddess’s shoulder, Jandra noticed that Bitterwood and Hex had been joined by a tall man in dark clothing, and a smaller, blonde figure. Zeeky?
“So,” said the goddess, “I want you to understand something. Your genie? Since it’s unlocked, I could wiggle my fingers and it would crumble into dust. I’ll completely destroy your mojo if you mess with my toys again. We clear on that?”
“I understand you. I think,” said Jandra. Was genie another name for the helmet? She could only guess what a mojo might be. Despite the unfamiliar words, she was certain she understood the main point. Now, she had her own terms to deliver. “I don’t care what you tell Adam or anyone else about your powers. If you want to pretend to be a god, fine. However, I don’t want you to make any further claims of godhood to Hex, Bitterwood, or Zeeky. They’re my friends, and under my protection.”
The goddess took one last drag off her cigarette, her eyes fixed on Jandra in a cool calculating stare. She stubbed the remnant of the cylinder out in a ceramic plate that sat on the edge of the table. Her expression remained inscrutable for a moment, then, suddenly, she smiled.
“You’ve got balls. I like that. I have a feeling we can be friends.” The goddess leaned forward and held out her hand. “Put her there, Jandra Dragonsdaughter.”
Jandra was unfamiliar with the gesture, but instinctively extended her own open hand. The goddess grasped it, palm against palm, and gave her arm a vigorous shake.
“I can use a girl like you on my team,” the goddess said. “Welcome aboard.”
“Oh,” said Jandra, who had been unaware she was being recruited to a team.
“It’s Jazz, by the way,” said the goddess.
“What’s jazz? By what way?”
“My name,” the goddess said. “My real name is Jasmine Robertson, but all my buddies call me Jazz. At least they do before I get tired and kill them.”
Jandra let go of Jazz’s hand, not sure what to say.
“You gotta work on that glassy-eyed thing,” Jazz said. “Seriously, even if you don’t get the jokes, a grin’s going to make you look a lot smarter.”
Jandra started to tell Jazz that she was growing tired of her insults. Then, she decided to play along, and grinned.
“If I’m on your team,” said Jandra, “I’d like some further answers. You said you knew Vendevorex? Did you give him his helmet?”
“No,” said Jazz. “If I had, I’d certainly have taught him to lock it.”
“But, you watch the palace, right?” Her eyes were on the picture showing Shandrazel consulting with Androkom. “And you’ve been doing it for a long time? You saw me living there?”
“Sure,” said Jazz.
“Did you see me when I was just a baby? Do you know who my parents were?”
“Not really. I watched Vendevorex kill them, but never cared to learn their names. I was more interested in how a dragon had come to possess such a fancy toy. Man, he was so clumsy with it back then. I thought for sure he’d kill himself.”
“Oh,” said Jandra. “Then, you don’t know anything about my family?”
“I see where you’re going with this. Sure, I know a little something. Not everyone died that night. You have an older brother who escaped.”
“Really? What’s his name? Is he still alive?”
“How the hell would I know? I don’t follow the lives of every last living being. I just follow the major players. Sorry, kid. All I can tell you is he’s at least twelve years older than you, and he looked a lot like you with the hair and eyes.”
Jandra tried to imagine what her older brother must look like. The task was nearly impossible; there were simply too many men in the world with brown hair and brown eyes.
So, she had a second question. “What did you do to Zeeky’s family?”
Jazz met her gaze with a cryptic smile. The air took on an odd energy. Jandra looked around to find another of the rainbows she’d traveled through floating behind her.
Before she knew what was happening, Jazz gave her a rough shove with both hands against the small of her back. Jandra stumbled toward the rainbow, and again the world went black.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
* * *
PRODIGAL SON
IT WAS MID-DAY when Shanna and Lin drew their horses to a halt in front of a small farmhouse. Pet slid down from the horse he shared with Shanna while Lin went into the farmhouse to secure fresh mounts. This was their second change of horses in twelve hours. Pet didn’t know how far they were planning to travel; the girls proved frustratingly tight-lipped as to their destination or the reason for the frantic pace they kept.
As the horses they’d ridden for the last six hours wandered over to a nearby trough, Pet joined them, dropping down to his hands and knees to take a long drink of the icy water. Its chill freshness helped him overlook the horse drool streaming into the trough. The light was such that his face was dimly reflected in the water; he was grateful the image wasn’t sharper. He could see that both his eyes were ringed with black circles from his broken nose. The knot on his brow looked as if someone had shoved a hen’s egg under his skin. His lower lip was split and purple, pulling his mouth into a permanent pout. Fortunately, his right nostril had opened up a few hours earlier. While he’d been breathing through his mouth, the air had made his missing teeth ache. With his mouth closed, the pain was tolerable if he didn’t smile or frown or move or think.
Soon, they were astride fresh horses.
“Tell the others you lost sight of me during our escape,” Shanna said to Lin. “It may be some time before I can return to the temple. Inform Colobi that the pigeon made it safely to the roost.”
Lin nodded and spun her horse to ride off on a dirt path that intersected the road they had traveled. Shanna spurred her horse into a rapid trot heading in a direction Pet was pretty sure was west. Geography hadn’t been a subject he’d had any use for. He dimly recalled learning that the sun sat in the west, but never before in his life had that knowledge been of any importance. In truth, he cared little what his destination might be. All that was important now was that he was putting miles between himself and Shandrazel.
Pet wrapped his arms tightly around Shanna as she pressed her horse into a faster pace. He leaned his right cheek on her shoulders; it was the least damaged surface on his face. Her dragon-wing cloak was soft, the dark leather warm. He closed his eyes, grateful for at least this small comfort.
IT WAS THE FOLLOWING MORNING, and their fourth horse, when they arrived at the edges of a human encampment. The countryside was full of rolling hills and forests; it seemed that with each hill they’d pass over, he would spot more and more tents. Were these refugees from the Free City? Certainly these couldn’t all be worshippers of Blasphet. Pet had no flare for math, but it seemed like the humans here must number in the thousands.
If Blasphet did have an army of thousands, so be it. Pet had never been passionate about anything in his life. His philosophy had been simple—if you desired a life of comfort, follow the path of greatest comfort. Yet, during his journey, he’d spent a great deal of time thinking that comfort might not be the most worthy goal. The true Bitterwood, who he’d met once before, had dedicated his life to revenge. At the time, Pet had thought the old man was insane. Now, with his swollen, scabbed-over face sagging from his skull, Pet was starting to appreciate the value of vengeance.
If Blasphet placed a poison dagger in his hand and ordered him back to the castle, Pet suspected he would accept the mission. All his life, he’d allowed sun-dragons to shape him into the man they wanted him to be. Intentionally or not, Shandrazel had shaped him into a man with murder in his heart.
Shanna guided their horse toward the largest of the tents. Pet recognized it instantly and shuddered—it was the tent that had once belonged to Kanst, Albekizan’s cousin and general of the king’s army. It was a tent he’d slept in many nights after he’d been taken prisoner.
“What’s going on?” he asked as Shanna halted before the tent flaps. “This is Kanst’s tent.”
“Not since Vendevorex killed Kanst,” said Shanna, dismounting. “After the Free City fell, our leader appropriated supply wagons used by Albekizan’s armies. They were already packed up neatly outside the gates of the Free City. The Lord himself placed these supplies into our hands.”
Pet again glanced around at the city of tents. “I’m surprised that so many humans associate themselves with Blasphet after what he intended to do in the Free City.”
“Our association with Blasphet is a matter of strategic importance,” said Shanna. “It’s all part of our leader’s master plan.”
Pet felt confused. Shanna was talking about the leader as if he were someone different than Blasphet. “I though Blasphet was your leader.”
“So does Blasphet,” said Shanna. “But the truth isn’t so simple.”
“Then Blasphet isn’t who we’ve ridden out here to see? Just who is this leader of yours?”
As he spoke, the flaps of the tent pushed outward. A pleasant smell was released by the movement, an aroma like corncakes frying in bacon grease. Suddenly, a tall, naked, wild-haired man stepped from the tent. Pet recognized him instantly.
“Ragnar!” he said. “What are you doing here?”
“The Lord’s work,” said Ragnar, eying Pet skeptically. “Do I know you?”
“Yes,” said Pet. “I was at the Free City, on the platform. Albekizan accused me of being Bitterwood. You helped free me.”
Ragnar studied Pet’s face. Slowly, recognition dawned in his eyes. “It looks as if you’ve fallen on hard times. I take it this is your reward for negotiating with the great serpent?”
Pet swung his legs over the saddle and dropped to the ground. His inner thighs felt blistered and raw as he walked toward the naked prophet. If he never sat on a horse again, it would be fine by him.
“Negotiations can only get you so far,” said Pet. He drew up next to the hairy prophet and met his gaze, unflinching. At this distance, the smell of cornbread was no longer the dominant odor in the area. Ragnar hadn’t bathed since the Free City, apparently.
Yet it was Ragnar who wrinkled his nose as Pet leaned near him, as if Pet smelled rank. No doubt he did. Between the dried blood, the foulness he’d laid in back in the dungeon, and more than a day of constant horseback riding, he was in no position to judge anyone for their odor.
“If you’re building an army to fight Shandrazel,” Pet said, “Consider me your newest recruit.”
“Kamon reported the talks devolved into chaos from the first hour,” said Ragnar. “I’m not surprised by your change of heart.”
“Kamon?” said Pet. “He’s here?”
“No,” said Ragnar. “He remains at the palace. He serves as my eyes and ears there, just as Shanna, Lin, and others serve me within the temple of the Murder God.”
“Then the Sisters of the Serpent aren’t really devotees of Blasphet? You’re the guiding force behind them?”
“No,” said Shanna. “The core of the Sisterhood is composed of actual devotees of the Murder God. Colobi, the Serpent of the first order, truly believes the dragon to be a supernatural being.”
Ragnar said, “Even before the Free City, however, I’d planted my followers within the ranks of the cult. I’d long planned to free Blasphet.”
“What? Why?”
“Blasphet is far more dangerous to dragons than to men. I’d hoped he would rid us of Albekizan if we freed him. Now, it looks as if he will still be of use.”
Shanna added, “The Sisters draw their members from among the poorest, most wretched women in the kingdom. Women who have lost all hope. I was recruited from a camp of refugees from the Free City. But my true loyalty will always lie with Ragnar.”
“This sounds like a very dangerous game,” said Pet. “Blasphet sends his followers on suicide missions. Even if he likes you, associating with him is a good way to die.”
“My followers' faith is their shield,” said Ragnar. “There is no true danger in this world. Life only begins after you’re free of your mortal body.”
Pet nodded, though he had no clue what Ragnar was talking about.
“Kamon said you intended to attack Dragon Forge?”
“Soon. We’re waiting for the right moment to attack.”
“I have some potentially useful information,” said Pet. “The boss of Dragon Forge, Charkon, was just appointed general. He seemed worried about the danger to Dragon Forge with Blasphet on the loose. It wouldn’t surprise me if he sends reinforcements to the Forge any day now. For all I know, they’ve already left.”
“This is useful to know,” said Ragnar. “However, we cannot attack the Forge prematurely.” Ragnar lifted the flap of his tent. The smell of breakfast wafted through the air. For the first time since his beating, Pet felt the stirring of appetite.
“Come in,” Ragnar said, motioning for Pet and Shanna to follow. “Your arrival is well timed. We’ve cooked a breakfast fit to welcome a prodigal son.”
THE FLIGHT BACK to the abandoned tower was a slow and difficult one. Metron obviously could no longer fly alone. Graxen found the option of walking back unacceptable. So, they’d developed a system where Metron would cling to Graxen’s back in flight. Few dragons would have been strong enough to carry the weight, or graceful enough to remain balanced with a fidgeting burden pressed against their back. Yet, in many ways, it was as if Graxen had been training his whole life for this flight. The endurance he’d developed serving Shandrazel now gave him the stamina to carry Metron for many miles before requiring rest.
They could have flown even faster if not for the Prime Codex of Pleasure. The leather-bound tome was indeed an illustrated manual of acts of erotic love between sun-dragons. It had been drawn on the scale of sun-dragons as well; the pages were a yard high. The book weighed almost as much as Metron did; Graxen carried it strapped to his chest to balance the weight on his back.
During their rests, Graxen would find a spot of privacy to peruse the tome, his mood alternating between boredom, fascination, and a mild sense of terror. Some of the activity depicted looked as if it must certainly be painful. On an intellectual level, so many of the poses struck him as awkward and uncomfortable. Yet on a gut level, the process simply looked right. He almost felt as if he could have figured it out on his own if he’d been less timid.
Their travel was also slowed by Graxen’s choice of flight path. The road leading to Dragon Forge would almost certainly have produced witnesses. Graxen was too easily identified and Metron was too well known to take the chance that they might be sighted. So, they took a path over less-traveled terrain, with Graxen trusting his long study of maps and his innate sense of direction to lead him to his destination.
His faith in his navigation abilities were rewarded when, at last, the vine-covered tower once more loomed from the leafless forest. Graxen swooped down to a landing on the tower wall, near the gargoyle.
Metron dropped from his back.
“Why did you land on such a narrow wall?” Metron grumbled. “The structure looks unsafe.”
Graxen sighed. Much of his life, he’d entertained fantasies of what he and his father would discuss should they ever meet. Most of their actual conversations on this journey consisted of Metron complaining of his weariness or discomfort. Graxen had expected that meeting his father would be a joyous event. In reality, his feelings were far more complex. He felt a sense of satisfaction knowing the truth; discovering he was the son of the high biologian was almost like discovering he was a long lost prince. Yet he also felt anger and resentment, thinking of how different his life could have been if Metron had showed more courage. Graxen assumed that Metron’s complaints were a manifestation of the guilt that tore at the elderly dragon. During his quiet moments, Metron had the look of a dragon being savaged from the inside by his demons. Rather than being overwhelmed by larger emotions like love or anger, Graxen mainly felt pity for his father, and more than a little annoyance.
“Why couldn’t we land on the ground?” Metron asked, staring down at the leaves below.
“You’re free to wait on the ground if you wish,” said Graxen. “I choose to wait here for Nadala.”
“Ah, yes, your lover,” said Metron. “Are you certain we can trust her?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that love can blind a male to the faults of a female. How much do you truly know about her?”
“I confess, we’ve had precious little time for conversation. But the words we’ve shared resonate. She wrote a letter that revealed her most private thoughts, and the things she said could have come from my own quill. I trust her with my life.”
“I believe you,” said Metron. “But, the very act of falling in love with you requires her to be a lawbreaker.”
“Who are you to judge anyone for breaking laws?”
“I’m not judging her. I’m merely expressing my concern.”
“The passion I feel transcends laws. I can’t claim our shared passion is rational. All I know is that when I see her, I feel as if the world is a much more wonderful place than I have ever realized. When we’re apart, my thoughts can focus on nothing but her.”
Metron looked wistful. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, that is how I felt about Sarelia. In truth, that flame still burns within me.”
“Sarelia?”
“The matriarch’s true name. It’s seldom used since the matriarch doesn’t enjoy the luxury of individuality. As the guiding force of the sky-dragons, it’s imperative that all the individuals who have ever served as matriarch seem to be of one mind and one will. It enhances their authority.”
“You and she both possessed great authority,” said Graxen. “With a joint decree, you could have made your love lawful. You had the power to change the world. Why didn’t you?”
Metron looked forlorn as the evening sun hovered over the hills behind him. He was a small, elderly dragon, shivering in the chill air. His voice trembled as he answered. “You make it seem simple. Can’t you see we were chained by the very authority we wielded? Perhaps we simply lacked the courage to overthrow the traditions that gave us our power. Now, I’ve discovered a certain bravery that comes with knowing my remaining days are few. I’ve lost everything that was ever important to me. I’ve nothing to lose in speaking to Sarelia. It may be that future generations have much to gain. I want to try one last attempt at making the world a better place.”
Graxen nodded. He could think of a dozen arguments, a hundred questions, and thousand frustrations he wanted to shout at this creature that stood before him. In the end, he knew words simply wouldn’t matter. The past was past. Metron now represented a slender hope for a better future.
“The wind on this wall is worse than it would be below,” Metron said. “It cuts into me like a knife.”
Graxen turned his back to his father.
“Climb on,” he said. “I’ll take you down.”
Once Metron had found a comfortable spot to rest below, sheltered from the wind, Graxen flew back up to the top of the wall. He didn’t know when Nadala might show up, and he wanted to be in plain sight when she arrived. He perched next to the gargoyle and unstrapped the enormous book from his chest. He placed it on the gargoyle’s back and opened its pages. During his many years as a student, Graxen had been repeatedly drilled in the art of debate; he suspected this training could prove useful. He thought it likely Nadala would react with disbelief when he explained what was involved in the mating process. He would need to carefully present each step as a logical extension of the step that preceded it.
He lost track of the time as he studied the manual. The sun was nearly gone when he turned the page to find himself confronted with a detailed drawing of a male sun-dragon’s reproductive organ. The organ was depicted approximately life-sized, stretching diagonally across two pages, and was painted in vivid red and pink watercolors that seemed to glow in the dimming light .
A shadow fell across the book.
“What are you reading?” a female voice asked, full of curiosity.
Graxen spun around. “Nadala!” he yelped. “I didn’t hear you approaching!”
“I can land as silently as a dandelion wisp when I wish,” she said. “Is that a book behind you?”
Graxen held his wings in such a way that he blocked her sight of the illustration. He didn’t know what her reaction might be to the lurid material.
“It’s a work of anatomy,” he explained. “Of sun-dragons.”
“Can I see it?” she asked.
“I worry it might offend you,” he said. “It’s a matter of chance that . . .”
“Stand aside,” she said, in a soldierly tone, snaking her long neck over his shoulder to get a glance at the concealed material.
She suddenly grew very quiet.
“Goodness,” she said, a moment later.
“Please note this is not the organ of a sky-dragon,” he said. “I don’t want you to experience alarm. Or disappointment.”
She took a step back and held out her fore-talons. Instinctively, he placed his own talons in hers. She squeezed them with a gentle pressure as they stared into each other’s eyes.
“I find it charming that you’re embarrassed,” she said.
“I hope you continue to find it charming,” said Graxen. “I fear I may embarrass myself repeatedly in the coming days.”
“The coming days, the coming weeks, the coming years,” said Nadala, squeezing his talons tighter. “I’ve made my choice, Graxen. I’m leaving the Nest. You and I will carve out a new life together somewhere, even if we have to cross the haunted mountains.”
“I’m happy to hear this,” said Graxen. “I’m even happier to tell you it may not come to this. There is a chance, however slender, that our love could be sanctioned by the matriarch.”
Nadala shook her head. “You’re deluded to entertain such fantasies. I know you’re her son, but the matriarch will never allow us to be together. And what if she did let us breed? It’s not a brief tryst ending in pregnancy that I desire. I want you as my life-mate. Why should only sun-dragons know the pleasure of a life-long love?”
“It’s as if you’re speaking the words that dwell in my heart,” said Graxen. “The matriarch won’t listen to me. But there is one she may listen to. Indeed, someone she did listen to, once, or else I wouldn’t exist.”
“What are you talking about?”
“My father,” said Graxen.
“Metron?” she asked.
Graxen felt as if he might topple from the wall. “You . . . you know that? How can you know that?”
“Everyone at the Nest knows it,” said Nadala. “It’s whispered in the dead of night, the tale of how even the matriarch once knew love. It’s a story that brings shame to some and hope to others.”
Graxen trembled. Nadala stroked his fore-talons.
“What’s wrong,” she asked.
“This has been the central mystery of my life,” said Graxen. “I would have paid any price to know who my father was. And now I learn that everyone at the Nest knew the truth? It’s difficult to accept that the secret I most longed to discover was common knowledge to fully half our species.”
“I didn’t know you didn’t know,” said Nadala, sounding apologetic. “When I told you that Sparrow was sired by Metron’s brother, I thought you understood that her aggression toward you was a matter of familial pride. She sees herself as the true inheritor of Metron’s bloodline. I promise I never meant to deceive you.”
Graxen tried to control his emotions. There was nothing rational about the feelings swirling in his mind. Why should he be angry at Nadala? Why should he suddenly feel such a sense of loss? How would his life be different if she had blurted out the truth when they first met?
“I’m confused,” Nadala said, looking concerned. “You obviously know that Metron is your father; I take it you only learned recently. Who told you?”
“I told him,” a voice shouted from below.
“A spy!” Nadala shouted, releasing Graxen’s claws. She leapt from the ledge, diving into shadows toward the voice.
“Wait!” Graxen shouted, but it was too late. There was a terrible grunt below as Nadala found her target. Graxen leapt down to join Nadala, and found she had pinned Metron roughly to the ground. The old dragon had a look of terror in his eyes.
“It’s a tatterwing!” she growled.
“Nadala,” said Graxen. “That’s Metron.”
Nadala’s eyes widened in sudden understanding. She released her grip on the elderly biologian.
“My apologies,” she said.
“You have nothing to apologize for,” said Metron, struggling to stand and failing. “I am nothing but a tatterwing now. I deserve whatever contempt is heaped upon me.”
Graxen moved to Metron’s side and helped him rise. A moment later, the ancient biologian found his balance on unsteady legs.
“Why is he here?” Nadala asked Graxen. Was there a hint of fear in her voice?
“I want to see the matriarch once more,” said Metron. “Graxen has told me about your situation. You two are not the first sky-dragons to find your desires in conflict with the carefully crafted eugenics of our race. There was once a logic to our strict planning. A thousand years ago, the dragon races were birthed from a stock of fewer than thirty individuals. Inbreeding could have doomed our species. Instead, careful planning guided our kind through the dangerous maze of a confined genespace. However, a thousand years have passed. Mutations have arisen, and there’s been enough variation that one race became two—for, you see, sun-dragons and sky-dragons have both grown from this small group of common ancestors. Our race has flourished due to its intelligent design; but, in the long term, nature provides a more powerful shaping force through natural selection.”
“I thought we were the product of natural selection,” said Graxen. “You yourself taught that we’re descended from the ancient reptiles called dinosaurs.”
“All lies,” said Metron. “We were created in a laboratory by humans. The first dragons were designed to be hunted by men for entertainment. A thousand years of history have brought the cycle of predator and prey full circle. I shed no tears during the sun-dragon’s ritualistic hunt of humans.”
“Humans . . . created us?” said Nadala. “How?”
“It’s difficult to believe, I know,” said Metron. “Still, you would have to be blind not to recognize that mankind was once the dominant species on this world. A thousand years ago, they had access to technologies we can only imagine. The brutes who now toil in the fields once strode this world like gods.”
“This is difficult to accept,” said Nadala.
“Early biologians worked hard to obscure the facts surrounding dragon origins. I don’t expect two minutes of truth to overturn a millennium of lies. However, it’s not important. The important thing now is that I see the matriarch. I alone may convince her that our race no longer requires her guidance to thrive.”
Graxen took Nadala’s fore-talon once more and looked into her eyes. “I believe him,” he said. “He wants to change the world. And it’s a world I would like to live in. However, the choice is yours. If you want to run, escape together beyond the mountains, we shall. If you want to stay and try to help Metron see the matriarch, I will be by your side as well.”
“She’ll kill him,” said Nadala. “This is foolish.”
“More than foolish,” said Metron. “It’s very close to insanity.”
“We cannot fly to the island,” Nadala said.
“No,” said Metron. “But, there’s a tunnel leading into the heart of the Nest. I traveled through it often, but time has washed its exact location from my memory. If I were inside it, I could find my way to the matriarch. You wouldn’t even need to accompany me.”
“If you go alone, you won’t survive,” said Nadala. “I’m a valkyrie. I won’t shy away from a just course of action simply because it’s dangerous. I know of the tunnel.”
She turned to Graxen. “Whatever this insanity is that drives you, I’m infected as well. Perhaps a single night of courage can change the future. Yet we must not lie to ourselves: taking Metron into the Nest will likely lead to our deaths.”
Graxen nodded. He squeezed her fore-talon tightly. “With you at my side, I don’t fear death.”
Nadala rubbed her cheek against his, holding it there for a long moment. He savored this touch, this tenderness. When she pulled away her eyes were soft, glistening, yet shining with determination.
“I do fear death,” she whispered. “But I cherish you more than life. You’re a cause worth dying for. I’ll take you through the tunnel.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
* * *
ONE DAY LOVE
“I WELCOME YOU to the abode of the goddess,” said Gabriel. The timbre and cadence of his voice had a songlike quality. “You came here searching for Zeeky. As you see, she is unharmed.”
“And what of Jandra?” Hex asked as he lowered his long jaws to within inches of Gabriel’s hat brim. As the sun-dragon spoke, Gabriel’s silvery locks fluttered.
Bitterwood watched the angel carefully. Gabriel showed no sign of being intimidated by Hex. Indeed, against the backdrop of the white jungle flowers blooming in the trees behind him, Gabriel’s androgynous face looked positively serene.
Gabriel answered calmly, “Jandra was invited to commune more closely with the goddess. I assure you, she hasn’t been harmed. She will return to you soon.”
“It didn’t look like an invitation to me,” Hex said. “It looked like an attack; an obscenity was used. I want Jandra returned now, unharmed, or . . .”
“Or?” said Gabriel, his pearly teeth gleaming as he smiled. “Choose your words carefully, dragon.”
Bitterwood moved down the steps, clearing a path for Hex to take action. He glanced toward Zeeky, still standing near Trisky. If combat broke out, he could quickly reach her and move her to safety. The jungle behind her was thick with ancient trees. Perhaps he could find a safe place for her amid the branches.
He assumed that if Hex attacked Gabriel, Adam and Trisky would fight on the angel’s side. Bitterwood felt no loyalty toward Hex, but he also knew that Gabriel was lying. Jandra hadn’t been invited anywhere; she’d been taken away by force. If a fight broke out, was he prepared to take Hex’s side? Even if it meant standing against his own son?
From Hex’s tone, a fight seemed increasingly likely: “Don’t threaten me, angel. You would do well to remember the Ballad of Belpantheron. Dragons long ago evicted angels from the domain of the earth. History is on my side should we come to blows. Tell your goddess to return Jandra. Now.”
Gabriel’s beatific face hardened. Bitterwood stepped closer to Zeeky. Adam’s hand rested on his crossbow, his eyes fixed on the sun-dragon. Trisky paid no attention to the fight, munching contentedly on the handful of grass that Zeeky held out to the copper-colored long-wyrm.
Suddenly, a disembodied voice once more rang through the air.
“There’s no need for this argument,” the goddess said. Her voice was an ethereal thing. The syllables sounded almost as if formed by chance from the noise of leaves rustling in the breeze, the buzzing of bees, and the soft cries of distant birds. Yet as she continued, the words became more human, and gained more directionality. Bitterwood looked toward the entrance to the temple as the voice said, “You are all my guests. Jandra is unharmed.”
The goddess emerged onto the temple stairs. She had reverted to a mostly human appearance, clad in a long flowing gown of spun emerald. Her skin looked liked flawless marble and her hair curled down her back in stony locks. She was ten feet tall, towering above even her angel, Gabriel.
There was a movement further in the temple, half-concealed behind the goddess’s statuesque frame. Jandra stepped from behind the goddess. Her helmet gleamed with the blue of the artificial sky overhead. She raised her hand in a wave, looking mildly embarrassed at the commotion she had caused.
Bitterwood called out, “Jandra! Are you safe?”
“I’m fine,” Jandra said. “The goddess and I have just been engaged in girl talk.”
Bitterwood felt hairs rise on the back of his neck. Something about Jandra’s voice was off. And, as she stepped onto the stairs beside Gabriel, she had no visible reaction, as if the angel’s presence wasn’t worth her notice.
He looked toward Hex, whose nose twitched as he sniffed Jandra. Hex shifted his head, glancing back toward Bitterwood. The second their eyes met, the unspoken truth passed between them.
Whoever this woman was, she wasn’t Jandra.
JANDRA EMERGED FROM NOTHINGNESS under a starry sky. The ground beneath her yielded like fine, loosely packed snow, with a slight crunching sound as it compressed beneath her feet. The landscape was a bleak, uniform gray, a fine gravel dustscape that spread in every direction for as far as she could see. The setting was curiously odorless and eerily quiet. Jazz stood with her back to Jandra twenty feet away, her eyes turned toward the sky. Jandra stepped toward her, and was startled to find herself flying. No, not flying . . . but a single step had somehow transformed into a long, slow jump. She gently floated back down to the gray dust beside Jazz. She turned her face to the sky, her body posture mimicking the older woman’s. She was bewildered by what she found in the sky. The moon? Only now ten times larger, and covered with wispy white clouds and enormous blue-gray oceans.
“Where are my friends?” said Jandra. “Where are we?”
“Your friends are still at the temple. I’ve sent ambassadors to entertain them. We’re on the moon. We’re in a prep zone that has atmosphere but hasn’t been terrascaped yet. That big ball above us? It’s our home. It’s the planet where you’ve lived your whole life. Pretty cool, huh?”
Jandra felt queasy and lightheaded. Not just lightheaded, light-bodied. The contents of her stomach seemed to be lifting toward her throat as easily as her feet had lifted from the surface.
Jazz said, “You may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?”
“We’re on the moon?”
“I thought it would be nice to give you a little perspective. I like you, Jandra Dragonsdaughter. You came a long way and put yourself in a lot of danger to help a friend. You’ve got good instincts. We’re going to get along fine.”
“I’ve heard legends of men who live on the moon,” Jandra said.
“Yeah. They’re all jerks. We won’t be meeting them.”
“Then why are we here?”
“Look,” said Jazz, waving toward the glowing blue-white orb above them. “Have you ever seen anything so beautiful in all your life? That’s an entire biosphere you’re looking at. It’s not just a big ball of wet rock. It’s the largest living thing you’re ever going to lay eyes upon. You have to understand something important: If it weren’t for me, that wonderful living planet above us would be dead. The world owes me big, but I’m not expecting any thanks. I did it out of love.”
Jandra stared at the earth, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. Icecaps and oceans and land masses green and gray and tan. It seemed unimaginably small and impossibly big at the same time.
“I was born into a world that was dying,” said Jazz. “The world had already toppled over the brink of environmental catastrophe before I was out of diapers. The atmosphere and oceans were poisoned in order to satisfy the consumption of the wealthy. The richer nations could afford the illusion of environmental health by shipping their most polluting industries to remote corners of the globe. Except, there were no remote corners of the globe—pollute the air in Timbuktu, and eventually the poison spreads everywhere.”
“I’ve heard that mankind once ruled the world, then fell,” said Jandra. “Did the environmental catastrophe cause this?”
“Curiously, no,” said Jazz. “The more poisoned the world became, the wealthier people grew. It was a perverse cycle. When people are rich enough, they can afford to live disconnected from nature. What does it matter if the atmosphere is fouled when you live cradle to grave in sealed vehicles and buildings where the air is finely controlled? Sure, there were millions of people who cared and tried to save things. But there were billions more who carried on their happy lives as planetary parasites, shopping and gorging with endless appetites, forever plugged into an endless stream of distracting entertainments that allowed them to ignore the greater truth around them.”
“So what—”
“Double, triple, quadruple whammies,” Jazz said, anticipating her question. “Atomic warfare in Asia was followed quickly by big bioterrorism attacks in the world’s largest cities. Seventy percent mortality in London and New York, almost ninety percent in Hong Kong. The biggest earthquake ever seen flattened California and set the world ringing like a bell. Tidal waves, volcanoes, earthquakes; it was a lousy year. Economies collapsed faster than consumers could shop them back to health. Megamolds evolved and ate half the south. Then, right in the middle of this mess, Atlantis showed up.”
“You keep talking about Atlantis like I should know what it is,” said Jandra.
“Well, you should, girl. You’re using Atlantean tech.”
“Vendevorex mentioned it but didn’t go into detail. Who are the Atlanteans?”
“The Atlanteans are us,” said Jazz. “Just people. But Atlantis isn’t us at all. Right around the time that the world was falling apart, the Navy built a fancy piece of equipment called a warp door. It functioned using the concept of spooky action at a distance—entangled particles are able to communicate information instantaneously no matter what their distance, as if they are connected via some higher space. The Air Force built a very fancy and very expensive portal that connected a room in Dover, Delaware to a room in Houston, Texas. The two sides of the warp door were separated by over a thousand miles on the map, yet occupied the very same space due to the higher dimensional nature of entangled particles.”
“I don’t understand a thing you’re saying to me,” said Jandra.
“Don’t worry about it. The important thing is, use of the warp door created ripples through underspace, and an alien intelligence came to earth to check us out because of this.”
Jazz pointed to a gleaming silver snowflake in the center of an ocean. Jandra’s enhanced vision could see that the snowflake was actually an island, covered with gleaming spires miles high.
“That’s Atlantis. I don’t know who designed it, but it arrived as a tiny seed of intelligence and grew into a city searching for inhabitants to care for. It’s nearly godlike in power, and almost limitlessly altruistic. It was going to share its advanced technology freely with mankind—until I crippled it.”
“Why would you cripple something you say was altruistic?”
“Because mankind had done so much damage with its primitive tools, I could only imagine the horrors unleashed if every man had the power of a god. Fortunately Atlantis was, at its heart, a machine intelligence. I was the FBI’s most wanted cyberterrorist. So, when I met Atlantis, I hacked it. I wasn’t able to destroy it, but I was able to give its omnipotence some boundaries. Its altruism ends at its shores now. The people of Atlantis live in bliss, but Atlantis withholds its blessings from the remainder of the world. The Atlanteans are mostly blind to the rest of the planet. The passage of a thousand years has proven I made the right call. As the rest of mankind has fallen back into barbarism, the earth has slowly begun to heal.”
“I have so many questions I don’t know where to start,” said Jandra. “I feel like I only understand every other word you’re saying.”
“Yeah,” said Jazz. “I suppose I could patiently explain the entire history of mankind to you over a long course of lectures. Or, I could do this.”
Jazz reached out and touched a finger to Jandra’s forehead. Images splashed through her mind, like the pages of a million picture books being flipped at blinding speed. A city of gleaming spires; a small reddish dragon attacking a marble angel; a black doorway that opened into emptiness; an apple; a starry sky; a silver key. She dropped to her knees, dizzy, stirring up a cloud of fine gray dust. She saw a dead man walking even though he was plainly disemboweled. She saw emaciated monkeys dropping down from rainbows. She brought her hands to her scalp. Her temples throbbed. It felt as if her brain were swelling against the confines of her skull.
“What are you doing to me?” she gasped, as tears blurred her vision.
“I commanded the nanites to physically rearrange your synapses to give you some of my memories. You won’t be able to understand them instantly, but as we talk you’ll discover you have the context to understand me. You’re going to have the mother of all headaches for a while, but in the long run you’ll be much more pleasant company.”
“I don’t remember agreeing to be around for the long run,” said Jandra, certain she was going to vomit. When had she last eaten? All she could think of was that unidentified jerky that Adam had offered her. Salty and tough, the way it kept growing in her mouth as she chewed. Her body spasmed, yet, somehow, she held it all in. Trembling, she said. “I-I just want to find Zeeky and her family and take them home.”
“Right,” said Jazz. “That won’t be happening.”
“W-why?” said Jandra. The pain in her grew worse. Her head was being stabbed at its core by a million sharp knives. Her intestines knotted. She fell as her strength fled. It seemed to take forever to fall to the gray dust. “W-what d-did you do to them?”
“You won’t understand yet,” said Jazz.
“That h-hasn’t s-stopped you so far,” Jandra said, her fingers digging into the moon soil. She clenched her jaws and closed her eyes, trying to calm the storm within her. She wanted Jazz to keep talking. Her voice was a welcome distraction from the cacophony within her own skull.
“True,” said Jazz. “Those rainbows that got us here pass through underspace. When I go through them, there’s nothing in between. I step in one side, I step out the other. But a thousand years ago, I met a man who got lost between the rainbows. His name was Alex Pure. He was the first human ever to use the door, and he survived in underspace for years. He told me that being inside was akin to being omniscient. He said you see anything you want from inside: the future as well as the past. It’s possible he was delusional, but I’d like to find out. I’m already immortal; omniscience would be a nice bullet point on my godhood résumé.”
“What does Z-Zeeky’s family have to d-do with this,” Jandra said. She felt on the verge of insanity as a thousand years of unearned memories found purchase in her mind. Only the conversation was holding her in the here and now.
“When any normal person passes through underspace, they don’t experience it. Artificial beings like Gabriel don’t record anything. But if you send a monkey in, it doesn’t always come out. Alex Pure had fried his brain with thirty years of substance abuse; something about his damaged cerebral cortex allowed him to perceive the imperceptible and get lost in a place that isn’t a place. I’ve been carefully tweaking Zeeky’s family for generations, breeding a new kind of human with a functional form of autism that bridges the higher human thought world and the more primitive monkey mind at its core.”
“Y-you’ve purposefully damaged the m-minds of an entire village?” Jandra asked, as sweat dropping from her face darkened the soil beneath her. “What gave you that right?”
“Rights are a philosophical myth,” said Jazz. “I do it because I can.”
Jandra wanted to summon the Vengeance of the Ancestors to consume Jazz in flame, but her aching brain couldn’t remember how. She wasn’t even certain she knew how to stand up again. Her own thoughts seemed to be in the wrong place inside her head, roughly shoved aside by Jazz’s memory bomb. How long would it be before she recovered?
“Are . . . are you going to throw Zeeky into the rainbow?” she asked.
“No. The little girl passed through underspace without getting lost. But her mother and a few others didn’t. They’re still inside and I don’t know how to guide them out. Zeeky, however, somehow can hear them inside. She’s my key to retrieving them. Once they return, I’ll take their brains apart and discover the secret to getting inside.”
Jandra struggled to control her limbs once more. In the fractional gravity she rose, lifting her chin, summoning the most defiant gaze she could manage.
“I w-won’t let you hurt Zeeky,” she said.
Jazz tilted her head back and laughed. “Nice,” she said. “I like this side of you. The resistance. I haven’t had a lot of challenges lately. It’s been, what, three hundred years since I tracked down the last person who knew how to make gunpowder? Things have been a little dull since. I mean, I keep busy, but I need someone like you from time to time to keep me feeling human.”
As Jazz spoke, Jandra mentally reached out to touch the nanite swarm surrounding the thousand-year-old woman. Slowly, the invisible dust settled on Jazz’s skin, too faint to arouse her attention. Then, Jandra willed the machines to ignite and engulf Jazz in flame.
Nothing happened.
“Good try,” said Jazz, walking over. She lifted her hand to brush the hair from Jandra’s face. Jandra wanted to slap her fingers away, but found she once more had no control over her arms.
“That look in your eyes right now,” Jazz said, looking deep into Jandra’s eyes. Jazz’s own eyes were shockingly human; dark blue verging on gray, the faint traces of crow’s feet at the corners. There was nothing within her gaze to suggest her age or power. “I love it. Everyone else I’ve talked to in recent centuries just looks at me with awe, or terror. You’ve got higher emotions in your eyes. Sure, there’s anger and fear. But I see curiosity as well. You want to know what I can teach you. I think you want to be my friend; you just don’t know it yet.”
Jandra’s skin crawled as Jazz ran her fingers along the line of her jaw. She felt sickened by the fragrance Jazz wore: faintly floral, yet corrupted by the scent of tobacco.
“We’re going to be best friends, Jandra Dragonsdaughter. You’re so pretty, you’re like a little doll. I’ll dress you like I want to; we’ll play games together. You’ll always lose, of course. And you know what?”
Jandra couldn’t answer. Even her tongue was no longer her own.
“One day,” whispered Jazz, bringing her lips to Jandra’s ear, her hot, dry breath stinking of ash. “One day love will be the only thing I see in your eyes.”
BITTERWOOD HAD MET THE GAZE of many dragons over the years. In his hatred of the beasts, he’d come to know them intimately. He could read the finest subtleties of thoughts that crossed the visage of a dragon as it lay dying: the futile hopes, the unrequited angers, the remorse over promises unkept, even the last faint flicker of peace as a beloved memory swept across a fading mind.
At this moment, however, looking into Hex’s eyes, he experienced something he’d never felt before: camaraderie. Suddenly, in this strange and terrible paradise, the two blood enemies became the only ally the other could truly trust.
Hex gave a slight nod of his head. Bitterwood nodded back, his hand falling to the sword he’d taken from the long-wyrm rider, still tucked in his belt.
Hex lunged, his reptilian muscles uncoiling with the speed of a rattlesnake striking. With his powerful jaws he clamped down on the marble torso of the goddess, biting her hard enough to send cracks spiderwebbing through her body. He whipped the living statue around, slamming her head straight into the center of Gabriel’s chest. The angel was knocked from his feet by the blow, landing on his back on the grass at the bottom of the steps.
Bitterwood leapt, raising the sword overhead with both hands, and then driving it down with his full weight into the angel’s belly. To his relief, the sword penetrated the angel’s flesh. Bitterwood’s momentum drove the sword deep. The blade sank into the earth beneath the angel. Bitterwood sprang away before the angel could recover sufficiently to grab him.
Gabriel didn’t look so much hurt by the attack as embarrassed to have been pinned like a bug. He grasped the hilt and started to withdraw the blade, when suddenly Hex struck again with the living marble, driving the ten foot statue down onto Gabriel’s head like a hammer. The goddess shattered from the blow. Gabriel was suddenly obscured by dust.
Bitterwood spun around as the false Jandra leapt toward him. He caught her in mid air with an uppercut to her jaw that left his whole arm numb. Jandra was knocked back but seemed unfazed by the blow. Where he’d punched her, the flesh of her chin peeled away, revealing a steel jawbone beneath.
So. This, too, was a machine, just as Hezekiah had been.
He danced backwards as she charged him, swinging her feminine fists in rapid punches that would have killed him if they’d connected. Suddenly, she fell, tripped by something long and serpentine—Hex’s tail! The false Jandra looked up as a shadow passed over her. Hex’s open jaws shot toward her. Bitterwood cringed as the sun-dragon’s jaws snapped and Jandra’s body was suddenly headless. Sparks flew from the neck as Hex spit out the feminine head, the hair now wet with saliva and blood. Bitterwood could see that several of Hex’s dagger-like teeth had snapped from their sockets. Bitterwood was familiar with the ache of freshly missing teeth, but he had no time to express sympathy for the dragon.
Suddenly, the jungle itself came to life. The tree branches jerked toward Hex, throwing out long lassos of vines. Hex snarled and kicked, leaping from the ground, his powerful wings beating. Bitterwood was nearly knocked over by the force of the wind.
Hex’s attempt at flight proved futile. The vines continued to shoot from the trees, wrapping him in a net of green, dragging him down beneath their weight. Bitterwood turned to run, aiming his flight toward Zeeky. Adam and Trisky still stood frozen, no doubt in shock at seeing the goddess shattered to dust. Zeeky was only inches from Trisky’s jaws; if Adam recovered, he could make things unpleasant.
Bitterwood reached out to scoop up Zeeky, wrapping his arm around her chest as he ran past. Yet, Zeeky was not to be scooped. She stood her ground and seemed to weigh a thousand pounds. Bitterwood was thrown from his feet as his dash came to an abrupt halt. He skidded on the grass, trying to make sense of what had just happened. He rolled to his back as Zeeky came flying down from above, her small foot landing on his midsection with breathtaking force. He doubled over, unable to breathe, feeling as if her blow had pressed his bellybutton against his spine.
His vision blurred as he fought to remain conscious.
“What is it with you people?” Zeeky growled. “Do you go into other people’s homes and break all their pretty things? I should kill you right now, asshole!”
“Goddess, please,” Adam said, leaping from Trisky, throwing himself prostrate before Zeeky. “Spare him. He knows not what he’s done.”
Zeeky frowned. She stared at Bitterwood with murder in her eyes. Then, just as quickly, she relaxed, and grinned.
“Oh, why not?” she said. “You’re spared, Papa Bitterwood. But, I’m warning you.” Zeeky bent down and waved a finger in his face. “Damage one more of my toys, and I’ll break your arms and legs and dump you in the middle of the Nest wearing only a Bitterwood nametag. My valkyrie buddies would love using you for target practice. Understand?”
Bitterwood did understand. Zeeky was a machine like Jandra, also animated by the mind of the goddess. He should have known Zeeky wouldn’t be here without Poocher.
“If you’ve hurt Zeeky, I’ll kill you,” Bitterwood whispered.
“Yeah, yeah,” said the false Zeeky, shifting her foot to stand on Bitterwood’s throat, pinning him, cutting off his breath until the world faded away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
* * *
THE LAST EASY KILLS OF THE NIGHT
PET HAD BEEN ALLOWED to sleep in Ragnar’s tent to recover from his grueling ride. He woke as night was falling. Distant shouts had pulled him from sleep, but when he sat up everything was silent. Perhaps he’d dreamed the voices. He hadn’t slept well. His bed was a mat of woven reeds over cold, bare red clay. He’d been given a scratchy wool blanket that might have once been white but was now a drab, uneven beige and carried Ragnar’s signature unwashed aroma. Despite the stench, Pet pulled the blanket tightly around him as he rose on aching, blistered legs. He stepped out into dying sunlight, teeth chattering. The air was thick with the smell of campfires and countless iron pots full of black beans and salt pork.
The camp was oddly quiet. All around, men stood by their fires, their eyes turned toward Ragnar. He was kneeling over a fallen horse, helping a woman rise. Pet’s sleep-clouded mind took a second to recognize her. It was Lin, the Sister of the Serpent who had split away from Shanna and him earlier. She looked as if she hadn’t slept in days. Her fallen horse was still alive, but its jaws were foaming; its eyes gazed off in the distance with a dull, unfocused stare. It looked as if the beast had collapsed from exhaustion only seconds before Pet left the tent.
Lin looked up into Ragnar’s bearded face. Her eyes were full of reverence as she said, “It’s done. The fox entered the henhouse.”
Ragnar nodded and looked over his shoulder toward one of his men.
“The hour is nigh,” said Ragnar. “Tell Burke we can tarry no longer. The great day of His wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand against us?”
THE TUNNEL NADALA led them through was a tube nearly twenty feet in diameter. They had walked at least a mile, slogging through half a foot of icy water over slimy stone. Their way was lit by a small lantern Nadala carried.
“The humans who once ruled the world built this aqueduct to supply cities hundreds of miles from the lake,” Metron said. Though no longer high biologian, he still had a way of talking that made it seem that he was delivering a lecture. “Water once filled this pipe to the ceiling.”
“I’ve always been skeptical of legends that human built the dam,” said Nadala. “You biologians approach knowledge on an abstract level only. We valkyries actually get out and touch the world. We’ve maintained the dam and kept its floodgates and pumps functioning since time immemorial. Scholars think of holding back a thirty-mile-long lake as a math problem. We warriors think of it as merely another aspect of our world that can be managed with muscle, sweat, and iron gears.”
Graxen admired this aspect of Nadala. She was right. Biologians seldom solved problems because they never wearied of debating them. Valkyries were more practical-minded.
Soon they arrived at a pump station. Nadala produced a key that led them through a gate of welded steel bars. They passed through a long, tall tunnel with hundreds of pipes running overhead. Water dripped and drizzled from a hundred tiny leaks, producing staccato splashes that echoed through the concrete tunnel like drumbeats. The passage went on for many yards before ending at a platform with cement steps leading up to a set of double iron doors.
“Ah,” said Metron. “I remember this well. The Thread Room lies directly above us.”
Nadala handed the lantern to Graxen as she walked up the stairs. The twin doors were bound together with a heavy steel chain. The lock was a strange one—there was no slot for a key, only a dial with numbers upon it.
“We’ll have to break it,” Nadala whispered.
“No,” said Metron. “I recall the combination.”
His aged talons took the lock and spun the dial in precise turns. Seconds later, the lock clicked open.
“Sarelia didn’t change it,” he said, sounding relieved. “A good omen.”
As the doors creaked open, Graxen thought he heard something behind them, near the leaky tunnel. A splashing sound, like footsteps.
“Did you . . . ?”
“What?” asked Nadala.
“I thought I heard something,” Graxen whispered, walking back down to the platform. The singing of the falling water, like countless fountains, was all he heard now.
“Perhaps it was a rat,” said Metron.
“It’s gone now, whatever it was,” said Graxen.
Graxen climbed back up the stairs and pushed his way through a curtain of thick cloth to join Nadala and Metron in the Thread Room. They weren’t far from the giant chalkboard, with its dense jotting of notes. Metron moved to better see the board. The room was lit with a series of lanterns. Graxen could read the board clearly from where he stood. His father studied the chalkboard and chuckled when he reached Vendevorex’s name surrounded by questions marks.
“What’s so funny?” whispered Nadala.
“I knew Vendevorex would vex her,” said Metron. “The most famous sky-dragon in the kingdom and his origin an utter mystery. He came to Albekizan’s court long after Sarelia and I had stopped speaking. I wrote her a letter concerning my theories about Vendevorex. I never sent it. Though I wrote it in the most professional voice I could manage, I feared she might read between the lines of the subject and find that I still loved her. At the time, it seemed as if it would only cause pain to send that missive.”
“Whose pain?” a voice asked from across the room. Graxen looked behind him to discover the hunched form of the matriarch standing before a fluttering tapestry. She walked toward them, her cane clacking on the tiled floor.
“My pain?” the matriarch asked. “You should know the females of our species may endure limitless agony, biologian. If you’ve not spoken to me for nearly two decades, the weakness lies with you, not me.”
“You’re correct,” Metron said. “You were always the stronger one.”
“Not always,” said the matriarch, now only a few yards away. “I gave in to your request not to destroy our great mistake.” She cast Graxen a baleful gaze. Then she narrowed her eyes at Nadala. “Why are you in the presence of a tatterwing and a freak? Where are your armor and spear, valkyrie?”
Nadala bowed her head respectfully. “Matriarch, I’ve fallen in love with your son. I’ve admired him since the day he visited this isle. We’ve come to ask your permission to . . .” her voice trailed off. She took a deep breath, then raised her head and looked at the matriarch with bold eyes. “We seek permission to breed.”
The matriarch scoffed. “You’ve gone mad, Nadala. Even if you were allowed to choose your seed-giver, you know you couldn’t breed with this discolored freak.”
“Of what importance is the color of his hide?” asked Nadala. “Why must all sky-dragons look so much alike?”
“Because physical variability leads to hatred,” said the matriarch. “I’ve studied histories forbidden to you. I know what happens when different colors are allowed to spread within a race of intelligent beings. It leads to strife and warfare. I would spare our race these evils.”
“You perpetuate these evils,” said Nadala. “Why would we fear difference if we aren’t taught to fear it?”
“Enough, valkyrie,” the matriarch snapped. “It’s not your position to decide the genetic make-up of our species. It’s your job to kill intruders—a job you have failed miserably.”
“Mother,” said Graxen, “Don’t speak to Nadala this way. She only wants—”
“Yes!” the matriarch cried, lifting her cane and waving it at Graxen. “She only wants. She is poisoned by desire. Her hormones have addled her mind. I know too well the danger of only wanting.”
“You’re correct,” said Metron. Graxen felt betrayed by the words, but Metron continued. “Our own chemistry can ruin our reason. Fortunately you’ve had two decades to free yourself from the biology of desire. Tonight, we can have the conversation our bodies prevented us from having so many years before. No dragon alive has studied the question of our genetic destiny more than you. However, as high biologian, I was guardian of the true secret history of our race. I’ve come to persuade you that the age of guided genetics can now end. Everything the early biologians wanted to accomplish has been accomplished. We’ve flourished as a species without falling into the many genetic pits that could have doomed us. We needed many generations of careful guidance to avoid inbreeding and allow for the slow rise of mutations to give our shallow gene pool depth. Now, however, that guidance is crushing genetic variability. Graxen does possess visible mutations. Yet, despite his coloration, he has also shown speed and agility that is nearly unmatched in our race. He has excelled in scholarship despite the burden of constant abuse from his peers. Losing Graxen from the gene pool would be a tragedy.”
The matriarch shook her head. “Our genetic threads were always contraindicated. I wouldn’t have allowed Graxen to breed if he’d been born blue as the winter sky. It’s my duty to keep the threads untangled. If not for the wisdom contained in this room, our species would have vanished from the earth long ago.”
“You can’t know that,” said Graxen.
“She can know that,” said Metron in a scolding tone. “These threads guided us from almost certain extinction. Yet we’re no longer the same fragile race we were when the first tapestries were sewn. Our species numbers in the tens of thousands. We can safely let go of the old ways and begin to experiment with new ways. Humans have endured eons without a guiding hand. There may be advantages to allowing individuals to choose their mates.”
The matriarch grimaced, as if she’d just bit into something bitter. “Do you truly advocate the breeding practices of savages?”
“Humans have survived disasters we couldn’t,” said Metron. “Plagues, for instance. Dragons have been spared plagues due to our relative newness as a species. A thousand years is insufficient time for a microbe to have adapted to us as a carrier. What happens when that day comes? With all the females clustered together in the Nest, a single disease could wipe out our species overnight.”
“We’re spared plagues due to our superior breeding and fastidious hygienic practices,” the matriarch said, in a tone that made it seem she was addressing a hatchling instead of the most learned sky-dragon in the kingdom. “Our isolation is a barrier to disease, not an opportunity.”
“An intriguing hypothesis,” said Metron. Then his eyes twinkled. He looked as if he’d just guided the matriarch onto the exact intellectual ledge he’d wanted her to stand upon. “Since we’re rational creatures, we can test it. We can select a pool of candidates to live outside the Nest and the Colleges. The test subjects may settle where they please, and find mates as they please. A hundred members of each sex should provide a reasonable study group. Then, we will track their offspring for ten generations in a second Thread Room to analyze if the genetic health of their offspring improves or declines compared to the main population.”
The matriarch tilted her head in such a way that it looked as if the idea had lodged in her brain and suddenly weighed down her left lobe.
“A second Thread Room?” she said, her voice almost dreamy. “I can think of many questions that such an experiment could answer.”
“Nadala and I could be the anchor for such a population,” said Graxen.
“No,” the matriarch said, raising her fore-talon dismissively. “The control group must start with untainted candidates. Neither you nor Nadala would meet the criteria.”
“I would hope, as designer of the experiment, that I would have some say in selecting the population,” said Metron. “I will choose half the males and half the females without restriction; you shall select the other half.”
“No. No, while I’m intrigued by your proposal, I fear you’re overlooking a rather clear set of facts,” said the matriarch. “You’re a tatterwing. Your wings still stink of pus and scabs, and already you’ve forgotten your status? Your presence here is a crime punishable by death. Graxen, too, was told that if he returned he would face execution. It would be poor precedent for me to reverse that decision. And Nadala . . . my poor, deluded, hormone-poisoned Nadala . . . your sins are greater than either of these males. You’re a traitor to the Nest. As such, your punishment will be far worse than either of these fools.”
As the matriarch spoke, she punctuated her words with sharp, rapid taps of her cane against the tiles. The tapestries that lined the room bulged outward. Fifty valkyries poured into the chamber from unseen doors. Nadala sprang to place herself between Graxen and the guards. “Run back to the stairs,” she hissed. “I’ll hold them off as long as I can.”
Graxen moved to her side. “I’ll not abandon you.”
“How romantic,” said the matriarch. Then, to the valkyries, “Take them!”
A handful of the valkyries advanced, spears lowered. Things quickly became confused as the nearest valkyrie stumbled drunkenly. Spears clattered on the tiles as they slipped from trembling talons. One by one, the valkyries began to drop, unconscious. Graxen noted an acrid odor, like the smell of burning peanuts wafting through the room. A faint haze of blue smoke could be seen swirling as the valkyries continued to fall. Nadala suddenly swooned, her eyes rolling upward in their sockets. Graxen caught her before she hit the floor.
“W-what treachery is this, Metron?” the matriarch growled as she swayed unsteadily, reaching out one fore-talon to the blackboard to maintain her balance.
“I am not to blame for . . . oh. Oh, no,” said Metron. “No! By the bones, he’s played me for a fool! Why didn’t I see his plan? I swear I didn’t know he followed me!”
As Metron spoke, the last of the valkyries toppled. Then the matriarch, too, succumbed to the mysterious smoke. Only Metron and Graxen remained standing.
“What’s happening?” Graxen cried out. “Who has followed us?”
The tapestry where they had entered was suddenly torn asunder. Bald human girls clad in leather armor danced into the room, brandishing black, wet blades. Metron moved as fast as his old body could manage to stand over the matriarch’s fallen form. Graxen dragged Nadala to Metron’s side, laying her carefully upon the floor, then taking a defensive stance next to his father as group of girls surrounded them. Graxen took note of the tattoos on their shaved heads. These must be the Sisters of the Serpent, the cult that had attacked the palace.
The doorway to the stairs darkened. The black-scaled form of a sun-dragon squeezed through the too-tight opening, then stood erect in the much larger Thread Room, stretching his wings. Graxen was used to the company of Shandrazel, but this dragon seemed even larger, more menacing, as his black hide sucked in the light.
“Blasphet,” said Metron, his voice cracking, on the verge of tears.
One of the girls darted forward. Graxen tried to stop her, but time felt distorted. The smoke that had felled the others slowed him. He couldn’t reach the girl before she landed a savage kick in Metron’s gut. The elderly tatterwing doubled over, falling to the floor.
“Your unworthy tongue may not speak the holy name!” the girl snarled.
“Greetings, old friend,” Blasphet said, looking down at Metron’s curled form. “For your own safety, I’d recommend use of my proper title.”
“Murder God!” cried Metron, as his tears erupted.
RAGNAR STOOD ATOP A MOUNTAIN of rusted rubble. His army stretched out around him in the thousands, a motley collection of slaves and farmers and mercenaries, most dressed in rags, many carrying only the crudest of weapons. Ragnar’s voice was loud as thunder as he shouted, “The Lord is our light and our salvation! The serpents who’ve devoured our flesh shall stumble and fall! Though they raise their weapons against us, we shall not fear! The Lord shall give us strength to break their swords and shatter their shields. He shall delight in the desolation of our enemies!”
The army of men cheered, and Pet was certain that any element of surprise they might have possessed was lost. They were only half a mile from the eastern gate of Dragon Forge, hidden among the man-made hills of scrap. The debris blocked them from sight of the fort; he wondered if it would also swallow up the noise.
Pet, by his unearned reputation as a great archer, had been placed with a small contingent of men with long bows. The bows weren’t the best weapon for attacking a sleeping city. If they fired blindly over the walls, their arrows would most likely lodge into rooftops or empty city streets, harming no one. When Ragnar’s army poured through the gates, firing into the city would be as likely to injure a human as an earth-dragon. So, the archers had been told to hold back from the initial assault, to await further orders from one of Ragnar’s closest companions, a white-bearded man everyone called Frost. Pet found himself disappointed not to be part of the main attack. He’d reached the moment in his life where he needed to know if he truly possessed the courage to fight. In the Free City, he’d been rescued by Ragnar and Kamon, then assumed the role of shouter of inspirational words. In actual combat, however, he’d lagged near the back, and had finished the battle without ever giving a dragon so much as a scratch.
Now that Ragnar had whipped his army into a frenzy, he gave the command for them to spread out to all four of the city gates. They divided into roughly even mobs and began flowing away through the ruins. They were a sad looking army; a few had shields, fewer still had helmets and breastplates. Many were armed with nothing more than clubs. The dragons inside the city had access to much better weapons and armor. Fortunately, earth-dragons kept roughly the same schedule as men, and most were asleep now.
As the archers waited, Pet climbed the rust heap. From his position, Pet could see the eastern gate in the distance. A half dozen earth-dragons stood guard. More accurately, a half dozen earth-dragons squatted near the wooden gate talking and passing around a ceramic jug from which they took long swigs. The night was bright, with a sky clear enough that the moon cast crisp shadows.
Suddenly, a score of those crisp shadows separated from the wall and rushed toward the guards. Men dressed in black cloaks pulled long knives that glinted as they slashed, swiftly and precisely. The earth-dragons silently vanished beneath the flapping black cloaks. For a moment, Pet was amazed by the efficiency of the attack; the way that six living beings had been brought to an instant, silent death. Unfortunately, seconds later, a howl reached his ears. One of the dragons had screamed in pain, a sharp, ear-splitting yelp that stopped in a wet gurgle. The sound had simply taken a few seconds to reach Pet.
Pet placed an arrow against his bowstring. The element of surprise was definitely gone now. These six might be the last easy kills of the night.
Ragnar apparently had become impatient with stealth anyway. His war cry reached Pet, an incoherent warble of rage that echoed from the city walls. Ragnar’s nude form was easy to spot as he raced forward, outpacing the hordes that followed him, brandishing twin scimitars as he led the charge. The black-cloaked assassins darted aside as Ragnar bounded past them. The warrior-prophet let loose another primal scream. A single earth-dragon appeared, emerging from a door that opened in the only building Pet could see from his vantage point. Ragnar buried his scimitar into the beast’s neck. The dragon fell, his head hanging by a thread of skin. Ragnar paused to kick the head free then leapt further into the city, beyond Pet’s view, as hordes of men poured over the surrounding hills and flooded through the gates.
At the bottom of the rust heap, there was a flurry of voices. Frost was approaching. His close-cropped white beard and hair stood out in the night. Pet climbed down to receive his commands. In the distance, screams of agony drifted from Dragon Forge. It was impossible to tell if the sounds were human or dragon.
“Listen closely,” Frost shouted. He had a deep voice; people said he’d once been a blacksmith, and despite his age he looked the part. He was pot-bellied and squat, but broad-shouldered, with thick arms and hands covered with white, shiny scars. “Since we got here, we’ve been working with the human gleaners. Some of their men are helping in the attack tonight, guiding us to the most valuable targets. Their wives and children have been taken to safety. Any living thing that remains in a two mile circle of Dragon Forge can be considered your enemy. The remaining gleaners are cowards. Now that the battle has started, most are probably preparing to flee the area. Our job is to see that they don’t get away.”
“We’re going to capture the gleaners?” Pet asked.
“We’re going to kill them,” said Frost. “When we take Dragon Forge, the longer we hold it before Shandrazel learns of the attack, the better. Every day that passes before the sun-dragons arrive is a day that Burke will have to make us the finest weapons any army has ever wielded. The more gleaners we silence tonight, the longer we have before the counterattack takes place.”
“I didn’t sign up to kill humans,” Pet said.
“Any true human is on our side tonight,” Frost answered. “The cowards who denied us aren’t men. They’re animal scum; they serve us better dead than alive. Anyone you meet that isn’t attacking the Forge with Ragnar is to be put to death. Any objections?”
“But, there are children—”
“There are no children tonight!” snapped Frost, with a vitriol that rivaled Ragnar at his best. “There are your brothers-at-arms, and there are vermin. Will you fight? Or will you be the first of the rats we put to death this evening?”
Pet felt hundreds of eyes turn toward him. He swallowed hard. The thing he was being asked to do possessed a cruel logic; indeed, it almost seemed a necessity. He let out a long, slow breath.
“I’ll fight,” Pet said. “Let’s do this.”
Frost snapped out orders, dividing the men into many small squads and barking out the areas they were to cleanse. Pet noticed that he wasn’t being selected for any of the groups. In the end, there was only Frost, him, and ten other men. Frost eyed him coolly and said, “They say you’re quite the archer. Tonight’s your chance to prove it. Follow me.”
Frost turned and ran away from the Free City. Pet and the others followed close behind. Soon, the clamor of the battle behind them faded. The rust mounds were eerily effective at swallowing up sounds. Suddenly, there was movement in the shadows before them. A band of tatterwings, outlaw sky-dragons, nearly thirty of them, were all moving away from the city, struggling beneath the weight of heavy sacks slung over their shoulders. Four of them strained to pull a cart laden with barrels.
“No survivors!” Frost shouted.
Instantly, Pet’s fellow squad members let their arrows fly. The tatterwings spun around as some of their members let out agonized cries and toppled over. Pet drew his bow and took aim at a sky-dragon who was staring, dumbfounded, in their direction. His eyes had a drunken quality to them. Pet had never fired a bow at a living thing before, only at immobile targets. Fortunately, the drunken, dazed tatterwing was for all practical purposes immobile. Pet released the arrow and watched as it flew in a deadly line to bury itself in the tatterwing’s belly. The dragon let out a grunt as he grabbed the arrow with both fore-talons. He took a few staggering steps, then toppled. His eyes were still open, staring straight at Pet.
Pet turned his face away and focused on placing another arrow onto the bowstring. His hands were shaking. By the time he’d readied for a second shot, his fellow archers had already unleashed arrow after arrow. There were no tatterwings left on their feet to target. Frost charged ahead, drawing a sword. The others followed, raining killing blows down upon the tatterwings that still breathed. Then they darted off into the night, in search of their next victims. Pet tarried at the scene a moment longer, looking at the contents of the cart. One of the barrels was already tapped. Pet unstopped the cork and was met with the eye-watering stench of goom, a liqueur distilled from cabbages and chilies, a favorite beverage of earth-dragons.
From some distance ahead, there were further screams—humans this time. Pet took a deep breath. He didn’t need to try to catch up to Frost and his men. He could simply claim he’d gotten lost in the action. Apparently, Frost had been swept up sufficiently in the heat of battle that he was no longer keeping a close eye on Pet. He could just hide and wait out the night.
“Coward,” he grumbled, addressing the word at himself. He’d accepted his mission. Gripping his bow more tightly, he ran toward the screams ahead.
Before he’d even gone twenty feet, he saw a form moving toward him. It looked human, coming toward him in sort of a limping half-run. The figure emerged from the shadows into the moonlight. It was a middle-aged man, dressed in a gleaner’s rags. He had an arrow jutting from his right thigh. His eyes were wide with terror. Pet raised his bow and took careful aim. The man saw the movement and gave a yelp of despair. He turned, looking for some new direction to escape. Pet released the arrow. He was aiming for the man’s torso. The arrow instead lodged in the gleaner’s neck. The gleaner was knocked from his feet, landing on his back on the hard-packed earth. His hands feebly grabbed at the arrow Pet had fired. His breath came out of him in a series of rapid, wet clicks—hic, hic, hic, hic, hic.
Pet drew the sword he’d been given by Shanna. He inched his way toward the dying man. The gleaner’s eyes were looking toward the moon above, blind to Pet’s presence. Tears streamed down his cheeks. Pet punched his sword down with all his might into the man’s left breast. The wet clicking sound in the man’s throat fell silent.
Pet pulled the sword free and sheathed it, letting the cold night air dry the sweat that trickled down his face.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
* * *
COGS IN A VAST MACHINE
ARIFIEL WAS POSTED in the central bell tower for the midnight watch. Her duty would be to ring the enormous bell if there were any hint of attack in the middle of the night—an unlikely event given the bright moonlight. Any males who attempted to fly to the island would be spotted instantly.
Guarding the central bell was an important task, but Arifiel regarded the duty as a demotion. Since the unhappy day her unit had failed to prevent Graxen from entering the Nest, she hadn’t been assigned to any perimeter patrols. She’d had her chance at action, and she’d failed. Nadala and Sparrow hadn’t returned to patrol either. Nadala had drawn a ceremonial guard assignment—a position that required her to be a living prop to enhance Zorasta’s authority, but where she would likely never see true combat. Sparrow had fared worst of all—she was now doing administrative work in the armory, handing out weapons and armor to valkyries with duties more befitting warriors. Having been on two failed patrols, Sparrow would never again be trusted to defend the Nest.
Arifiel leaned on her long spear as she looked over the placid lake waters, so still they looked like ice. The windless night was utterly silent. Or was it? Arifiel stretched her neck out of the tower window. Had she heard someone cry out? She strained to hear the sound again. Had it been her imagination? Perhaps the call of some distant nightbird?
Just as she’d decided she’d heard nothing, a second cry came, right on the edge of hearing. But, it wasn’t coming from outside the tower. She pulled her head back inside the window and went to the steps leading down and opened the door. As the door creaked open, she heard the noise yet again—possibly. Or had it just been the squeaking hinge?
Then, unmistakably, a voice, several of them, shouting, but far too distant to make out the words. What was happening? Were some of the valkyries fighting among themselves? She rose and took the bell rope in her hands. She paused. If she rang the alarm and woke the whole island simply because a squabble had broken out, she’d be branded as unworthy of even this simple duty. The bell was for genuine emergencies. She released the rope.
A movement outside caught her eye. From the lowest level, a valkyrie had taken to the air, and was now flying in an unsteady, wobbling path. All alcohol was forbidden to female sky-dragons, but the figure below was definitely impaired by something. Arifiel winced as the dragon’s wings faltered and she fell to the bristling steel landscape. Arifiel couldn’t see the spot where she hit, but it was almost certain the impact had been fatal. The Nest wasn’t a pleasant place to fall.
Now the decision to ring the bell was easy. Arifiel turned, only to discover she was no longer alone in the tower. At the top of the stairs stood a human, a teenage female, holding a torch in one hand and a long, black blade in the other. The torch trailed a plume of blue smoke. Arifiel caught a whiff of the acrid fumes. Instantly, her vision blurred. Her legs weakened. Only by steadying herself with her spear did she remain standing. Instinctively, she clenched her jaws shut and held her breath. The girl smiled, an evil, satisfied grin that conveyed her belief she’d already won this battle. She thrust the torch forward, wreathing Arifiel in the thick fumes.
Arifiel toppled backwards, releasing her spear from her fore-talons. Yet, as she fell backwards through the open window, she grabbed the falling spear with her hind-talons, and used the momentum of her backward plummet to her advantage. As her torso fell over the window ledge, her legs flipped up. She kicked with her remaining strength, releasing the spear.
As she fell toward the jagged spires below, she felt a twinge of despair, not at her impending death, but because she fell in silence—she’d aimed her spear at the central bell in hopes of sounding the alarm, and missed. Her body was limp now, yet, as the wind rushed over her, fresh air was forced into her throat. Mere feet from the steel spikes beneath her, she spread her wings and turned her downward path into a sharp curve away from the tower. In seconds, she was out over the lake, well away from the paralyzing smoke, her strength returning. She wheeled about, eying the bell tower, devising a strategy to fly back inside, knock away her assailant, and reach for the bell rope. As she circled, she spotted other sky-dragons in the air, leaping from windows, rising from rooftops. A score of her sisters had escaped the fumes, and more were rising to safety with each second.
A large sky-dragon with a commanding voice shouted, “Valkyries! Gyre!”
Arifiel obeyed, as did the others. The gyre maneuver required the sky-dragons to gather closely around a central figure, maintaining flight paths where wing tips were separated only by inches. It was a formation adopted for rapid, in flight commands from a high officer. Arifiel finally drew close enough to recognize the dragon who had shouted the order. It was Zorasta, the matriarch’s ambassador. Did that mean Nadala was near?
By now, there were at least fifty dragons in the air. This meant that thousands were still inside the Nest, victims of the poisonous smoke. Who could be behind such an attack? Valkyries were trained to defend their home against male sky-dragons. Why would humans be attacking?
“These humans must be the same ones that attacked Shandrazel’s palace,” Zorasta shouted. “Sisters of the Serpent—they’re servants of Blasphet.”
Hearing that unholy name, Arifiel for the first time understood the extent of the danger. Servants of Blasphet wouldn’t be content with capturing the Nest. They were here to kill every living creature.
By now, the guard patrols that kept watch over the perimeter of the lake had joined in the gyre. Arifiel was glad of their company. They were armed, ready for battle, unlike most of the other sky-dragons, who had been roused from sleep.
“We may have only minutes to act,” Zorasta said. “We have to get back inside.”
“They are armed with poisonous torches,” someone said. “If we go back, we’ll succumb to the fumes.”
“Not if we act quickly,” Arifiel said. “The humans can’t know the layout of the Nest as we do. We can dive through windows holding our breath. We can only be inside for a minute, maybe less. But a minute is enough time to kill a human. We’re valkyries!”
“That’s the spirit!” shouted Zorasta. “And, as of now, it’s our plan. Split up by your flock colors. Green flock, clear the northern rooms, yellow take the south, white the east, black to the west. If you have armor and a spear, take the lead. No more than three from each flock can enter a room at a time. Always leave someone at a window to pull you out if you succumb to the fumes. If you’re unarmed, get down to the beach and get water into anything that will hold it. The torches are the real danger. Douse them, and we’ll make short work of this enemy.”
The white, black, and yellow flocks spun away in tight knots to perform their duties. Arifiel was a lifelong member of the green flock, the same flock as Zorasta.
Arifiel cast her gaze back toward the central tower. By now, they were a quarter mile away, but she could still see the light of the human’s torch in the window—only now it had been joined by two others. How many valkyries still were sleeping, unaware of the danger?
Zorasta apparently had the same thought.
“Our first priority must be to take the central bell tower and awaken sleeping valkyries” she shouted. “Who was on guard there?”
“I was,” said Arifiel.
“You abandoned your post?”
“I succumbed to the fumes and fell from the window,” said Arifiel. “The rush of wind revived me.”
“Then do your duty and get back in there!” Zorasta barked. She eyed two armed valkyries who circled near. “You and you! Aid her! Go!”
Arifiel felt fully recovered. She set her path toward the open windows of the tower, building speed. She could see she faced three human teenage girls—no true threat for a valkyrie. The space between her and her target narrowed. She attempted not to be distracted by the movements in the windows below, as she watched guards land on windowsills and peer into the interiors. Suddenly, Arifiel realized that if she succeeded in her mission, she was going to be condemning every dragon inside to death.
She slowed her flight, allowing the two dragons who followed to pull beside her.
“We can’t ring the alarm!” she shouted.
“What?” the one to her right shouted back.
“If we ring the bell, the grates will close and seal the doors and windows. The Nest is designed to prevent an invasion from the outside. If the grates fall, we’ll turn the fortress into a prison.”
“By the bones!” the valkyrie to the left cried out. “I hadn’t thought of this!”
As one, the three of them pulled up, allowing their paths to carry them over the top of the bell tower.
“We still need to get inside,” the valkyrie beside her shouted. “I don’t know why the humans would ring the bell, but we should make sure they don’t. And, who knows? Perhaps some other valkyrie might sound the alarm by instinct, just as we nearly did.”
“Agreed!” shouted Arifiel. “Follow me!”
Again they wheeled in a tight formation, darting back toward the open windows. Only now, to her horror, two of the three torches had fallen to the floor. There was a single sky-dragon standing below the bell rope, facing a lone human girl. The other two humans lay on the ground, gutted. With dazzling speed, the sky-dragon leapt up and kicked out with her sharp hind-talons, cutting a vicious slash across the throat of the remaining girl. She collapsed in agony, her torch and sword clattering on the floor.
They were now only a few dozen yards away from the open window. A shout rose in Arifiel’s throat.
“Don’t!”
But it was too late. The sky-dragon had already reached for the bell rope. Arifiel’s shout was drowned by the peal of the magnificent iron bell. Arifiel whirled to the left of the tower, avoiding the window, as the night filled with the rumble of a thousand gears and chains kicking into motion. In half a moment, the fortress would be sealed, leaving all the dragons inside to the mercies of the Sisters of the Serpent.
She glanced back over her shoulder, to see if she could identify this lone valkyrie who had just unwittingly doomed her sisters. Her heart sank as a familiar face looked out the window toward her.
Sparrow.
THE BRUTE REWIRING of Jandra’s brain had reached the peak of pain several minutes after the initial jolt, leaving her with the worst headache of her life, a skull-ripper that left her too weak to stand. Colorful explosions of light danced across her vision. Jandra had been unable to think during this time. She’d simply collapsed to her back and closed her eyes as she waited out the worst of it.
Jazz had been mostly quiet for the last few hours. Occasionally, Jandra thought she’d gone, but then she’d catch a whiff of cigarette smoke or hear a scratching sound a few feet away. Jandra willed one eye open. Jazz had produced a pad of paper and a pencil from somewhere, and crafted a granite park bench out of moon dust. She sat on the bench, making sketches as she studied Jandra. The stars above burned with unearthly clarity.
“You hang out with some very rude friends,” Jazz said, aware that Jandra was awake.
Jandra licked her lips. “Wh-what have you done to them?”
“I’m just holding them for now. They seemed to have some pent-up aggression. A rather violent need to break things.”
“They can’t be happy that you’ve kidnapped me,” Jandra said.
“There are more important goals in life than making people happy,” said Jazz. “You feeling any better?”
“No.”
“Really? Your nanites should be getting the swelling under control by now and boosting your endorphins to offset the pain. If you’re feeling bad it might be because you want to feel bad.”
“Why would I want to feel bad?”
“Low self-esteem. You were probably feeling pretty powerful before you met me.”
“My self-esteem is fine, thank you,” Jandra said. Self-esteem? It wasn’t a concept that had been in her vocabulary before now. Her knowledge of it came from Jazz’s brain blast. In addition to understanding the idea of self-esteem, she now knew what ice cream was, had a clear mental picture of an airplane, knew that penguins only lived in the southern hemisphere, and remembered that the first man on the moon had been Neil Armstrong on July 20, 1969. The new information in her brain seemed useless and trivial, devoid of the proper connections. It was like the loose pages from a million random books had been shoved into her head in no particular order. She suddenly knew how to make a coconut mojito despite not being certain what, exactly, a coconut was.
Jazz sketched her some more, then held the drawing up for Jandra to see.
“Like it?” she asked.
Jandra tilted her head. Surprisingly, the motion didn’t cause her wrenching pain. The explosions of color had died off. The crisp white paper Jazz held showed a pencil sketch of Jandra as she lay in the moon dust, one arm over her head, one upon her breast, her hair spreading out in a dark yet radiant halo. She’d been sketched with her eyes closed. Her face looked peaceful; her lips seemed a little too full in the sketch, however.
“You’ll forgive me if I’m not enthusiastic about being your model.”
“I know. I probably seem like a monster to you. But I’m not a monster. I’m just a human being like you. I get lonely. I have worshippers, but not much in the way of friends. I think, with a few modifications, you and I can get along fine.”
“You mean modifications to me, I presume,” said Jandra, sitting up. She realized as she did so that Jazz was right. The worst of the pain was gone. There was only a the memory of the pain still haunting her, causing her to move slowly and carefully as she stood up and wiped the dust from her clothing.
“You have more to gain from being changed than I do,” said Jazz. “And, you’ve a lot to gain from being my friend. I’ve been sorting through your memories as you rested.”
“You’ve been . . . you can read my mind?”
“Something like that. As my nanites mapped your brain connections they sent me back your existing data. You’re a confused little girl. You’ve been raised by a talking lizard who didn’t train you on how to handle human emotions. You’re like Tarzan of the thirty-second century.”
Jandra nodded. She hadn’t known who Tarzan was when she first arrived on the moon. It felt wrong that she did now. But Jazz was right. Tarzan had been trapped between two worlds, neither civilized man nor jungle beast. Jandra sympathized.
“That Pet fellow was really coming on to you,” said Jazz. “Turning him down for being a jerk is something I can respect. But you were also turning him down because you’re afraid of your own sexuality. You really haven’t had any girlfriends to talk about this stuff with. I can help with that.”
“I didn’t know you’d brought me up here to be psychoanalyzed.” Psychoanalyzed? Was that really a word? A synapse fired and she suddenly knew that sometimes a cigar was just a cigar. She also knew that Bitterwood had been right when he’d pointed out that she dressed herself in dragon scales. She’d always subconsciously thought of herself as ugly for being scaleless, wingless, and tailless. She’d grown into a human woman’s body without any preparation for thinking of it as a worthwhile thing to possess.
“Okay,” said Jandra. “Maybe we don’t have to be enemies. Maybe there are things I could learn from you. How to use my nanotech better, for one thing. You’re obviously operating on a very different level than I am.”
“That’s the spirit,” said Jazz.
“So, I’ll stay and be your friend,” said Jandra. “But only if you let Bitterwood, Hex, and Zeeky go.”
“Hmm. A deal with the devil, huh? Well—” Jazz tilted her head, like a dog hearing some far off sound.
“Oh great,” she muttered.
“What?” asked Jandra.
“The central bell at the Nest just sounded,” sighed Jazz. “This time it’s not just some horny sky-dragon that’s the problem.” She shook her head and mumbled, mostly to herself, “Wish you hadn’t done this, Blasphet. I sort of liked you.”
Jazz stood up. The park bench crumbled back to dust. The pad of paper she carried disintegrated, leaving the graphite lines of the drawing hovering in the air. She reached out, wound the lines up into a little ball of thread, and shoved them into the pocket of her blue jeans. She flicked away the cigarette she’d been smoking. It cut a long glowing arc before her, which opened like an eyelid into twin rainbows framing a narrow slit of perfect nothingness.
“Follow me,” said Jazz. “Let’s give your friends something useful to do to work off their aggression.”
AHEAD, THE CRIES of dying gleaners fell silent. Frost and his men had moved on. Pet trotted toward the direction he’d last heard them, hoping he might still catch up. The bright moon cut the junkscape surrounding him into spooky, surreal shadows. Pet felt lost and alone. He stared up at the white orb, trying to get his bearings. He wished Jandra were present. She was always so quick to tell him the right thing to do, even if he was always so slow in doing it. As he stood silently, he heard men’s voices, and a woman crying. He hurried toward the sound.
“Hold her,” a man gruffly commanded.
“Filthy gleaner scratched me,” another said, his voice trailing off into nervous laughter.
The crying woman screamed, then her voice was cut short by a loud slap.
Pet ran around a junk hill and found three men holding down the woman. Her clothes were torn to shreds. Her face was dirty with rust, and blood was flowing from her nose and lips; she looked a few years older than Jandra. One of the three men was kneeling over her head, his knees pressing down on her shoulders, pinning her with his weight. A second man was fighting to pin down her pale, thin legs, which were kicking wildly. The third man watched with a leering grin, his fingers probing a set of long parallel scratches on his left cheek.
The scratched man giggled again. “Don’t hit her so hard she blacks out. She won’t learn her lesson if she’s unconscious.”
Pet drew up to his full height and marched forward. “What are you doing?” he shouted. “This isn’t the mission. Let her go!”
Scratch-cheek giggled again. “Oh, it’s the dragon-slayer. Funny how you disappeared at the first sign of danger.”
“I’ve killed more men tonight than I have in years,” Pet said in his best leadership voice. “Let her go and get back to your mission.”
“We’re just having a little fun,” said the one at her feet. He’d finally managed to pin her legs down. The woman was crying hard now, barely able to inhale.
The one at her head said, “We’re doing the mission. We’ll kill her once we’re done.”
“Come on, dragon-slayer,” said Scratch-cheek. “We’ll give you first turn.”
Pet placed an arrow against his bowstring and raised it, taking aim at Scratch-cheek.
“I can kill all three of you before you blink,” he said, hoping they’d buy the bluff.
“Don’t start believing your own lies, boy,” said Scratch-cheek, still dabbing gently at his wounds. He seemed not the least bit afraid of Pet. “It’s three of us against one of you.”
Pet let the arrow fly. He imagined the shaft burying itself in Scratch-cheek’s face. To his amazement, it did so, lopping off the man’s middle finger before sinking into his skull just beneath the eye. Scratch-cheek dropped to his knees and fell over the crying woman, completely still. The two men who’d held her rose and drew their swords. Pet tried to pull another arrow from his quiver, but the men were charging him faster than he expected. Pet gave up on the arrow and drew his sword, raising it in time to parry a chop from the head-man. He jumped backwards as the foot-man gave a rapid jab that terminated directly in the space his belly had occupied a half second before. Pet had no skills at actual combat, only stage combat, but instinct took over. He dodged and parried, drawing on his acrobatic training as the pair pressed their attack. Unfortunately, he could see no opening for a counterstrike.
A loud metallic zang rang out behind him, followed by a whistle as a razor sharp disk big as a dinner plate flashed past his eyes. The head-man was suddenly headless. Pet’s remaining opponent turned white as a ghost as he gazed at something behind Pet. Pet almost turned around to see why, but he was opportunistic enough to know he might never get a better chance to strike. He buried his sword into the right side of the man’s ribcage, driving the blade in as deep as he could. The man staggered backward, a curse on his lips. Pet tried to free his sword but it was stuck, trapped by the man’s ribs, and the hilt was twisted from his fingers as the man fell backward.
Ten feet away, Pet saw the gleaner woman kick herself free from the dead man who had fallen on her. She rose, clutching her torn clothes to her body. A black-haired woman no older than the gleaner leapt from the shadows with a sword and buried it in the woman’s back. The gleaner fell lifeless to the dirt. Her assailant stared at Pet. She was dressed in black buckskin, nearly invisible in the shadows. A Sister of the Serpent? No. She didn’t have any tattoos, and she still had hair, even eyebrows.
“Good job,” said a voice behind Pet. Pet whirled around. The tall dark-skinned man stood behind him. He’d caught glimpses of this man earlier and knew his name was Burke. Burke was wearing a huge gauntlet that covered his left arm from shoulder to wrist. The gauntlet forced his arm to be held perfectly straight, and on his shoulder and back there was a tall cartridge full of the razor disks that had decapitated the first swordsman.
“Good job?” Pet asked. “Are you talking to me or her?”
“Both of you,” said Burke. “Anza for fulfilling the mission. You for having the moral fiber to stand up to these thugs. What’s your name, boy?”
“Pe—Bitterwood,” Pet said. He cringed internally, wondering why he’d fallen back to the lie. There was something about this man’s eyes, however, that made Pet feel especially ashamed of his true identity.
“Bitterwood? Oh! You’re that fellow from the Free City. Are you Bant’s son or something?”
“Bant?”
“Ah,” said Burke. “You’re just a nobody using his name.”
“I prefer to think I’m somebody putting his name to better use than he is,” said Pet. “I’ve met the real Bitterwood. He’s not as heroic as you might think.”
“I’ve fought beside the real Bitterwood,” said Burke. “You’re right. He’s a psychopath. All he had going for him was his obsessive hatred of dragons. He wouldn’t have been out here doing this clean-up work. Nothing would have stopped him from being inside Dragon Forge killing every dragon he laid eyes on.”
“That’s where I should be,” said Pet. “I don’t belong out here killing innocent people.”
“Gleaners aren’t innocent,” said Burke. “They’re a part of the infrastructure that has kept the sun-dragons in power for centuries. I don’t like it either, but it helps to think that we’re not simply killing people, we’re breaking cogs in a vast machine of death and oppression.”
Pet nodded. He felt tears welling in his eyes. “It makes sense. But I can’t do it. It was bad enough to kill a grown man. I could never kill a woman or child.”
“Then don’t,” said Burke. “Dragon Forge is back that way. It’s where I’d be right now, except Ragnar thinks I’m too valuable to risk in the assault. If I die, capturing the foundry loses some of its strategic advantage.”
Pet wiped his cheek, ashamed of his weakness. He desperately wanted to change the subject. “That’s some fancy hardware,” said Pet. “Are you going to build those for everyone?”
“This?” said Burke, running his hands along the gauntlet. “This is just a gadget I’m tuning for Big Chief. The disks are lethal at close range, and I can get off about thirty a minute if the damn thing doesn’t jam, but after about fifteen yards the accuracy falls off at a laughable rate. No, when we get our hands on the forge, I have a much more fruitful item to mass produce.”
“What?” Pet asked.
Burke reached for his thick leather belt, which was studded with countless tools in specialized pockets, from hammers to tweezers to wrenches to screwdrivers. He flipped open a large pouch on the side and produced two palm-sized flat ovals of polished steel with deep grooves cut into the edges. “These wheels aren’t much to look at now,” said Burke, “but a hundred of these things are going to kill more sun-dragons than if I built a thousand Big Chiefs.”
Pet couldn’t even imagine how that was possible. The wheels weren’t sharp at all, and they didn’t look heavy enough to do any real damage if you threw them at something. Still, he’d heard that Burke was a genius. Pet took it on faith that these wheels were important.
“Get to the forge,” said Burke, walking over to the man Pet had stabbed. With a grunt, he pulled Pet’s sword free. “The battle’s still going on. Kill as many dragons as you can. Anza and I will be heading into the city come dawn. For now, we’ll help clean up the remaining gleaners.”
“Yes sir,” said Pet.
“Before you run off, what’s your real name, boy?”
“Petar Gondwell,” he said. Feeling a sudden need for full disclosure, he said, “Pet.”
“Don’t get yourself killed tonight if you can help it,” said Burke. “The world still needs a few men like you, with the courage to stand up to thugs and the moral fiber to at least feel some remorse at the thought of killing a fellow man. There aren’t many like you left in the world.”
Pet felt mildly disoriented; had the world truly turned so topsy-turvy that he was now being praised for his morality?
Burke tossed the sword toward Pet. An image quickly flashed through Pet’s mind of the sword slicing off his fingers as he caught it, but then his years of practice as a juggler took over and he casually snatched it from the air by its hilt. He placed it in its scabbard and ran back toward Dragon Forge to discover who he was. A moral man, a coward, or just another cog in a vast machine.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
* * *
CLICK CLICK CLANG
“INTERESTING,” SAID BLASPHET, leaning close to Graxen. Unlike the dead-meat breath possessed by other sun-dragons, Blasphet’s breath smelled almost medicinal, a not unpleasant mingling of camphor and cloves. “Your pupils are barely dilated, and your respiration is only mildly labored. The first time I used my paralyzing smoke on Metron, I drew a sample of his blood. I altered the formula to make him immune. It’s fortunate he has no other relatives here. Apparently his blood kin share the resistance.”
“Wh-why?” said Metron, still curled in a ball on the floor. “Why would you spare me?”
“I find your inner torments delightful,” said Blasphet, turning from Graxen to address Metron. “Knowing that your old lusts have brought doom to your species must feel like a knife in your brain. Any brute could cause you physical agony. Only a god could flay you from the inside.”
“Why do you hate him so?” asked Graxen. “Why would you attack the Nest? What grudge do you bear against sky-dragons?” The anger in the voice prompted the score of armed women who remained in the room to form a wall between Graxen and Blasphet. Graxen felt too lightheaded to overpower them. If he did defeat them, then what? Blasphet was twice Graxen’s size and his claws were no doubt poisoned. All Graxen could do for now was stand over Nadala’s unconscious form. If anyone approached, he would fight to his last breath to defend her.
From above, valkyries cried out in surprise and anger before their voices trailed into silence.
“This has nothing to do with grudges,” said Blasphet. “Metron, as I built the Free City, you told me I used the gloss of philosophy to justify my cruelties. Your words haunted me during my recent imprisonment.”
“I’m sorry,” Metron whimpered.
“You need not apologize. You were correct. I’ve justified decades of murder by telling myself that it was an intellectual pursuit. I told myself that when all the secrets of death were unraveled, I would hold the key to unquenchable life. Now, you’ve guided me to a much simpler truth: I take pleasure in the suffering of others.”
Blasphet placed his fore-talon on Metron’s shoulder and lifted him, helping him stand once more. Metron showed no resistance; he would stand if Blasphet wished him to stand. His eyes were fixed on the floor in a look of utter defeat.
“There’s a value in discovering oneself,” said Blasphet. “The pleasure I feel in the suffering I cause is nearly sexual in nature. In retrospect, it seems obvious. Sex is pleasurable because it leads to the propagation of life. The procreative orgasm fills the body with bliss as it taps into a universal creative force. Yet, given the duality of this world, mustn’t the universe possess a counterforce? An opposite yet equal climax that results when the energy of destruction is unleashed? Just listen to the screams above us.”
Blasphet cocked his head to better hear the distant cries, his eyes wandering dreamily over the carpet of dead valkyries that covered the Thread Room.
“Never,” he said, his voice trembling with excitement, “never have I felt more divine.”
Graxen felt sickened by the Murder God’s words. He wanted to leap at the monster and claw the look of serene satisfaction from his eyes. Yet, the second he moved, he knew the Sisters of the Serpent would slay both him and Nadala. He had to do something. But what?
The Murder God’s reverie was broken by a commotion from the stairs that led up into the rest of the Nest. A Sister of the Serpent leapt down the stairs, panting loudly. She tripped on the wing of a slain valkyrie as she ran into the room, landing on her hands and knees. Breathless, she gasped out the words, “Valkyries. In the sky. Out of range.”
“How many,” asked Blasphet.
“A hundred. Maybe more.”
“I prepared for this,” said Blasphet. “Smoke and knives were never sufficient to finish the task. This is why I had a crew capture the bell tower. Run there and tell them to ring the alarm. It’s time for phase two.”
But, before the girl could run back up the steps, the bells began to ring on their own. Graxen listened to the familiar sound of the gates and grates sliding into place, sealing the Nest. The machinery groaned and grumbled in every wall.
“My,” said Blasphet. “That was fast.”
“What evil are you working now?” Metron whispered.
“You sky-dragons always seem so confident you can outfly us sun-dragons. Smug, even,” Blasphet said. “It’s time we put that assumption to the test.”
ARIFIEL CIRCLED THE BELL-TOWER, shouting to Sparrow.
“Why isn’t the smoke affecting you?” she cried out.
“I don’t know,” said Sparrow, sticking her neck out the gaps in the iron bars that had fallen to close the window. “It knocked out everyone else in my barracks but it only makes my eyes sting. I fought my way here to have you ring the alarm. Humans are attacking the Nest!”
“We know!” said Arifiel. “By ringing the bell, you’ve sealed the windows. You’ve trapped everyone inside!”
“Oh no!” Sparrow cried. “I didn’t mean . . . I was only . . .”
“You only did what you were trained to do,” said Arifiel. “I tried to ring the alarm myself—it’s only because I failed that you’ve sealed the fortress instead of me. You have to get to the gear room. You must reverse the gates!”
Sparrow set her jaw in an expression of determination. “You can count on me,” she said. Then, her eyes widened as she looked out over the lake.
“Sun-dragons!” she cried out, pointing with her fore-talon. “Are they coming to help?”
Arifiel looked toward the perimeter of the lake, as the dark shapes of a dozen sun-dragons flapped toward them. Perhaps they were here to help? A sun-dragon could rip open the iron gates that sealed the fortress with ease. But, in the moonlight, her keen eyes quickly spotted a strange detail. There was something on the backs of the dragons. Riders. Human riders.
“Go,” Arifiel called to Sparrow. “Open the gates.”
Sparrow gave a crisp salute and bounded down the steps. Arifiel flew back to Zorasta, who still held a position a half mile away from the Nest. She flew in a tight circle, surrounded by five or six remaining members of her flock.
“Sun-dragons!” Arifiel shouted.
“We see them,” said Zorasta. “And their riders. This is more of Blasphet’s handiwork, I wager. A clumsy gambit, at best.”
“Clumsy?”
“If we were fighting on the ground, the sun-dragons would be a force to be feared. But we fight in the sky! We are valkyries! The air is our kingdom. We’re swifter, more agile. Their size and power will be meaningless. We’ll tear their wings and send them to inglorious deaths! We need not wait for others. Green flock, attack!”
Zorasta’s brave words were matched by her speed and grace as she swiftly flew to the lead of the flock. She wore no armor, but some soldier had given her a spear. The flock fell into a V formation. There were nine valkyries in the charge, though only five had spears. Arifiel felt a sense of foreboding, though she knew that Zorasta was right. With their superior speed and maneuverability, the sky-dragons had little to fear.
Zorasta darted directly toward the lead sun-dragon, on a path that seemed as if it would lead to a nose to nose collision. It was a familiar tactic. At the last second, the flock would rise to avoid impact and then rake their spears along the larger dragon’s wings. This maneuver had been drilled into them since they were old enough to lift a spear.
Spearless, Arifiel knew she would have to rake with her hind-claws—not as effective, yet still deadly. As the distance between her and the sun-dragons narrowed, she noticed that the great beasts all wore iron helmets. Atop each helmet was a nozzle attached to a long flexible tube leading back to the human rider who straddled the dragon’s shoulders. The tubes seemed made of bovine intestine. Behind each rider was strapped a series of inflated sacks that looked like linked cow stomachs.
As Zorasta reached a distance of a hundred feet from the lead sun-dragon, with only seconds to go before she executed her attack, the woman riding the dragon squeezed a large bellows. Instantly, a jet of white flame shot from the dragon’s helmet, changing night into day with its intensity. Zorasta screamed as the flames engulfed her. Arifiel veered left, dodging the burning stream. Zorasta fell toward the lake below, still aflame, leaving behind a black plume stinking of burnt feathers.
Before the flock could react, jets of flame shot out from the other sun-dragons and the sky was crisscrossed with a deadly white hot web. Arifiel used all her strength to climb higher, above the killing zone. Below her she heard the screams of her sisters. Reaching a point where she felt she would no longer be in danger, she craned her neck downward. The sun-dragons and their riders continued to fly toward the Nest. None were harmed. In their wake, eight burning valkyries, writhing in agony, fell in spirals toward the distant water. Only Arifiel had escaped the initial assault.
Rage gripped her. No sun-dragon could ever fairly best a sky-dragon in aerial combat. They had won due to surprise and trickery. With a battle cry that caused all the riders to look upward, Arifiel pulled her wings tightly to her side and fell toward the hindmost dragon. She now knew what she faced. She had no trace of fear within her. The sky was the kingdom of the valkyrie. These invaders would pay the ultimate price for their trespass.
ONE IRONY OF THE NEST, Sparrow realized, was that her own home stripped her of her greatest advantage over her assailants—she couldn’t fly in the maze of rooms and stairways that led to the core of the island. There were a few halls long and wide enough to cover in flight, but none high enough that she could avoid the humans. They seemed to be everywhere she turned.
Fortunately, the humans mostly traveled alone or in pairs. Their mission wasn’t to overpower the dragons—the paralyzing smoke had done this. They were instead methodically moving from room to room to slit the throats of unconscious dragons.
Sparrow had lost track of time since she had sounded the alarm. Five minutes? Ten? She’d killed six humans, not counting the three in the tower. The girls she fought always looked startled at seeing her move toward them so freely. This element of surprise no doubt protected her better than armor ever could.
Sparrow moved ever deeper into the Nest, toward the gear room. To her relief, she covered the last few floors without encountering resistance. Her relief turned to dread as the silence on these floors struck her. Had the humans already killed everyone?
She rounded the final corner and discovered a cluster of seven humans standing in her way. The girls looked up, their eyes wide as Sparrow rushed them. She buried her spear in the first human and released it, leaping over the falling body to clamp her toothy jaws tightly into the throat of the girl behind her. She pulled back as that human fell, beating her wings once and rising up so that she could kick out with her hind legs, gutting a third girl. The whirlwind of violence had lasted mere seconds, but now the element of surprise was gone. The remaining four rushed her, swinging their long knives, the black blades wet with poison. Sparrow skittered back down the hall, swinging her tail to trip the closest one. The girl proved too nimble—she leapt over Sparrow’s tail and slashed with her knife. Sparrow dodged, but the girl still left a slender gash in Sparrow’s shoulder. Sparrow bit her attacker in the face, feeling the girl’s jawbone snap between her teeth.
Sparrow spat the girl away and danced backward, readying for further attack. The girl stumbled blindly, in obvious agony, falling against the woman behind her. Her knife clattered on the floor, spinning toward Sparrow’s hind-talons. Sparrow lifted the knife and threw it with a kick, burying it to the hilt in the belly of a fifth girl. Now there were only two women left on their feet. They both edged back, knives held at the ready, warily watching for any opening.
Sparrow was now unarmed. Her left wing hung limp and lifeless. The tiny wound shouldn’t be causing her to lose all feeling, should it? Yet with each heartbeat, her whole body grew increasingly weak.
“I’ve killed fourteen of your sisters tonight,” she said, in the most threatening tone she could summon. “Which of you will be the fifteenth?”
She’d hoped the girls would run. Instead, they giggled and charged her, waving their knives wildly. They looked as if death was only a game to them. Sparrow knew she was little older than these women, but the time for playing games was forever gone. With a growl, she met their charge, sinking her teeth into the shoulder of the opponent to her left, burying the claws of her right fore-talon into the breast of the enemy to her right. Both humans stabbed her, driving their knives deep into her ribs. She felt no pain. She tightened her jaws, snapping the collarbone of the girl she held in her teeth. She felt the girl go limp with pain and release her grip on the blade.
With her fore-talon, Sparrow dug deeper into her final opponent’s flesh, wriggling her claws past the cage of bone she found, probing for the lungs and heart. Streams of blood splashed on the floor beneath them as they whirled around, locked in a dance of death. The woman stubbornly refused to die, twisting her blade with all her remaining strength. Their eyes were locked. It was now a contest of will.
Sparrow fought for her home, her family, and her honor. She didn’t know what drove the woman, and didn’t care. At last, the woman’s eyes clouded and her head slowly rolled to the side. Sparrow pushed her away. The woman slipped in the gore they stood in and fell roughly to the stone. Sparrow limped past her, steadying herself with her fore-talon against the wall. Dark specks danced all around her as she fell against the oak door, pushing it open with the full weight of her body. She staggered forward, the world narrowing into a dark tunnel. At the end of the tunnel was a large, steel bar, the master release for the fortress gates.
She reached out her fore-talon as she collapsed. Her bloody claw slipped on the steel. She fell to the floor, dying, uncertain if she’d pulled the lever or not. The world went perfectly dark. The only sound she could hear was her own heartbeat, which pounded in her ears like ceremonial drums.
And then, the drums stopped.
She was trapped inside herself, frozen, fading into the great unbroken silence.
Against that backdrop of oblivion came the click, click, clang of gears as the ancient machinery once more began to turn.
JANDRA STARED INTO THE RAINBOW where Jazz had just vanished. Presumably, Jazz was now back on earth, expecting Jandra to follow. Jandra looked around the unending gray desert. She could run. But to where? How long could she survive in this bleak and barren place, without hint of water or food?
“Ven,” she sighed. “You can’t know how badly I need to talk to you right now.”
“We both know that isn’t possible,” a familiar voice said over her shoulder. “But perhaps I’ll do?”
She turned around. Vendevorex once more stood before her, ghostly, translucent, the stars on the distant horizon shimmering in his golden eyes.
“You’re back!” she said.
“I never left,” Vendevorex said. “Or rather, this recording has never left. If you’re seeing me now, it’s no doubt because I reached my demise before we completed your training. I’ve attempted to anticipate your most likely questions about operation of the helmet and will answer them to the best of my ability.”
“Well, for one thing, the helmet isn’t a helmet any more,” said Jandra.
Vendevorex’s shade nodded. “It wouldn’t need to be. You may have noticed it adapted its shape to fit your skull as you donned it. You could shape it into many different forms and have it retain its function. The Atlanteans call such devices Global Encephalous Nanite Interaction Engines—a GENIE.”
Jandra glanced back at the rainbow. How long did she have before Jazz came back looking for her? And, what was Jazz doing to Hex and Bitterwood in her absence?
“Ven,” she said, “I have a lot of questions, but let me start with the most urgent. Do you know how to lock the, uh, genie?”
“Of course,” he said. “My skullcap and your tiara were always locked to avoid detection by others wielding Atlantean technology. I commanded the devices to unlock in the event of my demise, so that you could don my skull cap and, if you chose, pass on your tiara to an apprentice.”
Jandra grimaced at the thought of this. She’d left the palace in a hurry; her tiara had been left sitting on her dresser. Anyone could grab it. Could anyone use it?
“Fine,” she said. “So how to I relock them?”
“Simple,” he said. “Here is the twenty seven digit prime that will encrypt it to only respond to your thoughts.”
Jandra listened to the number carefully. She repeated it internally, and could almost hear something in the back of her mind click shut. She repeated it once more and returned the device the state it had been in when Jazz had last seen her. She didn’t know what lay on the other side of the portal. She wasn’t ready to spring this little surprise on the goddess until she knew where Hex and Bitterwood were.
“I wish we had more time to talk,” she said, turning toward the rainbow. “But if I don’t get back, she’s probably going to come looking for me.”
“We have all the time in the world,” Vendevorex assured her, as she leapt toward the void.
BITTERWOOD STRAINED against his cocoon of thick kudzu. He was twenty feet above the ground, dangling upside down from the branches of a towering cottonwood; his struggles sent down a rain of leaves, but did nothing to loosen the grip of the vines.
Nearby, Hex was barely visible as a bulge beneath a thick carpet of green. His jaws were tightly wrapped by the clinging vines. The sun-dragon had made no noise for some time, but Bitterwood could tell from the rhythm of his breath that Hex was awake.
The artificial sky had, by now, fallen into a pattern of darkness. Mosquitoes crawled over Bitterwood’s leathery face and the surrounding forest vibrated with the chorus of frogs and crickets. Against this cacophony, Bitterwood almost didn’t hear the steps of the giant beast. Almost. In the end, his highly-tuned ears knew that Trisky was approaching long before she came into sight, with Adam astride her.
Adam looked sorrowful. He obviously had something on his mind as he guided his mount beneath Bitterwood. He looked up and said softly, “I’m ashamed of you, father.”
Bitterwood said nothing.
“You desecrated the temple. You attacked the goddess and her angel without provocation. I’m captain of the long-wyrm riders. I’ve dedicated my life to serving the goddess. Why would you dishonor me so?”
Bitterwood blew away a mosquito that walked on his lips. He said, “I’ve spent the last twenty years believing you were dead. Perhaps it would have been best if you were. It would cause me less pain than to know you’ve devoted your life to this evil.”
“Father,” Adam said, struggling to maintain his composure. “I would slay any other man for uttering such blasphemy. The goddess is not evil. She spared you and the dragon.”
“And what of the people of Big Lick? What of Zeeky and Jandra?”
“You cannot judge the actions of the goddess as good or evil,” Adam said. “A storm brings rain and life to a parched land, yet may drown villages; its lightning may set fields aflame. Is a storm good or evil? The actions of the goddess are beyond the power of humans to judge.”
Bitterwood closed his eyes.
“You’ve made your judgment,” he said.
“Father, I implore you; repent your blasphemy and you’ll be released unharmed. You may live out the remainder of your days here in paradise.”
Bitterwood chuckled. “You live in a hole beneath the earth. How can this be paradise when you know that the stars above you are nothing but a lie?”
“Why do you think the world outside is any different?” Adam asked. “How can you know that the stars you look upon at night are real?”
Bitterwood didn’t have an answer for this.
Adam continued: “You’re a legend, father. The dragons call you the Ghost Who Kills. Yet, you aren’t a ghost. Does this make your struggle any less just? The dragons think of you as a force of nature, a supernatural being that slays without cause. Does this make you evil, father? Or are you a good man because you’ve you fought to make the world a better place?”
Bitterwood kept his eyes closed. He hoped Adam would go away. But he could still hear Trisky below, calmly munching on the grass.
Bitterwood sighed. “A lifetime of murder has corrupted me beyond redemption.”
“If you believe this, why do it?”
Bitterwood opened his eyes. He looked down upon his son. Adam was a man now, yet still had a boyish softness to his eyes. There was an innocence within him, a hope and faith that the world was a good world guided by a watchful, benign power. There was a light inside him that had long since burned to ash within Bitterwood.
Bitterwood had never been called upon to justify his actions. If he owed anyone an explanation, it was his own son. “It is said that if a man’s only tool is a hammer, then he will treat all the problems of the world as a nail.”
“Why do you answer me in riddles, father?”
“Hate was the only tool that remained after the dragons took everything else,” Bitterwood said. “In a single day I lost my God, my family, my home, my hope. Hatred kept me warm in winter. Hatred slaked my dry throat in times of drought and fed me in times of famine. I would have died long ago if not for my dream of a world without dragons. Perhaps, in the end, all the evil I’ve done will lead to good when mankind rules this world once more.”
“The goddess will never allow mankind dominion over the earth,” said Adam. “She says the race of man is unworthy. Listening to your words, watching your actions, I can’t help but wonder if she’s right.”
Behind Adam, the air began to rip. Prisms of light opened to surround a black gate. A woman stepped through. She resembled the goddess statue on a human scale; tall but nothing unnatural save for the hue of her hair.
“Sorry to interrupt this heart-to-heart,” the woman said. Bitterwood instantly recognized her voice as belonging to the goddess.
Adam threw himself to the ground.
“Oh, stand up and stop groveling,” the goddess said, sounding mildly agitated. “It’s starting to get old. I miss the days when guys your age couldn’t take their eyes off my breasts. You don’t know what I look like above my toenails.”
“I’m not worthy to gaze upon you,” Adam said.
“Worthy or not, I need you on your feet. Or on your butt, to be precise. Mount up.”
Adam rose, still averting his eyes as he climbed back into his saddle.
“Here’s the deal. I worked with the first matriarch to design the gene maps that would help her race slip out of the genetic noose it was caught in. But as we speak, Blasphet is attacking the Nest, trying to bring extinction to the entire species. He won’t succeed, of course. He doesn’t know about the sky-dragon population over in Tennessee or the big colony down in Cuba. Still, I’m a little pissed off that Blasphet’s wrecking a thousand-year-old project that’s one of my bigger success stories. So, Adam, I’m sending you and the other riders to stop him. I’m sending your dad along. Also, the big guy.” She cocked her head toward Hex.
“You want me to fight for you?” Bitterwood asked.
“You’ve shown a lot of talent for breaking things. Go break Blasphet.”
Bitterwood frowned. Was this a trick? Blasphet had long been one of the most difficult of Albekizan’s relatives to target. Normally, he would gladly accept an opportunity to face him. But not under these conditions.
“No,” he said. “I didn’t come here to serve you. I came here to find Zeeky.”
“Sure,” said the goddess. “So let’s cut to the chase. Go kill Blasphet and I won’t hurt Zeeky.”
“How do I even know she’s alive? Why did you send a replica to greet us?”
“I have her busy elsewhere right now,” said the goddess. “She’s not been hurt. For what it’s worth, I like the kid. She’s spunky. Reminds me of me when I was little.”
Bitterwood ground his teeth as he thought the offer over. What did it matter if Blasphet was attacking the Nest now? Even if they were outside the mountain, the Nest would take several days to reach. This must be a trick.
The goddess waved her hands toward Hex. The vegetation around his jaws loosened.
“How about you?” she asked. “Think you can take out your uncle?”
“Where’s Jandra?” Hex asked. With his head free, he strained to stand. The ground beneath him bulged as the full force of his muscles was brought to bear. In the end, the effort was futile. For every vine he snapped, two grew to replace them.
Suddenly, the rainbows behind the goddess rippled and a young woman stepped out. It looked like Jandra, though Bitterwood knew he couldn’t trust his eyes. This one was even less authentic than the earlier one. She wore no helmet.
Jandra looked up into the tree, then glanced over to the vines that covered Hex.
“What have you done to them?” she demanded.
“They aren’t hurt,” the goddess said. “Merely detained. I’ve offered them a chance to go to the Nest to fight Blasphet. So far, they don’t seem all that hot on the idea.”
“I’ll go,” said Jandra.
“This is further evidence you aren’t real,” said Bitterwood. “Your eagerness to do her bidding shows that you’re another doppelganger.”
Jandra looked as if she had no idea what Bitterwood was talking about. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said. “But, here’s one thing I understand: Blasphet. He escaped from the dungeons right before I left. He’s got a cult helping him, the Sisters of the Serpent, and one of them almost killed me. I’m finding there aren’t a lot of easy moral choices in life, but this one’s fairly simple. Anything that Blasphet wants to do, we should want to undo.”
“What happened to your helmet?” Hex asked.
“I’ll explain later. You coming?”
“Draw nearer,” Hex said.
Jandra walked closer. Hex’s nostrils flared as he sniffed her.
“She sweats,” he announced, looking up at Bitterwood. “It’s her.”
Bitterwood nodded. A dragon’s sense of smell rivaled that of a dog.
“I’ll go,” said Bitterwood. He didn’t care much about doing the bidding of the goddess, but getting free of these vines was an improvement over his current state.
“And I,” said Hex. “My uncle has tarnished my family’s reputation even more than my father. Unlike Shandrazel, I’m not encumbered by any romantic ideas of law. I’ll gladly gut the old monster.”
“Swell,” said the goddess. She snapped her fingers and the kudzu began to writhe. Bitterwood was spun downward and deposited on his feet. Hex rose as the vines lost their hold on him. He shook like a wet dog to free himself of the last of the clinging tendrils.
“If I’m going to face Blasphet, I’ll require a weapon,” said Bitterwood.
“Naturally,” the goddess said. She reached up and grabbed a low hanging limb of the cottonwood. The branch snapped off in her hand. Before Bitterwood’s eyes, the raw wood warped, the bark and leaves falling away as it straightened into a wooden bow six feet long. The goddess grimaced as she bent the bow into an arc and plucked a strand of her own hair. The hair wove and grew into a long silken cord that knotted itself around the ends. She tossed it to Bitterwood. He snatched it from the air and gave it a pull. It felt perfectly balanced, and was a good match for his strength. He looked up to find that the goddess had reconfigured the bark and remaining wood into a quiver of arrows, fletched with fresh green leaves.
She threw the quiver to him. “I’ve always believed in recycling,” she said. “You’ll be happy to know your equipment is 100% biodegradable.”
Bitterwood wasn’t happy to know this. He wasn’t even certain what the word meant, though he felt it was similar enough to degradation that it must mean something unpleasant.
“Time’s wasting,” said the goddess. Another rainbow opened before her, the largest yet, wide enough for Hex to step through. “Go get him.”
Jandra cast the goddess a stern look. “When we get back,” she said. “I want to see Zeeky.”
“We’ll talk about it,” the goddess said.
Bitterwood moved next to Jandra and Hex. He stared into the black rip in the center of the rainbow. A shudder passed through him as he gazed into the void.
He felt as if the void was gazing back.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
* * *
LONG SLOW FALL
“KILL THE GRAY ONE,” Blasphet said, moving toward the stairs that lead up from the Thread Room. “Bring Metron up to watch the festivities. The attack of the sun-dragons should be well underway. The burning bodies of valkyries must be falling from the sky like stars.”
As one the twenty women lowered their long knives and advanced toward Graxen. Graxen braced himself, running his eyes along the chain of attackers, searching for the weakest link. Unfortunately, the drugged smoke continued to play with his senses. It looked as if a rainbow had suddenly erupted in the air before him.
Then he slipped into madness. From thin air, a huge beast shot into the room. It was copper-colored, serpentine, and seemingly endless, studded with more limbs than Graxen could count. The serpent writhed, its body undulating as it trampled half of Blasphet’s assassins beneath its claws.
The serpent hadn’t come through alone. He was being ridden by a man in a white uniform, his eyes hidden behind a silver visor. The rider wielded a crossbow and coolly lowered it toward Blasphet. There was no way the rider could miss at such range. Yet as he pulled the trigger, one of the sisters leapt up and hit his arm. The shot went high, striking sparks on the ceiling above Blasphet’s head. Blasphet winced as the bolt bounced against his skull. Then he quickly turned tail, slithering toward the door he’d entered.
With a back-handed slap, the rider knocked aside the girl who’d grabbed him. The copper serpent curved his head toward Blasphet, preparing to strike. The beast’s eyes seemed unfocused in the smoky air. Suddenly, the serpent stumbled. The rider tumbled from his saddle as the serpent rolled to its side, succumbing to the poisoned torches.
Graxen’s eyes were drawn by a motion to his left. He spun in time to find a tattooed girl attacking him. He thrust out his wing, knocking her knife away, then lunged forward, biting her throat with a quick snap of his jaws. He pulled back as she fell to her knees, clasping her neck with both hands.
Graxen coughed as he searched around the room for other attackers. The arrival of the giant serpent had caused so much confusion that no one was watching him. The atmosphere was increasingly difficult to see through. Some of the torches the assassins had carried had been knocked against the tapestries. The aged threads hissed as flames devoured them.
JANDRA PLUNGED into the rainbow gate, in pursuit of Hex and Bitterwood. In her previous journeys through underspace, she had exited the other side an instant after she entered. This time, something was different. She felt as if she were engulfed by the void, falling through a space that was not a space, a place disconnected from the normal world of up and down, back and forth. It was a place without light or sound. And in this nothingness, a familiar voice called her name.
Zeeky? she thought, before she stumbled back into reality. She was in a room full of smoke, with the dead bodies of sky-dragons underfoot. Bitterwood was helping Adam get free of Trisky’s unconscious form. Hex had dropped to all fours, gasping for breath.
“J-Jandra,” he whispered, “the air . . . ,” before slumping to the ground.
“The smoke is poisoned,” shouted a gray sky-dragon standing near a blackboard. The name “Vendevorex” was written on the board, the white chalk seeming to glow.
“You’re Graxen, right?” Jandra asked. “Shandrazel’s messenger?”
“Yes,” he answered. “How did you get here? What is this rainbow?”
“I’ll have to answer you later,” Jandra said, fanning smoke away from her eyes. She reached into the pouch on her belt and threw thick handfuls of silver dust into the air. Despite the flames the air here was humid; she knew the Nest was located on an island. She commanded her tiny helpers to gather the water molecules in the air.
“Where’s Blasphet?” Bitterwood asked Graxen.
Graxen pointed toward the stairs down. “He fled mere moments ago.”
Now that the nanites had bonded to the water molecules, Jandra commanded a dozen small, localized showers to rain on all the torches and tapestries burning within the room. A second later the room went dark, with only a few red embers still visible. Content that the flames were extinguished, Jandra commanded the nanites to emit light. A soft white glow lit the nightmarish corpsescape.
“You must be Jandra,” Graxen said. “Vendevorex’s apprentice.”
Jandra nodded. She looked back toward Bitterwood, but he was gone.
“Blasphet has sun-dragons attacking above,” said Graxen. “We have to stop them!”
“If my father went after Blasphet, I must aid him,” said Adam.
Before anyone could move, the rainbow rippled once more and a tall, silver-haired man stepped out. He was bare-chested, and sported long golden wings.
“Who?” Jandra and Graxen asked simultaneously.
“Gabriel,” said the angel. “I’ll take command. The goddess has explained the full situation. Blasphet’s servants fan through the Nest, slaughtering valkyries. Adam, Jandra, since you cannot fly, it’s your duty to stop them. The goddess is sending the remaining long-wyrm riders to other areas of the Nest to assist. Meanwhile, the valkyries are under assault from sun-dragons. Since only I can fly, I’ll deal with them.”
Graxen stepped up. “I can help.”
“If you wish,” said the angel. Without waiting to see if anyone would question his orders, Gabriel leapt over the dead bodies to the stairs, darting up them with superhuman speed. Adam followed as quickly as he could, drawing his sword.
Jandra knelt before Hex, placing her hands upon him to see if she could identify the poison that had claimed him. To her relief, he was still breathing. The smoke wasn’t fatal.
“Aren’t you coming?” Graxen asked.
“Not until I neutralize the poison,” said Jandra. “He’ll be a big help if I can revive him.”
“If you possess Vendevorex’s healing arts, please, save Nadala,” Graxen said, bending low over the body of an unarmored valkyrie.
“I’ll do what I can,” said Jandra, as visions of molecules danced before her. She’d work better without any distractions. “She’s safe with me. Go!”
She gave him a dismissive wave as she turned her concentration once more to Hex. Graxen ran up the stairs. The clicks of his claws were drowned out as unseen gears in the walls started to chatter and grind.
ARIFIEL AIMED HERSELF toward the sun-dragon that lagged behind the rest of the pack. She folded her wings and went into freefall, undulating like a snake swimming through water, racing toward her target. The tattooed woman astride the sun-dragon spotted her and pulled the reins to guide the dragon’s head upward, but there was no way the gargantuan beast could move swiftly enough. Arifiel aimed for the dragon’s left wing, a massive sheet of feathery flesh. As the dragon beat a down stroke, she extended her hind-talons. Her claws sunk into the hide with a satisfying jolt as she ripped long, parallel shreds from the wing. The sun-dragon listed, losing speed, its movement crossing the tipping point between flying and falling. Arifiel kicked, tearing one last shred as she pushed away. The sun-dragon craned its neck toward her. Arifiel caught the look of terror and confusion in its eyes.
Then, without warning, the dragon’s rider gave one last squeeze of the bellows and a geyser of white flame shot toward her. Arifiel spun, pulling back from the worst of the flame, but cupfuls of the fluid splashed across her shoulders. She spasmed from the intense pain and found herself falling in the same path as the injured sun-dragon. She fought to regain control of her limbs, but each motion was utter agony as the liquid flame trickled across her scales.
The sun-dragon struck the water a hundred feet beneath her, creating a huge circle of waves. Cool droplets splashed against her face. A scream tore from her throat as she forced her injured shoulders to obey her will. She pulled from her dive, darting across the lake at neck-breaking speed.
She glanced up at the remaining sun-dragons. More valkyries charged them and the night again was lit with a web of flame. She needed to return to combat, no matter her injuries. She needed a weapon. She wished she could get back into the central tower to recover her spear. She wondered if Sparrow would ever make it to the control panel.
As she thought this, the island rumbled and the grates slowly rose. She tried to focus on her mission, ignoring the screams of the dying valkyries above her. Burnt feather-scales drifted through the air, filling the night with their stench. She flew only inches from the barbs and spear points that studded the Nest until she reached the tower. Through sheer will she beat her wings, shooting up the stony surface, until she found the bell room. She landed inside, avoiding the bodies of the girls that Sparrow had killed. Sparrow had made short work of them, certainly, and she’d apparently had no problem reaching the gear room. Arifiel could do no less. She retrieved her spear and steadied herself. She felt lightheaded. Blood streamed from the charred flesh of her shoulders. The battle sounded faint and distant compared to her labored breathing. She badly wanted to lie down to catch her breath.
“This isn’t how you die,” she whispered. “Go rip another of these interlopers from the sky!”
She leapt from the window. The spear in her hind-talons seemed made of lead. She climbed toward the cluster of sun-dragons. A cloud of valkyries swarmed them, darting and dodging through the jets of flame. Arifiel took heart as she saw a sun-dragon stumble in the air, spinning down in a deadly spiral to the rocky shore below. Another sun-dragon had lost its rider and was now covered in flames; the burning fluid in the bladders on its back had been punctured.
Arifiel felt that if she could only draw a deep breath, she’d be able to rise above the battle and once more attack with a dive. It would be her last dive ever, she felt certain, but at least she would not die alone.
Then, the spear in her hind-talons slipped from her grasp. The stars above her spun as her path tilted downward. She’d failed to reach her target. Her wings went limp. Below her was the Nest, with its vicious thorny surface. She vowed not to close her eyes. She would face death head on, without taking the comfort of a coward.
Below her, from an open balcony, she saw a human—a tall male, unlike the petite females who’d attacked her. She tried to steer her fall toward him. She could see that the spear she had dropped had already landed on this balcony; its tip was buried into a gap in the stone. If she could land on this human with equal force, her death wouldn’t be in vain.
The man looked up at her with a placid smile as golden wings unfolded from his back. He leapt toward Arifiel. The distance between them closed in seconds. But instead of a violent collision, the man held out his arms and caught her, using his wings as a parachute to slow their fall. He hugged her against his muscular chest as he drifted back to the balcony. He placed her carefully upon her back against the cool stone.
“You’ve fought valiantly, valkyrie,” he said, in a soothing, almost musical voice. “Rest now. Victory is at hand.”
He once more spread his wings and shot skyward, drawing a sword from the scabbard on his belt. The blade glowed red, as if it had just been pulled from a forge, then burst into flame. The yellow fire glimmered against his golden wings as he hurtled toward the dragons high above.
GRAXEN WAS LOST in the maze of corridors. He found himself in a room where a human male dressed in a white uniform stood over the dying body of a tattooed woman. The man’s eyes were hidden behind a visor, and his face was devoid of emotion. This wasn’t the one the angel had called Adam. It must be another of the long-wyrm riders. A sky-dragon was slumped on the floor near him.
“I got here in time to save this one,” the man reported.
Graxen nodded. He’d seen many horrors tonight, but as he’d passed through the fortress, he’d discovered more unconscious sky-dragons than dead ones. Hope wasn’t lost. His species might yet survive Blasphet’s assault. At the open window beyond the man, the night was aglow with white flames. He ran to it and looked up, trying to make sense of the chaos overhead. Bodies were falling from the heavens—-sky-dragons, wreathed in fire. Graxen watched as the seven sun-dragons still in the air shot spouts of fire from their heads, frying the valkyries who bravely rushed to defend their home. One of the sun-dragons began to plummet, trailing a white hot arc of flame. Above the falling dragon hovered Gabriel, burning bright as the sun. Gabriel was aflame—his clothes, his hair, even his skin was peeling away in the pillar of fire that engulfed him. Gabriel had obviously been the target of the dragons many times, but if the fire caused him any discomfort, Graxen couldn’t tell it. The angel remained aloft on his metallic wings, fluidly wheeling through the air to target his next opponent.
Gabriel drew his sword back to strike a sun-dragon that barreled straight toward him. He landed a decisive blow, burying his sword to the hilt in the dragon’s gaping mouth. Unfortunately, the great beast was slow to realize it was dead. The dragon closed its jaws tightly around the angel’s shoulder. It carried Gabriel forward through sheer mass, traveling a hundred yards before its body shuddered with the spasms of death. The dragon started to fall but didn’t release its death-bite on Gabriel. The angel was dragged from the air by the plummeting dragon, falling a quarter of a mile until they both vanished in the waters of the lake.
Graxen leapt from the window. There were fewer than twenty sky-dragons facing the remaining five sun-dragons. If the sun-dragons made it through this gauntlet, it wouldn’t matter that Blasphet and his cult were in retreat. The sun-dragons could gut the Nest with fire if they weren’t stopped. Blasphet could still have his victory.
Graxen scanned the shoreline for any sign of a weapon. He spotted a spear jutting upright on a nearby balcony. He swooped down and tried to grab it in mid-flight. Alas, its tip was buried so securely in the stone the jolt of tearing it loose also snatched it from his grasp. He heard it clatter against the balcony railing as he circled around to grab it once more. He landed on the railing and looked down, surprised to discover a valkyrie lying in the shadows.
“Arifiel?” he asked.
“Graxen?” she answered. Her voice trembled as if she were shivering.
“I need your spear, valkyrie,” Graxen said, grabbing her weapon from where he’d dropped it. “I promise I’ll make good use of it.”
“Why are you here, G-Graxen?” Arifiel whispered. “Are you to b-blame for this?”
Graxen swallowed hard. Was he to blame? Had his foolish desires turned him into an instrument of death? He instinctively shied away from that line of thought. It could only lead to despair, and despair was a luxury he couldn’t afford at the moment.
He removed the satchel he always carried from his shoulder. It would only weigh him down. It still held the beaded belt he’d intended to give to Nadala. It seemed as if the momentum of events would always conspire against him presenting her the gift. He tossed the bag to Arifiel’s side.
“If you live and I do not,” said Graxen, “give Nadala this bag, and tell her I loved her.”
“L-love counts for nothing here,” Arifiel said.
“Perhaps it counts for nothing anywhere,” said Graxen, spreading his wings. “Tell her all the same.”
He didn’t wait for her answer.
With the spear in his hind-talons he climbed toward the conflict. He had seconds to study the aerial battlefield. The sun-dragons were relatively slow, but the jets of flame more than made up for that disadvantage. The flames could shoot out a hundred feet in the space of a second, and the five sun-dragons were swooping around in overlapping figure-eights. There was no part of the sky where a valkyrie could approach one dragon without being in the sight of another.
The sky above the sun-dragons was now thick with billowing clouds of gray smoke. Only the faintest hint of the moon peeked through the veil. Graxen flew wide of the combat, holding his breath against the stench as he rose through the dark cloud. Finally, he emerged into bright moonlight, far above the conflict below. He looked down to see the glow of the flame jets faintly visible through the clouds. He mentally mapped the flashes, calculating the speed and direction of each sun-dragon. When the moment was right, he released Arifiel’s spear and went into a dive, beating his wings to fall faster than the spear. He angled his body so that he burst from the clouds well ahead of a dragon who would be heading directly for him. He spread his wings to slow his fall and make himself a better target. As expected, a jet of flame shot toward him, only to flicker out at least five yards away. He’d gauged the distance well. As the flame died and the dragon flew closer, the tattooed girl astride the sun-dragon drew the bellows wide once more. Just then, the spear emerged from the cloud overhead. It landed in the back of her sun-dragon, sinking deep into the beast’s spine, puncturing the half-empty bladder behind the rider. The dragon’s wings went limp and a huge fireball grew on its back, a miniature volcano that exploded with a light brighter than the noon sun.
Amidst this blinding flash, Graxen closed his eyes and flew with all his power toward the location of his next target. His mental mapping was rewarded when he opened his eyes and found himself mere yards from the next rider. She had turned her face away from the fireball, shielding her eyes with a raised arm. She never saw him coming as he slammed into her, knocking her from her mount. Graxen halted his momentum by grabbing the loose reins as they flapped in the air. The sun-dragon turned his head at the tug. Graxen grabbed the bellows and squeezed at the exact moment the beast’s head was perpendicular to its nearest neighbor. Suddenly, the wings of that sun-dragon were ablaze. Its rider let out a cry of alarm as the dragon tilted in the air and went into its death spiral.
Graxen jumped from the back of the sun-dragon he rode, holding the bellow handles in his hind-claws. The bellows tore loose, and Graxen beat his wings to put as much distance as possible between him and the conflagration that grew as the torn hoses sprayed burning liquid in all directions. The sun-dragon roared as it slipped into a long, slow fall.
In the space of seconds, there were only two sun-dragons left. Graxen wheeled, calculating his next attack, only to find that the valkyries had wasted no time in taking advantage of the defensive gaps in his wake. The remaining two dragons were torn apart in mid air as valkyries swarmed over them. The wings of both dragons were reduced to tatters by the vengeful females, who let out a victorious war whoop as their much larger opponents dropped toward the water far below.
JANDRA FROWNED as she studied the molecules of the airborne toxin that sedated Hex. The smoke was a mix of many chemicals, and she found it difficult to calculate which one she needed to break. Still, as she knelt beside Hex, monitoring his pulse, she felt that neutralizing the poison might not be necessary to wake him. His pulse and blood pressure were increasing as the residual smoke faded. The simplest antidote for the poison, it seemed, was fresh air.
She went to an unburned section of the tapestries that covered the walls. She ripped it down, intending to use it as a large fan to help circulate the air. She was surprised to discover an open door beyond. The cool breeze that carried into the room inspired her. She moved to the next tapestry and yanked it down.
“S-stop,” a faint voice behind her commanded.
She looked back to discover that one of the valkyries was standing, her head swaying. The sky-dragon’s eyes narrowed as they focused on the torn tapestry in Jandra’s grasp.
“Intruder!” the dragon growled, anger giving strength to her still raspy voice. “Defiler!”
“Wait,” said Jandra. “I—”
Before she could say anything further, the valkyrie charged. Jandra dropped the tapestry and leapt sideways. The dragon landed where Jandra had stood, her teeth snapping empty air. The valkyrie wobbled on unsteady talons as she craned her neck to locate Jandra.
Jandra summoned twin balls of flames around her hands.
“I don’t want to hurt you!” she shouted.
The valkyrie didn’t share the sentiment. She pounced. Jandra again danced aside, only to trip on one of the fallen bodies. She hit the stone floor hard, wrecking her concentration. The flames around her fists vanished. She rolled to her back, sizing up her opponent, who had also stumbled upon landing. The mind-numbing drugs weren’t entirely out of the valkyrie’s system. There was no point in reasoning with her. Jandra clenched her jaw. This would be a stupid way to die, gutted by a dragon she’d come here to save. She’d killed so often in recent days, what was one more death?
Except, everyone else she’d killed had been attacking her with malice. This dragon was simply confused. Jandra willed herself invisible. She rose to her feet and moved to the side of the room as the valkyrie carefully probed the area where Jandra had last stood. Jandra remembered one of Vendevorex’s favorite tricks. She cast more dust into the air and willed it to the opposite side of the room, where it coalesced into a double of herself. The valkyrie spun to face it.
“I’m not your enemy,” Jandra said. The valkyrie twisted her body to see if someone was behind her. Jandra didn’t know how to make her voice appear to come from her double. She had her duplicate hold out its arms. The movement drew the valkyrie’s attention.
“I’m Jandra, daughter of Vendevorex, a loyal subject of Shandrazel. I’ve come to defend the Nest.”
“What’s happened?” the valkyrie asked, raising a fore-talon to stroke her brow. She looked ill as she gazed over the bodies of her fellow warriors. “How did everyone die? Why am I still alive?”
“Blasphet attacked,” said Jandra. “He’s using a smoke-borne poison that doesn’t kill outright; he’s sent his army of human servants to finish the job. I’m here to stop them. I’m not alone.”
The sky-dragon’s legs suddenly gave way and she fell to all fours. Jandra wondered if the smoke was taking effect once more.
“What have I done?” she whispered. “Metron was a tatterwing and still I led him in! How could I have been so blind?”
Jandra wasn’t certain she understood what the sky-dragon was saying. How was Metron involved in this? She only knew she had never heard so much pain in a dragon’s voice. The valkyrie closed her eyes to the horrors before her as she whispered, so faintly Jandra nearly couldn’t hear, “Oh, Graxen. What have we done?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
* * *
GIFTS OF MONSTERS
BLASPHET SQUEEZED his massive frame down the narrow staircase and into the larger room beyond. The dank darkness reminded him of his imprisonment in the dungeon. He’d had better lighting on his journey in; he’d been surrounded by an army of torch-wielding worshippers. Fortunately, years of dwelling beneath the earth had left him with no fear of the dark. The torches and lanterns in the room above dented the gloom below, allowing him to navigate back to the tunnel with all the dripping pipes. He stumbled as he reached the water, and the splash of his movements echoed up and down the passageway.
Soon he’d left even the faint light behind, but it didn’t matter. The ancient corridor ran in a straight line. He stretched out his wings, feeling the enclosing walls, and used them for a guide as he pushed forward. He could hear nothing but the splash of his own talons above the splatter of the leaking pipes.
As he fled, Blasphet tried to make sense of what he’d witnessed. He’d been told that Vendevorex was dead. Perhaps it wasn’t true? How else could an attacker have materialized from thin air? Blasphet knew that the so-called wizard’s power was mostly illusion. Perhaps he was running from a trick of the light?
No, the crossbow bolt that had bounced against his head was real enough. Was there any other possible explanation? Blasphet stopped feeling his way down the tunnel as his mind snapped onto the most likely scenario. Vendevorex was dead, but what of the human he’d trained? The girl, Jandra? If Jandra had snuck into the room with an ally under the cover of invisibility, it could have looked as if they were stepping from thin air. Blasphet wasn’t sure what sort of creature they’d been riding, but apparently the beast had enough reptilian physiology to fall to the smoke. Was he fleeing nothing more than a boy with a crossbow and a girl with a few trick mirrors?
Blasphet gazed back toward the Nest. Again and again his grandest designs were thwarted by the meddling of others. The Free City would have been a marvelous triumph if Albekizan hadn’t interfered. Was he prepared to allow his latest scheme to be unraveled by a few youthful humans?
He shook his head. Fleeing such feeble opposition was simply . . . ungodlike.
Blasphet flicked away the ceramic caps that covered his poison-coated claws. As he slogged through the stagnant water back toward the dim and distant light, a voice, unseen in the gloom, whispered, “Where do you go, Murder God?”
Blasphet froze. The voice was human, male. Where had it come from? The falling water and the echoes in the tunnel made it difficult to pinpoint.
“Who’s there?” he said. His voice echoed in the tunnel. No one answered. Blasphet slowly let out his breath. Perhaps he’d imagined the voice?
Just as he was certain he was alone, the voice once more spoke: “I am the screams of innocents crushed beneath the talons of your race. I am the shadow on the stone; I am the Ghost Who Kills. I come this day for you, Murder God.”
“The Ghost Who . . . Bitterwood?” Blasphet asked, cocking his head. “The murderer of my brother?”
For a moment, only the water answered. Then a chill voice said, “You know my name.”
“I don’t know whether to curse you or thank you,” said Blasphet.
Bitterwood gave no reply.
“I despised my brother,” Blasphet continued. “I dreamed of his death. Yet, in the end, I loved the dream of killing him more than I wanted to actually watch him die. You succeeded where I failed, Ghost Who Kills. I’m in your debt.”
Again, his words were met only by silence.
“Has my gratitude left you speechless?” Blasphet asked. He took a slow, careful step forward, drawing a yard closer to the dim light at the end of the passage. “We’re much alike. We’ve transcended mere mortality: You, the avenging ghost; I, the god. We each tap a higher truth as our path to power—we know there is so much more to murder than simply ending a life.”
Blasphet paused, allowing his words to sink in.
“Did you come here in search of an enemy only to discover an admirer? Reveal yourself, Bitterwood. I would look upon the man who rid the world of Albekizan.”
At last, a reply came from the darkness. “Perhaps we aren’t so different. In the end, only one small thing divides us.”
Blasphet tilted his head, still unable to pinpoint the source of the voice. “And what would this small thing be?”
“I know where you are,” Bitterwood answered.
The words were followed by the hiss of an arrow cutting the air. Blasphet grunted as the arrow sank into the wrist bone of his left wing. He sucked in his breath through clenched teeth as he spun to face the direction the attack had come from. The arrow had flown for mere seconds. Bitterwood wasn’t so far away. He held his right fore-talon at the ready as he studied the darkness, glad he’d uncapped the poison. He thought he could discern a shape now, vaguely human, no more than twenty feet distant.
“You could have killed me with a single arrow,” Blasphet said, attempting to keep his voice calm. “Yet you shot my brother three times. They pulled thirteen arrows from my nephew. You take the same pleasure from the suffering as your victims as I do. You drink fear like wine.” Blasphet crouched down, the muscles in his legs coiling tightly as the nearby shadow emerged more clearly from the darkness. “I’m sorry to disappoint you. I’m a god. I shall not fear a ghost.”
Blasphet lunged for the humanoid shadow. He thrust his poisoned claw before him, burying it dead center of his target. A rotten tree branch snapped beneath his grasp. He stumbled in the water, trying not to fall. When he found his balance once more, he was left standing with only a large piece of cloth in his hand. A human’s cloak from the stink of it.
There was a splashing sound reverberating up and down the pipe. The echoes of his own attack? Or was Bitterwood moving to better target him? Suddenly, he discovered that his left leg was numb. He toppled as he lost control of the limb. A dull pain throbbed through him as he discovered an arrow jutting from his hamstring. He hadn’t even felt the arrow strike.
“Bitterwood,” said Blasphet, swallowing hard. His saliva had a metallic flavor. “Killing me is a mistake! Legends say that you seek vengeance against the dragons who killed your family. Can’t you see that I am an instrument to that end? Kill me, and you kill a single dragon. Spare me, and you guarantee the deaths of thousands.”
Blasphet pushed with his uninjured wing to a sitting position against the tunnel wall. At least the next arrow wouldn’t come from behind.
“No answer?” he asked. “My words intrigue you? We’ve killed so many, each acting alone. Think of what we could do as an alliance; ghost and god, holding the power of life and death over all.”
There was a loud splash as something heavy dropped from the pipes above. Blasphet slithered his tail beneath the water as he saw the silhouette of a man rise, several dozen yards away. If Bitterwood got close enough, Blasphet would trip him with his tail and make one last strike.
Bitterwood was clearly defined now, a black outline against the distant light. He slowly walked closer. Blasphet braced himself to attack. Then, just beyond the range of Blasphet’s tail, the shadow stopped. The Ghost Who Kills lifted his bow and took aim.
Blasphet opened his mouth to make one final appeal.
The bowstring rang out. Blasphet screeched as the arrow flashed into his open mouth, puncturing his cheek from the inside, pinning his head to the wall behind him. The agony of the arrow through his jaw muscle was astonishing. Was this white searing energy that filled him the same force that his victims had felt? If so, what a gift he had given them. As the pain washed through the recesses of his brain, it left in its wake a cleansing light that illuminated a simple, fundamental truth: It felt good to be alive. Only facing his end did Blasphet truly understand how much he cherished his existence.
It felt good to breathe. Each ragged gasp inflated his chest with damp air, bringing fresh oxygen to his hungry lungs. It felt good for his heart to beat, for the blood to race through his body with each pulse. Blasphet had long believed death to be a superior force to life. Life was merely a momentary act of resistance, while death was the ultimate champion. Ah, but what an act! What a glorious flickering moment!
Bitterwood stood before him, sword in hand.
“I won’t be quick about this,” he said.
Blasphet thought of the thirteen arrows that had been pulled from Bodiel. He recalled how the corpse of Dacorn had been found wedged into the crook of a tree, his tongue crudely hacked out. Blasphet’s courage failed him. In one last hope of remaining the master of his own destiny, Blasphet sank the poisoned claws of his right fore-talon into his thigh. The deadening effect of the poison was swift.
Bitterwood pried his jaws open. Blasphet felt the touch of a blade against his tongue. He sighed as each heartbeat carried him away, further, further, to a place where even Bitterwood could not follow.
JANDRA STEPPED ASIDE as Hex staggered upright. The long-wyrm beside him was also stirring, but without Adam near she didn’t know how well-behaved Trisky would be. Jandra took the tapestry she’d torn down a moment before and draped it over the long-wyrm. She covered the tapestry with silver dust and willed the fibers to reweave themselves. In seconds she’d created a makeshift straightjacket and muzzle for the long-wyrm. She’d apologize to Adam later if he objected to this treatment of his mount.
Hex stretched to fight off the effects of the poison. He winced as he smacked his head against the ceiling. Hex lowered his neck, his eyes wide open. He looked around the room. “What hit me?”
“Blasphet,” said Jandra. “Poison gas. Bitterwood has gone off to catch him.”
“Alone?” Hex asked.
“Yes,” said Jandra.
“That’s the last we’ll see of Bitterwood, then,” said Hex.
“I was thinking it would be the last we saw of Blasphet,” said Jandra.
“Bitterwood is an impressive warrior for a human,” said Hex. “But in Blasphet, he’s met his match. My uncle didn’t earn the title Murder God lightly.”
“You sound oddly proud of this,” said Jandra.
Hex shrugged. “Pride isn’t the correct word. However, I do respect him. Like me, he lost his contest of succession. Yet he didn’t fade from the world as I nearly did. Instead, he became a figure even more notorious than my father. History may long remember him after it has forgotten my father’s name.”
Jandra was bothered by Hex’s confident tone. Had she been wrong in letting Bitterwood chase Blasphet alone? On the other hand, how could she have stopped him?
She said, “Maybe we should . . .”
Her voice trailed off. There was something coming down the stairs. The chiming sound reminded her of Gabriel’s wings. She drew back as a metallic skeleton stepped into the room. The steely bones were powered by a complex array of moist-looking bags that served as muscles. The machine possessed golden wings, though their color was dulled by a layer of soot. The skull’s eyes were disturbingly human set in their lidless sockets.
“Don’t be alarmed,” the skeleton said. Its jaws moved, but the words seemed to come from somewhere within its rib cage. “It is I, Gabriel. The battle is won. The sun-dragons have been defeated; the poisoned torches have all been extinguished. The revived valkyries now search the Nest for any surviving assassins.” Gabriel moved forward, toward the rainbow arc. As he moved, Jandra found her mind once more filling with memories not her own. She could recall building the synthetic creature before her, and a counterpart, the prophet Hezekiah.
Her borrowed memory merged with her genuine memory as she remembered where she’d heard the name Jasmine Robertson before. It had been the name given by Hezekiah as his creator when Vendevorex had interrogated him.
“In the Free City, I fought a man named Hezekiah,” she said. “Are you the same sort of creature? He nearly killed me.”
“I cannot be blamed for the actions my brother,” said Gabriel. “Jazz gave us life centuries ago. I was to bring worshipers to the fold of the goddess; Hezekiah was to spread the old faith, and denounce the goddess as the devil.”
“Why would she want a competing religion?” Hex asked, puzzled.
“To keep humans divided,” said Jandra, tapping into Jazz’s memories. “To ensure that they would never unite to reclaim their former glory.”
“Correct. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m in need of new skin,” said Gabriel. With a flash of golden wings, he jumped through the rainbow and was gone.
“Should we follow him?” Hex asked.
“Not yet,” said Jandra. “The battle may be over, but the work isn’t. There may be wounded dragons I can assist. One of us should go after Bitterwood. See if he needs any help with Blasphet.”
“I need no one’s help.” Bitterwood grumbled as he stepped into the Thread Room once more. His clothes were covered in blood. He was carrying a big gray lump of torn meat in his left hand. Jandra’s stomach turned and she looked away from the gory sight.
“What on earth are you carrying?” she asked, wrinkling her nose.
“Dinner,” said Bitterwood. “I cut out his tongue.”
“By the bones,” Jandra said, unable to look at him. “Why would you do something so barbaric?”
“Tongues are easy meat,” Bitterwood said. “No bones, no fur. A bit chewy, but I’ve developed an appetite for them.”
Jandra remembered the shock she’d felt watching Hex devour a human’s head. Somehow, realizing that Bitterwood ate the tongues of his victims seemed far more disturbing.
“You defeated Blasphet?” Hex asked.
“Yes. Yet another of your relatives. You and Shandrazel are the only blood kin of Albekizan remaining.”
“Why are you taunting him?” Jandra snapped.
“Because you told me I couldn’t kill him,” said Bitterwood, coolly. “I’m going back to the cavern now. I’m going to rescue Zeeky.”
“Wait and we’ll come with you,” said Jandra. “I have a surprise in store for the goddess when I see her again.”
“I don’t need either of you to help,” Bitterwood said. “I’ve already killed one god today.”
With this, Bitterwood stepped into the rainbow gate and vanished.
“Are all your friends this charming?” Hex asked.
“I’m not certain I have any friends,” said Jandra. Her shoulders sagged. For all her powers, all her control over matter and light, the simplest human connections continued to elude her. Jazz’s earlier accusation that she was only a confused and lonely little girl now lay heavy on her heart.
Hex’s demeanor changed. His eyes softened as he reached out a fore-talon and placed it on her shoulder. “I hope I’m not being presumptuous in saying this, but I consider myself your friend. I haven’t known you long, but I admire your bravery, your intelligence, and your decency. I said what I said in anger. Please understand: I don’t trust Bitterwood. I believe he’s deranged. But if you wish to go after him, I’ll stand by your side.”
Jandra nodded, feeling choked. She swallowed to regain control of her voice. “Thank you, Hex. I do need to go back; not to help him, but to help Zeeky. Jazz is too dangerous to—”
“Who’s Jazz?” Hex asked.
“Oh. That’s the real name of the goddess. Only, she’s not a goddess. She’s just a human like me, using many of the same tricks I use. She’s just better at them. But I’m learning fast.”
“Earlier, when the wyrm-rider knocked your helmet free, you seemed to lose your powers,” said Hex. “I’d assumed you needed it to use your magic, but I see you no longer wear it.”
“Actually, I still have it,” Jandra said, lifting the hair at the back of her neck. “Jazz reconfigured it to make it less obvious. Which makes me think she’s probably wearing something similar. It’s called a genie. If we can take her genie away, Jazz will be powerless.”
“If you plan to fight this goddess, I shall stand by your side.”
“Thank you,” she said, wrapping her fingers around Hex’s talon and giving it a squeeze “Before we go back, though, we should make sure we’ve done all we can do here. We need to make sure Adam’s okay, then get him down here before I set his mount loose.”
“If we’re going to fight the goddess, should we be helping Adam?” Hex asked.
Jandra ran her fingers through her hair. “Good question. But, Adam hasn’t done anything hostile toward us yet. My gut instinct is to treat him fairly for now. Who knows? Perhaps he’ll turn out to be a friend after all.”
BLASPHET OPENED HIS EYES. His body felt distant. Someone was standing before him, carrying a lantern, but his eyes wouldn’t focus. His wing fell limp as the mysterious blurred shape pulled free the arrow that pierced it. The being then moved closer to his head. Blasphet could now see it was one of the sisters. Colobi?
She pulled free the arrow that pierced Blasphet’s cheek. Blasphet slumped, and the woman caught his head on her shoulders.
“Your ruse worked, O Murder God,” she said. “You trusted me with the knowledge that, should you ever face execution, you would simulate death by dosing yourself with your own poison. Your faith in me was not in vain. I found you in time to administer the antidote.”
“Uuuuuhh,” Blasphet groaned, feeling a haunting absence in his mouth.
“Bitterwood would have done far worse to you if he’d thought you were still alive,” Colobi said. “You’ll survive this, my Lord. I’ll restore you to health. For now, we must flee. The invasion of the Nest wasn’t completely successful. It’s only a matter of time before the valkyries search these tunnels.”
Blasphet nodded. He could barely feel his hind-talons as Colobi helped him rise. She handed him a valkyrie spear to use as a staff so that he could support himself on his injured hamstring. Colobi stayed beneath his wing as she guided him further down the dark tunnel. Together, they limped away from the Nest.
Blasphet’s throat ached as his lungs sucked in the damp air. He could hear his heart pounding with the effort of motion, feel his pulse pressing against the back of his eyes. He’d never felt such misery. Every step reminded him he’d escaped the embrace of death to once more endure the agony of being alive.
Alive.
He chuckled at the thought. His tongueless laugh was an eerie sound that caused Colobi to shudder beneath his wing.
Alive.
Oh, Bitterwood, he mused, his first fully conscious thought since waking. What a pathway to glory you have opened.
AFTER HE LEFT BURKE, Pet had run into a pair of earth-dragons fleeing Dragon Forge. Pet had killed them, but in the heat of battle he’d lost his bearings. After running more than a mile away from the fortress, he’d finally reoriented himself on a tall hill. Now, he raced through the maze of rusting ruins surrounding Dragon Forge toward the southern gate. A small canal ran along the southern road to the nearby river, the outflow of the fortress gutters and sewers. In the smoky moonlight, Pet couldn’t help but notice that the water in the canal ran dark red.
The southern gate was wide open and undefended. If any earth-dragons wanted to escape via this route, Pet saw nothing to stop them. Hopefully, anyone fleeing the fort would run into Frost and his men. Pet ran through the gates and quickly discovered that escape simply hadn’t been an option for most residents. Everywhere he looked, he saw slain earth-dragons. More than a few of Ragnar’s men were among the dead as well. In the distance, toward the center of town, he could still hear the shouts of combat. He ran toward the noise, his bow at the ready.
At last, he reached the battle. Here at the heart of Dragon Forge, beside a large building belching smoke into the sky from its great chimney, the toughest warriors of the earth-dragons had rallied. A hundred heavily-armored earth-dragons had circled, swinging battle axes that sent human limbs flying with each chop. The hundred dragons were better armed, better armored, and better trained than the men they faced. The only strategy of the humans was to charge the earth-dragons in waves. The dragons were killing five men for every dragon that fell, but the dragons were outnumbered ten to one. Pet climbed atop a rain barrel to see over the heads of his fellow humans and began to let his arrows fly into the center of the circled dragons. Amidst the chaotic action, he wasn’t certain if his shots were finding any weak points in the dragons’ armor, but still he fired. Through sheer overwhelming force the dragons were falling; one hundred became ninety, became eighty, became fifty, and at last a tipping point was passed. The bodies of the slain dragons became a mountain that the attackers had to climb to reach their remaining foes.
Rising atop this mountain of flesh was Ragnar, his beard and hair caked with gore, his body a network of cuts and gashes. He fought with twin scimitars, his eyes flashing with holy fury as he hacked at every dragon that climbed up the mound toward him. The dragons seemed to understand that killing him was their last hope of holding the city. They kept climbing up, and only the slipperiness of the slope and Ragnar’s superior position were keeping him alive. Ragnar slashed savagely at two dragons who climbed before him, but seemed unaware of a third to his back. Pet drew his bow and took careful aim. The dragon was partially blocked by Ragnar. If he was off by inches, he’d kill the prophet instead of the dragon. He imagined the arrow sticking out of the dragon’s throat, in the gap between its breast-plate and its helmet. He let the arrow fly.
He didn’t even see it hit, but the dragon suddenly toppled backwards. Ragnar was safe. Again and again, Pet placed the arrows in his quiver against the bowstring and imagined a dragon dying.
Moments later, his quiver was empty and the battle was over. The armored dragons who’d made the final stand were dead. Ragnar’s men spread out, going from door to door, hunting for any dragons who might still be cowering within.
Ragnar fell to his knees atop the mountain of corpses. At first, Pet thought the hairy man he was succumbing to his wounds. The prophet instead pressed his palms together and closed his eyes, giving thanks to his unseen Lord for the victory they had achieved this night.
Pet joined with a small band of warriors who kicked in the door of a nearby house and barged within. It was some sort of mess hall, with rows of tables and chairs that the warriors knocked over as they searched for more victims. The air took on the cabbage and chili stench of goom as someone smashed a barrel at the back of the room. Pet had never been able to stomach the stuff, so this was no great loss.
Pet found stairs leading down into a cellar. He discovered a small lantern next to the stairs, the wick showing only the barest blue flame. He let the wick out until it glowed brightly, then headed down the steps. He had a fantasy that he would find a well-stocked wine cellar below; sun-dragons were fond of wine, so perhaps earth-dragons kept it around as well. After the events of the night, Pet had a powerful thirst.
To his relief, he saw rows and rows of bottles. To his sorrow he saw they weren’t wine, but mostly preserved foods. Unlike the omnivorous winged dragons, earth-dragons ate meat almost exclusively. The bottles were filled with foods Pet recognized: picked ham-hocks, brined eggs, and red sausages preserved in vinegar. He’d had this type of sausage before and liked them, but right now he had no appetite.
There were other things in bottles Pet didn’t recognize, or at least hoped he didn’t. Was this jar full of brains? Were these pickled eye-balls? He moved to the next row, still hoping there might be wine.
He paused before a bottle with contents that caught his eye. Hands. Human hands. Female, to judge from the size, though it was difficult to say. The fingers were bloated and wrinkled by the pickling brine. The flesh was a disturbing shade of pink, colored by the red chilies that floated in the jar. His stomach twisted into a knot. He was grateful he hadn’t eaten anything in several hours.
Then his eyes caught sight of another bottle full of small lizards. Pet drew closer, in sickened fascination. He wasn’t sure what kind of lizards these were. They had heads like turtles, but their hands were more like earth-dragon’s and . . . Pet suddenly knew. The earth-dragons pickled and ate their own young. Something inside him snapped.
Pet marched back up the cellar stairs, to go back out among the gleaner mounds to hunt for survivors be they dragon or human. Burke was right. Anyone who had aided the dragons was part of a vast engine of death. In his old life as the pet of a sun-dragon, he owed every luxury he’d ever enjoyed to this system. Every silk pillow he’d slept upon, every golden cup he’d drunk from, every ivory comb he’d ever pulled through his locks—all were the product of an economy of enslavement. All the fine things he’d ever enjoyed, he now knew, were the gifts of monsters.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
* * *
YOU KNOW WHAT I HAVE DONE
THE DAMP, SMOKY, slaughter-scented air of the Nest gave way to warm floral breezes as Bitterwood stepped from the rainbow. The false sky overhead was still a nightscape dotted with stars and a moon. The light was bright enough to illuminate the footprints of the fallen angel that had preceded Bitterwood through the gate. He studied the shapes in the crushed grass; these weren’t the prints of a living thing. The prints had hard, crisp edges that told him that what he’d glimpsed as the angel had vanished into the gate was true. Gabriel was a clockwork man, as Hezekiah had been.
Bitterwood followed the trail of bent blades, though he instinctively knew where they led—the temple. Gabriel only had a few minutes lead. Bitterwood could tell from the trail that the machine man was limping, injured from battle. Bitterwood, on the other hand, felt energized after his murder of Blasphet. His fever dreams, his visions of Recanna, all the omens and portents suddenly seemed clear. For twenty years, the hatred of dragons had given him reason to rise in the mornings. He’d been full of righteous anger at the thoughts of how dragons held power over the lives of men, power they’d used unjustly. Yet, what of the power of gods? He didn’t know if his hatred could drive an arrow through the heart of the goddess. He was keen to find out.
He hoped his bruskness had been sufficient to dissuade Jandra from following him. If he died in pursuit of this task, it mattered little. He saw no reason for the girl to risk her life, however.
He caught up to Gabriel as the winged man climbed the steps of the temple. The angel was exposed for what he truly was, a mockery of a man made of steel bones and wet-clay muscles. Bitterwood dropped Blasphet’s severed tongue to the grass. From a hundred feet away, he took aim at Gabriel’s skull and let his arrow fly.
Sound, however, flies more swiftly than arrows. Gabriel spun in response to the twang of Bitterwood’s bow and swatted the arrow from its flight with skeletal fingers.
“Oh, it’s you,” Gabriel said. The angel drew his flaming sword from its scabbard. “I’ve known since you arrived you were an ungrateful guest. Put down your bow, human. You failed to kill me while my back was to you. You have no chance of victory now that I’m aware of your presence.”
Bitterwood placed a second arrow against his bowstring and stepped forward. “I’ve just come from killing a god,” he said. “An angel is no challenge.”
Gabriel spread his legs into a fighting stance, holding his sword with both hands.
“Bant Bitterwood, you owe me gratitude, not anger. I saved the life of your son. He’s grown into a valued servant of the goddess. It will cause him tremendous grief to know you died at my hands. For his sake, put down your bow.”
Bitterwood continued to close the gap. Twenty feet away was close enough for him to feel the heat of the flaming sword against his cheeks. He knew what this being was capable of. He’d witnessed Hezekiah survive far worse injuries than anything his bow could inflict. The machine man’s strength, even injured, was ten times his own. But he also knew one further thing that this angel didn’t know—he’d watched Vendevorex disable Hezekiah in the Free City. He knew this creature’s vulnerable spot.
He released the bow string. The arrow crossed the gap between man and angel in a time too fast to measure, yet the angel swung his sword swiftly enough to knock the arrow aside. He then raised the flaming weapon high overhead, and lunged. Bitterwood had anticipated this gambit. He charged forward with all his speed, coming in low under Gabriel’s racing weapon, tackling the angel’s torso with his full weight.
As with Hezekiah, it wasn’t enough. Throwing himself against Gabriel was like throwing himself against stone. He found his footing and rose up, in the embrace of the angel, until his face was staring into Gabriel’s steely skull. He could see his own eyes reflected in the angel’s gleaming teeth. Gabriel calmly folded his arms around Bitterwood in a bear hug. Bitterwood reached around the machine man’s back, feeling his way up the mechanical spine to the base of the neck. He smelled burnt hair from Gabriel’s sword being so near his face; his ribs were on the verge of breaking. There was no way for him to draw a breath in the angel’s death grip.
Bitterwood found the small, smooth orb that sat at the base of the angel’s skull. He wrapped his fist around it and yanked as spots danced before his eyes. Suddenly, Gabriel dropped his sword. His clasped arms around Bitterwood didn’t slacken, but they also didn’t grow any tighter.
Bitterwood exhaled fully, creating tiny amounts of slack. He slipped down the angel’s rib cage, twisting his shoulders to free himself. He staggered backwards with a shiny silver marble in his hands. Vendevorex had called this sphere a homunculus—the machine soul that animated the artificial man. Gabriel was still now, save for a trio of wires that snaked from his back and floated toward Bitterwood like tentacles of a jellyfish. Bitterwood dived beneath these probes, reaching for Gabriel’s flaming sword, which lay on the ground beside the angel’s skeletal feet. He rose with the weapon and sliced upward through the wires, severing them. Instantly, they began to grow back.
Bitterwood ran away, down the lengths of the temple steps. He didn’t know the range of the wires, but it couldn’t be infinite. Or perhaps it could. They might seek out the homunculus wherever it went. Bitterwood stopped, having put several yards between himself and the wires. He laid the silver orb upon the polished steps of the temple. Then, he placed the flaming sword upon it. He stepped back, hoping that the wires would melt away before they could reach the orb. Instead, the homunculus suddenly popped like a kernel of corn, violently enough to throw the sword into the air. Tiny fragments of shrapnel tinked against the stone. A steel splinter buried itself deeply in Bitterwood’s cheek, barely an inch below his left eye. He dug the sliver out with his ragged nails, then wiped the wound with the back of his hand. He allowed himself a deep, calming breath, though it sent needles of pain through his bruised ribcage.
He retrieved the flaming sword from where it had landed. It had burned a circle around it in the grass, though the ground and vegetation were too moist to allow the flames to spread far. He carried it at arm’s length, unable to even look directly at the white-hot weapon. He hoped that placing it back in Gabriel’s scabbard would squelch the weapon. Yet, as he wished that the weapon wasn’t so hot, the weapon responded. The white searing flame faded to the intensity of a torch. Bitterwood no longer felt as if his shirt sleeve were on the verge of catching fire. He stared at the now manageable flame and wondered if it could grow dimmer still. It did, lowering its intensity until only the barest halo of faint orange flame danced around it, and Bitterwood could no longer feel its heat on his face. With a thought, he willed it to brighten again.
He allowed himself a rare grin as the sword obeyed his unspoken command. He went to Gabriel’s paralyzed form and placed the sword back into it scabbard, then fastened the scabbard to his own belt.
He cast a glance back to Blasphet’s severed tongue. At least he now knew how he was going to cook it.
BITTERWOOD LEFT THE FLAMING TEMPLE. For an hour, he’d shouted in the place, calling the goddess down. He’d burned her statue and set fire to the walls to no avail. She hadn’t come for him.
Very well. His true purpose in returning, he reminded himself, wasn’t to kill angels and goddesses, but to rescue Zeeky. He walked away from the conflagration of the once sacred place. With the angel slain and the temple on fire, Bitterwood saw no further need for subtlety. “Zeeky!” he shouted. “Zeeky, where are you?”
He listened to the night jungle, to the chirping of frogs and the buzzing of insects, to the agitated cries of birds and monkeys as they chattered about the scorched earth Bitterwood had left in his wake. For all he knew, Zeeky could be crying out for him and he couldn’t hear her beneath this cacophony.
JANDRA LET THE PRIME NUMBER that locked her helmet run through her mind once more. She and Hex were in the Thread Room, looking at the rainbow gate. They had already sent Adam and Trisky through, and the other long-wyrm riders had returned through the gates they had entered.
The situation at the Nest wasn’t good, but there was little more she could do. The matriarch had recovered from the anesthetic smoke and taken command once more. She’d ordered Graxen and Nadala taken away in chains, and Jandra didn’t feel she had enough of an understanding of the situation to protest this decision.
Jandra had spent much of the night healing injured valkyries. She’d also been waiting for news of Blasphet—the valkyries who searched the tunnels hadn’t yet found his body. But, Jandra couldn’t believe he wasn’t dead. She’d seen his severed tongue, after all, and for all of Bitterwood’s flaws he wasn’t a liar. If he said he’d killed Blasphet, he had. Could he possibly have done something so awful to the body it could never be found? It was best not to think about it.
Besides, she had other things to focus on. She suspected that Jazz would know almost instantly that her helmet was locked once they were together. The genies communicated at radio frequencies—with Jazz a hundred miles away and a mile beneath the earth, and Jandra in a room beneath the surface of a lake, she was reasonably confident that Jazz couldn’t listen in to her conversation with Hex right now.
“You know, this isn’t your fight,” she said. “You’ve never even met Zeeky. I have a score to settle with Jazz, but you don’t need to get yourself killed on my account.”
“On the contrary,” said Hex. “I feel that confronting this Jazz is required if my beliefs mean anything to me at all. I’ve spent much of my life developing my philosophy. I believe that all law is ultimately a shackle, and that all kings are ultimately tyrants. If I don’t trust power to a king, how can I rest knowing that Jazz wields even greater power? I told you earlier that I don’t believe we must be the puppets of fate. This would-be goddess imagines herself as a puppet master. It’s my duty as a warrior-philosopher to cut her strings.”
“Warrior-philosopher? Is that what you are?”
“My last official title was assistant librarian,” Hex said. “Confronting a god as an assistant librarian is a risky undertaking; a warrior-philosopher, however, is suited for the task.”
Jandra smiled. She appreciated Hex’s dry humor. She handed Hex a silver ring that she’d created from the dust in her pouch. It was scaled to fit his talons; on her, it would have been a bracelet.
“Wear this,” she said. “It might come in handy.”
“What does it do?” Hex asked.
“You’ve seen me turn invisible. I do it with the aid of the silver dust. It fills the air and configures itself into a billion tiny mirrors that carefully guide the light around me. I’ve taken that dust and shaped it into this ring with a preprogrammed command to form an invisibility sphere around you. Unfortunately, I can’t make the sphere big enough to cover you if your wings are fully outstretched. The illusion falls apart once you get much past a twenty-foot diameter. Too many gaps in the integrated mirrors. So, it won’t work if you’re flying, or fighting all out. But it might help you hide, or ambush someone as long as you stay compact. Keep your wings and tail tucked in, don’t stretch your neck too far, and no one will be able to see you.”
“How do I activate it?”
“I’m keeping it simple,” she said. “All it needs is a good jolt of kinetic energy. Just hit it against something hard and part of the ring will flake off and form the field. There’s only enough dust in the ring to work a half dozen times, so use it wisely.”
“Thank you,” said Hex, sliding the ring on. “Though, I confess, stealth and invisibility aren’t my style.”
“Not your warrior style,” said Jandra. “But it may come in handy for a moment of philosophy. Jazz can probably see straight through the illusion, but maybe not. Here’s what I do know about her: despite all her seeming power, she’s only human. She’s no doubt enhanced herself physically; she can probably heal from grievous wounds almost instantly. Mentally, she seems to think she has the right to do anything she wants because the world owes her. She claims to have saved the world from environmental catastrophe.”
“Do you think she did?”
“No. I think like most people she wants to believe her presence makes the world a better place. She pushed a bunch of her memories into my head that I think are supposed to make me sympathize with her. For instance, I have this memory of her when she was only a teenager; she’s crouching on a beach covered with oil, cradling a dying seagull. I can feel her sorrow, her genuine longing to keep this from ever happening again. Two years later, she was the mastermind behind the bombing of an oil refinery. She killed nine people and triggered economic turmoil that ruined the lives of millions. She’s given me this as one of her good memories, one of the things she’s most proud of. She wants me to see that while her methods may be harsh and violent, she’s always striving for the greater good.”
“Just as my father justified war in the name of peace, and oppression in the name of order,” said Hex. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned about life, it’s that those with the most passionate convictions can justify the most savage cruelties.”
“I don’t know that I agree with you,” said Jandra. “You’re passionate about your beliefs, but it hasn’t left you bloodthirsty and ruthless like Jazz. Or like Bitterwood, now that I think about it. You’re a living contradiction to your own assertion.”
“If there’s a second thing I’ve learned about life, it’s that any truth I can sum up in a single sentence is almost certainly going to snap once I place the weight of reality upon it.”
“One thing I’ve learned from these new memories is not to be intimidated by Jazz any more. She may be powerful and smart, but she’s not omnipotent or omniscient. She’s just a woman with a human brain in a human skull. Not to be gruesome, but I’ve seen what you can do to a human skull. We stand a chance if we get close enough. I believe we can beat her.”
“Well then,” said Hex, moving toward the gate. “The time has come to once more test a belief against reality.” He leapt, vanishing into nothingness.
As he did so, the rainbow seemed to vibrate, and the air around it shimmered with countless tiny prisms that faded as quickly as they’d formed. Yet in that brief flash, Jandra was certain that she’d once more heard her name spoken by Zeeky. Bracing herself, Jandra stepped into the rainbow . . .
. . . AND NOW THE VOID was endless. Rather than emerging from the other side, Jandra was adrift in darkness and silence. She couldn’t breathe; she couldn’t feel her heart beating within her. The disembodied sensation felt the way she imagined death must feel. And yet . . . she wasn’t dead. She was thinking. What was happening to her?
She tried to summon fire around her hands to break the darkness, but she couldn’t feel her hands. She wasn’t certain she even had hands any more. It was as if all that was physical about her had been stripped away and she was left as only a mind.
“Jandra,” a voice whispered.
“Zeeky?” she asked, despite lacking a throat or mouth to form the words.
“Follow my voice,” said Zeeky. As she spoke, the darkness split and a sliver of light formed. Jandra wanted to move toward the light, but didn’t know how. She had no limbs to push herself with. Panic seized her. The presence of a way out of this void and her inability to reach it left her feeling trapped.
Then, hands that were not hands pressed against her, or the idea of her, and pushed.
JANDRA LANDED HARD on a concrete floor in a gray, windowless, room. The presence of gravity felt both reassuring and confining. She was pinned to the cold, hard surface by the weight of her body. The light here was dim, but after her encounter with the void even this faint illumination felt like daggers stabbing her eyes. She threw her arm across her face to block the light. She took long, slow breaths, welcoming the air across her lips after her brief encounter with airless, lipless nothingness.
Something wet, cold, and circular pressed against her forehead. Jandra moved her hand to see what it was and found her fingers touching the snout of some kind of animal. She opened her eyes and looked up into the face of a pig, its hide mottled black and white. The pig looked down at her with an expression that resembled concern.
She’d never actually met Zeeky’s pig, but her porcine examiner seemed to fit the bill.
“Poocher?” she asked.
“Yes.”
It took her half a second to realize it hadn’t been the pig who answered. She sat up and discovered a girl standing in the center of the room. She was dressed in a white robe; her golden hair was washed and braided. She stood before a glass orb the size of a man’s fist, which floated in the air seemingly without support. The girl’s eyes were fixed upon the orb in an almost hypnotic gaze.
“Zeeky!” Jandra cried. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” said Zeeky, not taking her eyes off the orb. Her tone made it sound as if Jandra’s voice was an unwelcome distraction.
She rose, looking once more around the room. Jandra somehow recognized it though she’d never been here before. It was a cell built by Jazz, accessible only via an underspace gate. She had a faint memory of building it.
“How did I get here?” Jandra asked. “Did you guide me here somehow?”
“Yes,” Zeeky said again, tersely.
Jandra walked over to her and placed her hand on Zeeky’s shoulder.
“Is something wrong?”
Zeeky turned away from the orb. Tears welled in her eyes as she said, with a trembling voice, “Everything is wrong! I don’t know what to do!”
“What’s happening,” Jandra said, squatting down to Zeeky’s level. “What’s the problem?”
“My family and my neighbors are still inside,” Zeeky said, wiping her cheeks. “I can hear them; we’ve been talking. But they’ve been in there too long. It’s changing them. They’ve forgotten what their bodies looked like. They say they don’t want to come out. They say it’s like heaven in there.”
“Heaven isn’t what I experienced,” said Jandra.
“It wasn’t what they first experienced either,” said Zeeky, running her fingers along the glass orb. “They said it was more like being dead. They’re spirits without bodies. It terrified them at first. But, slowly, they found out that the place responded to their thoughts. It became what they wanted it to become. They imagined heaven, and it became heaven. Now they want me to go inside with them.”
“Could you?” Jandra asked. “Does this crystal ball have that power?” She looked into the transparent sphere, but saw nothing but the distorted image of Poocher on the other side.
“Jazz left it here for me. She says there’s a tiny slice of underspace forever opened at its heart, but I can’t reach it while it’s sealed in the globe. The globe isn’t really glass . . . it’s some sort of energy that that looks like glass. Nothing in this world can ever break it.”
“How do you know that?”
“The villagers told me. They’re telling me so many things. I don’t understand half of what they’re saying. Freed of their bodies, existing as pure thought, they’re beginning to know everything . . . but they’re forgetting what it was to be human.”
“Jazz told me she wanted to stay inside underspace because it would make her omniscient,” said Jandra. “Perhaps she was right.”
“Jazz can’t be allowed inside,” said Zeeky. “They don’t want her there. Jazz is a bad person.”
“I know.”
“They say I should go with them to escape her,” said Zeeky. “But, I don’t want to. I don’t want to live without a body. I want to stay in this world with Poocher. I want to see Jeremiah again. I just want things back like they were.” A tear traced down her cheek as she spoke. Her lower lip trembled.
Jandra wrapped her arms around Zeeky and pressed her wet cheek against her own. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“How touching,” said a woman’s voice behind her.
Suddenly, the room smelled of cigarettes.
BITTERWOOD HAD COME once more to the shores of the island. He walked its perimeter, trying to find something he could use as a boat. He came at last to a broad beach of black sand. In the distance, he could see a second island. Perhaps Zeeky was there. His search of the temple island had certainly proven unproductive.
Bitterwood looked up as he heard the rustling of leaves in the forest behind him. The greenery parted as the copper-colored heads of three long-wyrms pushed through onto the beach. Adam rode the wyrm that led the way. Behind him were two riders Bitterwood had never seen.
Adam’s voice shook with outrage as he spoke. “The temple is destroyed! Gabriel is dead! One of your arrows was discovered near his remains. What have you done, father?”
“You know what I have done,” said Bitterwood.
“The goddess possesses infinite grace,” Adam said. “She may forgive any insult if you approach her with a repentant heart. Throw down your bow, father. Surrender yourself. She may yet show you mercy.”
“I do not desire mercy,” said Bitterwood. “I have slain her angel. Is this the act of a repentant heart? Let Ashera show herself if my actions anger her. I want very much to see her; I still have arrows in my quiver. Let her test her power against me.”
“Blasphemer!” shouted the rider to Adam’s left.
“Calm yourself, Palt,” said Adam.
“No!” he cried. “He speaks of arrows. We are the arrows in the quiver of the goddess! We are the missiles of her wrath! Let us fly, Adam. We shall strike this heretic down!”
Adam looked toward Bitterwood once more. “Father, if you’ve any love of life, you will drop your bow. Do not make us kill you.”
Bitterwood lifted his bow and calmly drew an arrow. He took aim, dead center of Adam’s chest.
“I have no love of anything,” he said. “Kill me if you can.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
* * *
BAD WOMAN
JANDRA SPUN AROUND.
“You’ve locked the helmet,” Jazz said, taking a drag on her cigarette. “Interesting.”
“I didn’t enjoy being your doll,” said Jandra.
“Then we won’t be having tea with Mr. Teddy?” Jazz said, her voice mocking Jandra’s accent. “Fine. You still need me, Jandra. Those memories I gave you won’t be of much use without me to guide you through them. And I kept a lot of the good stuff to myself. Wouldn’t you like to learn to open the underspace gates? Wouldn’t you like to tap into a thousand years of experience and wisdom without the tedium of actually having to trudge through all those centuries? Swear your loyalty to me Jandra, and I’ll help you become a goddess.”
Jandra guided Zeeky behind her. Poocher came up next to her knees, grunting as he stared at Jazz.
“Godhood doesn’t hold much attraction for me,” Jandra said. “I’m having a tough enough time learning to be human.”
Jazz rolled her eyes. “You’re such a drama queen. Fine. You don’t want to be my friend. But, we don’t have to be enemies, either.” Jazz stepped aside as a glowing rainbow opened in the air behind her.
“Here’s the door,” she said. “It leads back to Shandrazel’s palace, your old stomping grounds. Get out and don’t bother me again.”
Jandra looked at the gate. It would be so easy just to grab Zeeky and leap for it. But, escaping Jazz wouldn’t solve anything. If escape were all she wanted, she wouldn’t have come back from the Nest.
Then, to her surprise, Poocher charged toward the rainbow and leapt in. Zeeky ran past her, grabbing her hand. In Zeeky’s other hand, she cradled the crystal ball. “Hurry!” shouted Zeeky, dragging her toward the gate.
Seeing a look of shock flash across Jazz’s face, Jandra decided to trust Zeeky. She leapt once more into the place that was not a place.
THE LONG-WYRMS ridden by Palt and Adam lunged toward Bitterwood and the third rider took aim with his crossbow. Bitterwood stepped aside as the man fired. The bolt whizzed through the air behind him. Bitterwood shifted his aim from Adam to Palt’s charging serpent. The creatures were more a threat than the riders. He let his arrow fly, targeting the long-wyrm’s left eye. The creature jerked, its legs twitching spastically. Black sand flew as the long-wyrm crashed and Palt fell from his saddle. By now, Trisky was only a yard away, opening her maw wide. Without dropping his bow, Bitterwood drew Gabriel’s sword, willing it to flare into white brilliance. He tossed the sword down Trisky’s gullet and jumped away from her charge at the last possible instant. As momentum carried Trisky past him, he reached out and grabbed Adam’s leg. With a violent tug, he tore his son from the saddle.
As Adam landed hard in the sand, the third long-wyrm rider reloaded. Before he could take aim, Bitterwood drew another arrow. He saw the skittish look in the long-wyrm’s eyes. He released the bowstring and the man toppled from his saddle, an arrow jutting from his heart . The long-wyrm panicked as his rider fell, turning in a nearly perfect arc and darting once more into the forest.
Trisky’s head was beneath the surface of the lake now. Water boiled up around her, white steam rising into the air. Her body was wracked with spasms as Bitterwood vaulted over her. He looked toward the first worm he’d killed. The rider was back on his feet, his sword drawn. Bitterwood fired his bow once more and the man fell to his knees on the black sand, a confused look on his face. Then his body sagged, and he fell to his side.
Bitterwood let out a long, slow breath. There was only one foe left. By now, Adam would be recovering from his abrupt dismount. Bitterwood clenched his jaws, contemplating the unpleasant task before him.
JANDRA EXPECTED TO LAND in the familiar rooms of the palace. Instead, she emerged from the rainbow back in the clearing where Bitterwood and Hex had been held captive by the vines. The same place she’d departed from to reach the Nest.
“What?” she asked. “How did we—”
“I don’t know how to open a gate into underspace,” Zeeky said, still pulling on her hand. “But once you’re in the warp, the villagers can push you out anywhere a gate has ever been opened. I don’t understand how they do it, but it works; it’s how I got you to find me. I couldn’t leave Jazz’s prison, though, because I couldn’t reach a gate.”
“But we’re still on Jazz’s island,” said Jandra. “If you wanted to escape, the palace would have been further from her grasp.”
“This is where the villagers say we should be,” said Zeeky. “This is where your friend will be.”
“Do tell,” said Jazz, now standing in the clearing before them, a rainbow closing behind her. “So, you can talk to your family inside. You’ve been holding out on me.”
“I’ll never help you!” Zeeky screamed. “You’re a bad woman!”
“Oh, screw this,” said Jazz. Lightning wreathed both her hands as she lifted them. “I’m through playing nice. You’ll do what I tell you, girl, once I get rid of your would-be protector.”
Jandra suddenly felt as if millions of tiny hooks dug into her skin. She gasped as the hooks began to tug, ripping molecule from molecule. In seconds she would be torn apart, shredded to her component atoms by Jazz’s nanites.
She lifted up her hands and watched her fingernails fly off into the breeze, carried by flecks of silver dust.
BITTERWOOD DROPPED HIS BOW as his son climbed onto Trisky’s corpse. Adam had his crossbow loaded. His visor had been knocked loose when Bitterwood had thrown him to the sand. His eyes burned with rage as he screamed, “Why are you doing this? What can you possibly gain by defying the goddess?”
Bitterwood asked, “What can you gain from obeying her?”
“I owe everything to the goddess! My mother was gone. You abandoned me! If she hadn’t showed me her divine mercy, I’d have died as an infant.”
“Everyone dies eventually,” said Bitterwood.
Adam growled as he took aim. “I’m weary of your mockery. To be smiled upon by the goddess is like being smiled upon by the sun. There is no better joy than to serve her.”
“Huh,” said Bitterwood. “It’s been a long time since joy motivated me. But I remember it. I remember the last time I felt happiness. You were there.”
“What do you mean?” Adam asked, still staring down the shaft of the bolt.
“Back in Christdale. I had two daughters by your mother, Recanna. You were my first son. I loved my daughters. I was happy. But the first time I ever held you in my arms, I felt something greater than happiness. You were my hope and my future, Adam. I could see myself in you. I looked forward to teaching you as you grew: how to fish, how to hunt, how to plow. I wanted to teach you everything I knew.”
“And what have you taught me now? Blasphemy? Hatred? Revenge?”
“This wasn’t what I planned to teach you. I used to think of Christdale as Eden, even though times weren’t always easy. We were farmers working fields full of stones. Most years, we didn’t get enough rain. Other years, we lost the crops to storms and floods. Yet we endured as a community. We shared our food. We worked together to feed the children and care for the aged. I wish you could have grown up there. But then the dragons came. They ruined everything. I thought they’d killed you.”
“Earlier, you said you wished they’d killed me,” said Adam, lowering the crossbow.
Bitterwood nodded. “I was angry when I spoke those words.”
“You’re always angry!” Adam snarled. “You’ve been hostile since the moment we met!”
“I know. And, I also know I could have killed you just now,” said Bitterwood. “You were my first target.”
“I know you had me in your sites. Why didn’t you fire?”
Bitterwood sighed. “I almost died not long ago; I think I caught a glimpse of heaven. I don’t know. It may all have been a dream. Still, your mother was there. When I cross over to the other side, if there is another side, I don’t want to tell her I was the man who killed you.”
“I’ve already been assured of my place in heaven,” said Adam, aiming the crossbow once more. He stared down the length of the weapon to look Bitterwood in the eyes. “Why shouldn’t I kill you?”
“I can’t think of any reason you shouldn’t pull that trigger,” said Bitterwood. “If you spare me, I’m going to kill your goddess, or die trying. I’m the antithesis of everything you hold as good in this world.”
“You’re nothing like the man I used to dream about, the great dragon-slayer.”
“I’m not the man I used to dream about either,” said Bitterwood. “But maybe today I found out something I didn’t know about myself. Something that makes me think I might yet have a hope of heaven.”
“Go on,” said Adam.
“In twenty years, I’ve never changed my mind about a target. I’ve only aimed at what I hated, and I’ve always let the arrow fly. For twenty years, I thought that hate was the only thing left in my heart. But, Adam, even though time and fate have left us on opposing sides, I don’t hate you. You’re brave, you’re reverent, you’re merciful; you’re everything I failed to be. One day something’s going to kill you, son . . . but it won’t be me.”
Adam stared at his father. He let out his breath, and lowered his crossbow.
“Despite all you’ve done, I don’t hate you either,” said Adam.
“What about the fact I still plan to kill your goddess?”
“You only risk your own life. If you seek out the goddess, she’ll surely destroy you.”
Bitterwood leaned over and picked up his bow.
“No man lives forever,” he said.
JANDRA’S BATTLE with the goddess unfolded on a microscopic level. She imagined her skin was a sheet of iron, too hard for the tiny machines to penetrate. She focused the nanites that swam within her to her blood, to resist the invading molecules and repair the damage as quickly as Jazz inflicted it.
“Ah, you’re a little more advanced at this than I thought,” Jazz said as she flicked away the butt of her cigarette. “I figured you’d be reduced to dust in five seconds. Maybe you’ll hold out for a few minutes. But all it’s going to take is one stray thought to distract you, girl. Then your epidermis will peel away. Your hair will fall from disintegrating follicles. You’ll be able to watch it all because your eyelids will be vapor. Panic will set in, and before you know it, poof, you’ll be nothing but a pink cloud, drifting off in the breeze. Kind of a lovely image, if you think about it.”
As if the warning of a distraction made it so, Jandra’s attention was captured by a shrill squealing sound. It was the cry of an enraged pig. Poocher charged up behind Jazz, a furious one-hundred-pound torpedo of black and white fur. For half a second, Jandra’s mind lingered on the sight. Instantly her skin began to crack and flake. Poocher plowed into Jazz, clipping her at the knees. The tiny hooks that tore at Jandra vanished as the goddess’s feet flew into the air.
Jazz landed on her back, shouting out a string of obscenities.
Jandra took the brief second of respite to repair the skin that Jazz had torn away. Then, she summoned twin balls of Vengeance of the Ancestors around her fists.
Jazz sat up, rubbing the back of her head. “Ow,” she said.
Jandra threw the fireballs. The raging plasma crackled toward the goddess. As the flaming orbs reached her they fell apart, transforming into a cloud of rose pedals that fluttered down onto Jazz’s lap.
“Come on, Jandra,” Jazz taunted. “The pig did better than that.”
Poocher now stood next to Zeeky. Jazz glared at him.
“You know, I’ve been vegetarian for a thousand years. But I always did love the smell of bacon.”
The petals in her lap rose in a small tornado, coalescing into a ball of red flame once more. Jazz gave the glowing orb a slap and it raced toward the pig. Poocher darted aside, but the orb seemed to suddenly possess intelligence. It turned, pursuing the pig. Poocher squealed and darted off into the underbrush.
Zeeky charged toward Jazz with her left fist clenched. She still cradled the crystal ball in her right hand. She shouted, “Don’t you dare hurt Poocher!”
“He started it,” Jazz said, kicking out, catching Zeeky straight in her gut. Zeeky flew backward from the force of the blow, landing breathless on the grass. She curled up in pain, yet never released the orb.
As Jazz climbed back to her feet, Jandra concentrated. She could sense the radio waves Jazz was emitting to command her nanites. They were the same sort of waves her own genie emitted. She couldn’t understand the signals Jazz was transmitting, but a mental map formed in her mind pinpointing the origin of the radio waves. Unlike Jandra’s genie, Jazz wasn’t using an external device. Her genie was buried in her torso, below her rib cage, right where her heart should have been.
Jazz brushed back her hair and grinned. “Been a while since anything’s got my adrenaline flowing like this,” she said. “My combat skills are a little rusty, maybe. Now it’s time to show you an attack that always works!”
Jandra braced herself for the next assault of nanites. Instead, Jazz sprinted across the ten-foot gap that separated them, drawing her arm back. She swung with a loud grunt, her fist hammering into Jandra’s chin. Stars exploded in front of Jandra’s eyes as she fell backwards. Her brain felt like it rattled in her skull as she hit the ground. Jazz landed on her, delivering another punch to Jandra’s left brow. Jandra’s vision doubled. She felt herself fading out of consciousness as Jazz ran her fingers behind Jandra’s neck, feeling for the genie that clung to her skin there.
“Since you’ve locked this, there’s no way to take this off your spine without ripping your clothes off,” Jazz said, giggling. “Hope that doesn’t offend your sense of modesty. I’m not normally this aggressive, but, girl, you were asking for it.”
Jandra arched her back in pain as Jazz peeled the metal away from her skin. The genie resisted as if it had a mind of its own, stimulating Jandra with a mild shock that jolted her back into full consciousness. She remembered the important thing she’d learned just before Jazz had punched her. And, she remembered Zeeky’s words: This is where your friend will be.
“Hex!” she shouted, grabbing Jazz’s wrist. “It’s inside her! Near her heart!”
Jazz looked up to see who Jandra was shouting at. Thirty feet away, the air exploded into a thousand shards of silver. Hex materialized from the center of his invisible hiding place, his open jaws shooting toward the goddess.
“Motherf—” Jazz said before Hex clamped his teeth down on her ribs and tore her away from Jandra’s chest. He whipped Jazz back and forth in his jaws like a cat shaking a mouse.
Seconds later, Jazz’s entire body erupted in flame. Hex spat her out, jerking back, his teeth smoking, black burn marks on the roof of his mouth. Jazz landed on the grass, on her hands and knees, shaking her head as if she was dizzy. The vegetation beneath her withered and charred; she radiated more heat than a furious bonfire.
“I can’t figure out why y’all don’t like me,” Jazz said. She chuckled as she found her footing once more. “Most people think I’m pretty hot.”
Jandra raised her hand to shield her face from the inferno. She scooted backwards, still on the ground. The goddess roared into an even brighter heat. Jandra’s hair curled and singed. The soles of her boots were smoking. Her hand fell on Zeeky’s ankle. Zeeky was still curled up from the blow she’d taken.
Hex growled as he shook off the pain of having his mouth catch fire. He lunged toward the goddess. She lifted a hand toward him without even looking, and suddenly Hex’s head was once more enwreathed in flame. With a howl of agony Hex shot skyward as fast as his wings could carry him. An instant later, there was a loud splash. Apparently, they weren’t far from the lake.
Jandra willed her nanites to fly around her. Heat was only another form of light; if she could form a shield of invisibility, she could form a shield to deflect heat. She rose to her feet, grabbing Zeeky as she stood, hugging her to her chest and backing away from the goddess. Her shield was working; she could breathe again without the air searing her lungs.
“You don’t know what you’re facing, girl,” Jazz said, taking a step toward Jandra. Jazz grinned and Jandra jumped backward, wary of her next move. “You thought just because we use the same technology that you were my equal? You have all the artistry of a kindergartener with a box of crayons. I’m Michelangelo! I’m Da Vinci! You stand no—”
Suddenly, there was an arrow jutting from Jazz’s left temple. The bright green leaves that fletched it curled and blackened as the wood burst into flame. Jazz looked annoyed as she reached up and plucked the burning stick free. She closed the hole into her brain with a touch of her fingers.
“That was unpleasant,” she grumbled, looking in the direction from which the arrow had flown. Suddenly, a second arrow whizzed from the brush. Jazz raised her hand and it crumbled to ash in mid flight. A third arrow flew, then a fourth. Jazz turned her full attention to the missiles, crisping them before they reached her. Jandra noticed that, despite her powers, Jazz possessed at least one human weakness—she only focused on one thing at a time. If she could somehow distract Jazz . . . Jandra put Zeeky down, eying the fist-sized crystal globe still in her grasp.
“Can I use this?” she asked, placing her hand upon it.
Zeeky handed her the ball.
To have been made of energy, it was quite heavy. It easily weighed as much as if had been crafted of iron, at least thirty pounds. Jandra reared back and shouted, “Bitterwood! You have to hit her heart!”
Jazz looked toward the shout. Jandra flung the globe with all the strength her genie-tuned muscles could muster. Whatever the ball was made from, it proved immune to the flames and flew straight and true. It collided with Jazz’s mouth in a lip-splitting smack.
Jazz staggered backward, bringing her hands to her mouth, looking dazed. Jandra reached out with her nanites and grabbed the kudzu vines behind the goddess. The vines darted out to tangle Jazz’s feet. They quickly crisped to cinders, but not before Jazz stumbled. She landed on her butt, hard, then rolled to her hands and knees. Jandra ran to retrieve the crystal globe, intending to fling it again.
Before she could reach it, Bitterwood burst from the branches of a tree above the goddess. His clothes were dripping wet. He plummeted toward her fiery form, both hands clasped around the hilt of Gabriel’s sword. The weapon glowed even more brightly than the goddess as he buried it in her back, driving her down. He used his momentum to leap away, dropping and rolling as he hit the moist grass to extinguish the fires that had erupted on his now-dry clothes.
Jandra tried to look at Jazz, but it was impossible. It was like looking into the sun. The ground beneath the goddess boiled and her glowing form melted into it. Slowly, the light dimmed. Jandra walked over to the hole in the ground. All that was left at the bottom was the burning sword lodged into a heart-shaped piece of silver metal. Blackened bones lay scattered around the pit. The soil had been turned to glass by the heat.
Bitterwood leaned over the edge of the pit and reached in with blistered fingers to grab the hilt. Instantly, the white hot blaze dimmed to a dull cherry glow. Jandra blinked, trying to clear her vision.
The leaves in the trees stirred as Hex flew overhead. He swooped down to land, dropping Poocher from his hind talons. The pig was uninjured, but sopping wet. Hex’s face was charred, with one eye swollen shut. Here and there, a gash of pink tissue peeked through his blackened scales. His tongue was covered with blisters. He lisped through missing teeth as he asked, “Ish she dead?”
Bitterwood lifted the sword and looked at the silver heart on the end. The fire hadn’t melted it, but it was split by a jagged crack where the blade had pierced it.
“If she isn’t,” Jandra said, “we’ve certainly broken her heart.”
Zeeky ran from Jandra’s side to give Poocher a hug.
“I saw Trisky dead on the beach,” Hex said, giving Bitterwood a stern look with his one open eye. “What happened to Adam?”
Bitterwood shrugged. “We’ve agreed to disagree.”
High above, the sky began to fragment and drift down as a silvery snow, leaving the rock behind it exposed. The jungle grew hauntingly quiet. Bitterwood dropped the sword back into the pit.
“I don’t sense any radio waves,” Jandra said. “I think she’s really dead. What should we do with her heart?”
“We should bury it, with the sword still in place so it will never heal,” said Bitterwood. “Then I want to eat my dinner in peace and get some sleep. I’ve killed enough gods for one day.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
* * *
ZING!
SHANDRAZEL STUDIED THE MAP of the world inlaid on the Peace Hall floor. This was his father’s world—a world forged with violence. All his life, Shandrazel had considered his father’s ruthlessness an antiquated relic from a less enlightened time. Violence had been necessary once, perhaps, to tame a savage world, but dragons now had centuries of civilization during which more enlightened concepts could take root. Ideas such as justice stemming not from the concept that might makes right, but in the belief that all intelligent beings are inherently equal.
Now, he found that all his high and fanciful thoughts were nothing more than soap bubbles: ephemeral, beautiful, and doomed as they brushed against jagged reality.
Word of the massacre at Dragon Forge had reached him quickly. It was said that the rebels had tried to slow the news by slaughtering innocents for miles around, but those deaths had been for naught. A valkyrie from the Nest had been sent to Dragon Forge in the aftermath of Blasphet’s invasion to warn them that the Murder God was still on the loose. She’d discovered the killing fields around Dragon Forge. The humans had tried to bring her down, but, of course, their arrows couldn’t reach her. She’d journeyed on to the palace to report what she’d found.
Shandrazel looked up from the map as Androkom entered the hall. The high biologian looked grim. “When Charkon learns of this, he’ll demand swift action. This rebellion must be crushed if you are to prevent a civil war, sire. After the Blasphet debacle, any further show of weakness will cause your fellow sun-dragons to turn against you. The Commonwealth will shatter.”
“Agreed,” said Shandrazel. “Summon everyone.”
“Everyone, sire?” Androkom asked.
“Gather the aerial guard. Dispatch them to the far reaches of the Commonwealth. The sun-dragons who control their various abodes are bound by a pact of mutual defense. Gather them at Dragon-Forge within three days. These humans were offered a chance at peace. They’ve chosen war instead. It is time mankind is reminded that sun-dragons are the undisputed masters of war. We must strangle this rebellion it its cradle before it can grow any further.”
“Of course, sire,” said Androkom. “Overwhelming force is the swiftest path to returning security and order.”
Shandrazel nodded. “Before you go, send Charkon in. I owe it to him to deliver the news personally. If I’d allowed him to return, perhaps his leadership could have prevented this.”
“We can’t know that, sire.”
“I know,” Shandrazel said, looking up to the tapestry of his father devouring the army of humans. “It haunts me just the same.”
THE AIR OF DRAGON FORGE stank of smoke and death. Pet stared at the thick black smoke that rose from the third chimney. Immediately following the fall of the city, Burke had taken control of the three central furnaces. Two were now dedicated solely to the production of weaponry. The third had become a crematorium, and it was this furnace that provided most of the oily black soot that drifted down onto the town. There wasn’t enough time or manpower to bury the dead. Burke had reluctantly cut his production capacity by a third due to the fear of disease. He’d seen the plagues that followed in the aftermath of slaughter. Clearing the dead and all their attendant gore from the water supplies and sewage was the task of half the available men. Burke had said there was no point in creating weapons if all his soldiers were dropping dead from fevers.
Pet turned his attention from the furnace back to the wall of wood before him. Pet had been placed with a team of men tasked with closing the gates of Dragon Forge. It was difficult, backbreaking labor. Digging a trench to free a gate whose bottom edge was buried in centuries of dirt required the use of muscles Pet hadn’t known he possessed. He found himself working alongside men with faces rough as leather from years laboring in the sun. Their hands were thick, calloused masses immune to blisters and splinters. They were tough men of the earth who worked stoically, uncomplaining of the cold. Pet wanted to grumble about the pain of his broken nose, or the way his legs were still chapped from the ride, or his fingers still raw from the bowstring, but he held his tongue. These men wouldn’t be a sympathetic audience.
It was their second day of labor. Pet joined the rest of the crew in putting their shoulders to the gate and pushing. The legs of a hundred men strained against hinges long locked by rust. Burke had given the foreman a special oil to penetrate the rust and release the gates, but if it had had any effect, Pet couldn’t tell. They may as well have been pushing a stone wall.
At last the foreman shouted for the men to stop. Pet collapsed to the dirt, certain that all their efforts had been for nothing. But, as he rested, he watched the foreman at the far edge of the gate measuring scrapes in the ground with a length of ribbon.
“That’s five inches!” he shouted.
The men around Pet grumbled, but Pet rolled to his back and thrust his fists into the air, feeling triumphant. Five inches was much further than no distance at all.
“Only twenty feet to go,” the foreman said.
After a short rest where Pet shared a drink from a bucket of soot-flecked water, the men once more put their shoulders to the gate.
“Push!” the foreman shouted.
Pet strained with all his might, feeling as if the bones in his legs might snap. The gate groaned as the hinges loosened further. The wall of wood crept another inch, then gained speed for nearly a foot before grinding to a halt once more, cutting into the hard-packed earth. The door was sagging as it swung. There was more digging to do.
Pet passed beyond all exhaustion as a long day gave way to a long night. He’d hoped that when darkness came they would be allowed to sleep, but word was that Burke had given the decree that the gates must be closed before dawn. The men chattered among themselves. Was an attack immanent? How many more hours would they have before the dragons tried to retake the forge?
The night sky was black as tar. The foundry smoke and the thick clouds blotted out all traces of the moon. A chill drizzle began to fall over Dragon Forge, turning the ground to mud. Pet’s teeth chattered even as his body sweated. At some point he was given a wheelbarrow. He couldn’t even recall who’d charged him with the duty. He mindlessly set to work carting away the mounds of earth that others broke free with picks and shovels. Pet dumped the heavy, damp dirt at the base of one of the rust mounds. He coughed from the effort. His head felt full of rust and dust and burnt bone ash. The mucus he wiped from his lips onto his once fine shirt was pink, not from blood, but from the red clay grime that clung to him.
In the moonless, starless night, he lost all track of time. He felt as if he were only dreaming; trapped in a nightmare where he struggled through the darkness, soaked by rain and sweat, pushing heavy heaps to and fro for reasons he could no longer remember.
“Okay men,” the foreman shouted at last. “Dawn is only an hour away. Get your shoulders into the gate. Move it. Now!”
Pet dropped his wheelbarrow where he stood. He slogged through the now ankle-deep mud to take his position.
“Push!”
Pet fell instantly. The mud gave no traction. He clawed his way upright again, digging his broken nails into the grain of the ancient, weathered wood. The gate was built of logs thicker than his torso, bound by iron bands with rivets as big as his fist. He pressed both hands against one of these rivets and burrowed down into the mud with his feet, seeking purchase.
“Push!”
Everyone was groaning now. The mud slurped and sucked as men dug their feet into it, churning it into an ever-worsening muck.
And yet, the very mud that made their movements so frustrating was proving to be an aid. The gate slowly began to swing, no longer obstructed by every little rock or bulge in the packed earth that had halted it earlier. The damp ground gave way to the mass of the gate, and the more the gate moved, the easier it was to push.
Then, the gate ground to a halt once more. Tears welled in Pet’s eyes.
“Move!” he shouted, straining with every last ounce of will within him. “Damn you, move!”
The gate didn’t budge.
Slowly he realized that the men around him were standing back from the gate, looking up in amazement. Pet staggered away from the logs, his legs trembling.
The gate was closed.
The gate had stopped moving because it had met its matching neighbor for the first time in centuries, the two pieces fitting together as neatly and nicely as a man could want.
Pet dropped to his knees in the mud.
He wiped a tear from his cheek as the men around him began to cheer.
He’d heard men cheer like this before. They’d cheered him like this in the shadow of Albekizan’s castle, when he claimed to be Bitterwood, claimed that he would lead humanity to a new era.
Those unearned cheers had tortured his sleep ever since.
In this cold and damp predawn hour, the cheers weren’t directed at him. He’d not led a single man on this project. He hadn’t given them a vision to rally around, or even said an encouraging word to his fellow laborers.
No one would sing a song about his labors today. No one would ever weave it into a tapestry, or write it in a book. Yet he felt as if this were the first truly worthwhile thing he’d ever done in his life.
PET COUGHED HIMSELF AWAKE. He sat up, feeling as if his lungs were being scoured by the cold air and ever-present smoke. He was in a large room that had been converted into a makeshift barracks and slept on the floor with scores of fellow soldiers, all curled beneath tattered blankets. The far end of the room possessed a roaring fireplace, but any heat the fire put out was sliced apart by icy drafts that cut through the room from innumerable gaps in the walls.
Pet rose on stiff legs and carefully stepped across his sleeping brethren to reach the main door. He wondered what this room had once been that it was so shabbily constructed. He opened the door and found a familiar figure in the street beyond. It was Burke, carrying a large wooden box slung over his back. His daughter followed close behind, a large bundle wrapped in burlap held in both arms.
“Ah,” said Burke, his head turning toward the sound of the opening door. “If it isn’t Bitterwood himself.”
“I told you it isn’t,” Pet said.
“You look like hell, Pet,” Burke said over the rims of his spectacles. “I could still tell that was a silk shirt when I met you. Now it looks like something I wouldn’t let my dog sleep on.”
Pet looked down at his torn and mud-caked clothing. Burke and his daughter gleamed in comparison. Anza looked especially immaculate, dressed in soft buckskin, her jet-black braid showing not a single stray hair. If there was a bathtub somewhere in this hellish city, she must have taken possession of it.
“I’ve been working,” said Pet. “Helped close the eastern gate.”
“Good,” said Burke. “That will slow the earth-dragons.”
“I know,” said Pet. “But, I have to admit, I’m worried. What good is having a gate when the sun-dragons can attack from above?”
“Follow me. I’ll show you what’s going to be our wall in the sky.” Burke pulled the heavy case off his shoulder and handed it to Pet. “Carry this,” he said, then walked off briskly, with a confident stride.
Pet hurried to draw beside Burke once more.
“A wall in the sky?” he asked.
“Patience,” said Burke. “You’re going to be the first to see it. Cold tonight, isn’t it? I think we may see snow. Maybe not today, but tomorrow. I feel it in my knees.”
“It feels warmer out here than it did in the barracks,” said Pet.
“Ah, yes. The wench house. Not exactly a palace, is it?”
“Wench house?”
“It actually has a more derogatory name that I choose not to use in front of my daughter. Tell me, Pet, can you spot the difference between male and female earth-dragons?”
“Not really.”
“Neither can they, most of the time. Their sex organs are hidden away in a cloaca. Until they’re about ten, all earth-dragons are raised on the assumption that they’re male, because the species has a gender imbalance of almost ten to one. The vast majority are male, and it’s not until the females go into their first heat that their true sex is discovered. Despite their rarity, the earth-dragons don’t exactly treat their females like royalty. They’re locked away in the wench house during their fertile period where they’re brutally used by the males until they produce a clutch of eggs. Each female lays over a thousand eggs, then is essentially done. She won’t be fertile again for another seven years. She goes back to the normal duties and lifestyle of a male, even taking part in the brutalization of those poor souls in the wench house, though, of course, they aren’t capable of fertilizing anything.”
“That’s horrible,” Pet said.
“Is it? It’s easy to judge earth-dragons,” said Burke, leading Pet up a steep staircase to the top of the wall that surrounded the city. “They reproduce through violence. They eat their own babies. Most of them are dumb as dirt. It makes killing them feel less like murder, doesn’t it?”
“I suppose,” said Pet.
“You don’t sound convinced,” said Burke as they walked along the wall. He gave the guards silent nods of greeting.
“I’m sorry,” said Pet. “I’m not feeling up to contemplating deep moral questions right now.”
“War isn’t the time for that,” said Burke. “Morality becomes what you carry in your gut.”
Burke stopped, surveying the surrounding landscape.
“Give me the box,” he said.
Pet handed him the heavy case and watched as Burke nimbly flipped clasps and slipped open hidden compartments. The box transformed into a tripod and stand for a large owl figurine with giant glass eyes. Burke leaned over to stare into a small window at the back of the owl’s head, fiddling with knobs on the owl’s wings. Anza waited a short distance away, her arms crossed, her hands tucked into her armpits.
Pet looked at her and gave a wink. “Cold enough for you?” he asked.
She glared back at him. Pet wasn’t surprised his charm was failing, given the ratty state he was in.
Burke said, “Anza doesn’t speak.”
“Oh,” said Pet. “Is she deaf?”
“No. She hears better than my dog. She’s just not said a word her whole life.”
“Oh,” said Pet.
“It hasn’t held her back. Anza has other ways of getting her point across.” Burke adjusted one more knob and said, “Ah, there we are. I’ve tied a ribbon in a tree down the north road, almost exactly one thousand yards distant. A thousand yards is a significant number. Do you know why?”
“Why?” asked Pet.
“Because sun-dragons rarely fly above 700 yards. Sky-dragons usually cruise even lower. It takes a lot of energy to fly. There’s a safety element from being well above the landscape, but there’s a trade off in the energy it takes to get up there.”
“That’s still pretty high,” said Pet. “Almost half a mile.”
“More significantly,” said Burke, “it’s about twice as high as most arrows reach. A strong man and a good bow might get 500 yards range. It’s nothing to laugh at, but it means that dragons always command the high ground in war. They can drop on us anything they can carry, and we can’t stop them. They might not have accuracy on their side, but they don’t need it. They can fly a thousand passes over this fortress, confident that not even one arrow can reach them. If only one in a hundred of the war darts they drop kills someone, what does it matter? They’ll whittle us down. If we take shelter in buildings, they drop flaming oil, or send in the earth-dragons while we’re cowering. It’s how they destroyed Conyers, and that town was much better prepared than Dragon Forge. We had food stocked, plentiful water, and bows in the hands of every man. Yet we were slaughtered by the thousands, and only three sun-dragons failed to return from that war.”
Burke cast his gaze toward Anza. Pet looked back to find she’d unwrapped the bundle she’d carried. Propped on the wall in front of her were three bows. At least, they looked something like bows. They were shorter than a longbow, only four feet tall, and crafted from freshly-forged steel instead of wood. At the tips of the bows were the grooved oval disks Burke had showed Pet when they first met. They served as pulleys and were strung with a thin, braided, metallic cable.
Anza grabbed one of the bows and took an arrow from the quiver on the wall. Burke pointed toward a distant tree that was almost invisible in the darkness. Anza drew the bow, her well-defined muscles bulging as she first pulled the string, then slackening as the pulleys held the force of the bow while she aimed.
She opened her fingers and the arrow simply vanished. The bowstring snapped back into place with a loud, musical zing!
Burke leaned over to look in the owl.
“Ooooh,” he said, sounding sorry. “Close. You hit the limb, but missed the ribbon.”
Anza frowned.
“Take a shot, Pet,” Burke said.
Pet lifted one of the bows. It wasn’t as heavy as it looked. The metal wasn’t pure steel, apparently, but an alloy with something lighter. He placed the arrow against the cable and was surprised by the resistance of the first few inches of the draw. Then, suddenly, the remainder of the pull was effortless. He held the bow at full draw without any strain at all.
He aimed at what he assumed was the target tree. He couldn’t see where Anza’s arrow had hit, and definitely didn’t see a ribbon. He released the arrow and was startled by the speed it launched into the air.
Burke clucked his tongue a few seconds later.
“You missed the whole damn tree,” he said. “Shot over it, in fact.”
“I can barely see it,” said Pet.
Burke bent up from the owl, stretching his back. “Neither can I without mechanical assistance. Anza can be grateful not to have inherited my family’s eyes.”
“Her mother must have good eyes then,” said Pet.
“I wouldn’t know,” said Burke.
“Why wouldn’t you know?” Pet asked. Immediately, he regretted asking the question. Burke’s relationship with his wife was none of his business.
Burke didn’t seem offended by the question. He scratched the gray streaks of his hair, looking thoughtful. “After Conyers fell, I found good reason not to think of humans as any better than dragons. The survivors of the battle, the refugees, did terrible things. We’d gathered from distant villages, drawn together by Bitterwood’s tale of injustice. He believed if we would all put aside our differences and stand together, we could change the world. We’ll never know if he was right. We never did put aside our differences. We were squabbling among ourselves before the dragons came. After they left, the squabbles turned to bloodshed. They call it the Lost Year. For twelve months, there was no peace or safety as man turned on man in an orgy of reprisals, pillaging, and rape.”
“Oh,” said Pet. He wasn’t quite sure how this answered his question about Anza’s mother, but it seemed like something that Burke needed to get off his chest. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“The only time I saw Anza’s mother was in the ten minutes my tribe took to burn her village” Burke said. “Two of my brothers raped her. I didn’t stop them. It was a bad, lawless time, a world turned upside-down.”
Pet didn’t know what to say.
“Somehow, knowing that my own blood was capable of such atrocities made me feel as if Conyers had been doomed from the start. What’s the point of fighting monsters if we ourselves could be so inhuman? How much history have you learned, Pet? What do you know of the time before dragons?”
“I didn’t know there was a time before dragons,” said Pet. “I mean, I know a little of the Ballad of Belpantheron, where the dragons defeated the angels, but I assume that’s only fairy tale.”
Burke shook his head, as if he was sorry to hear these words. “A thousand years ago, there were no dragons. I know this because I am a descendent of the Cherokee, the true natives of this land. We had already had our land stolen from us once, by men. When these men lost it to dragons, my tribe vowed to remember the true history of the world. We called ourselves the Anudahdeesdee—the Memory. We remembered not only our history, but the history of all nations before the time of dragons.”
“Is this how you know how to make all these things? These bows? This owl?”
“Over time, we lost much of our knowledge,” said Burke. “Some men say our memories were a curse. Anyone who knew the great secrets, such as how to make gunpowder, always met misfortune, as if some evil spirit was out to destroy the memory of these things. I’ve only inherited a handful of secrets: an education in alloys and engineering that’s but a shadow of the knowledge mankind once possessed.”
“But why are these things secret?” asked Pet. “Why didn’t your people share them with the world? Maybe men could have done more to free themselves from the dragons.”
“Perhaps. But, having watched my brothers turn into savages, I’ve despaired that men would only use the knowledge to hurt each other. The only good to have come out of my stand at Conyers was Anza.”
Pet looked at Anza. She looked back at him with an unflinching gaze. He had the impression she’d heard this story before, and didn’t enjoy hearing it.
“If you didn’t know her mother, how did she come to live with you?”
“As things calmed, our tribe resumed trading with villages we’d made war with only weeks before. Rumors came that the woman my brothers raped was pregnant. My brothers made jokes about it. Months later, I learned that the woman had died in labor, but her baby girl had survived.”
Burke looked at his feet as he relayed his story. Behind him, Pet heard the zing! of the wheeled bow as Anza took another shot at the distant ribbon.
“I knew . . . I knew as a half-breed, a child of rape with her mother dead, the girl would be raised as nothing more than a slave. I had no children. The only woman I ever loved died at Conyers. So, I left the Anudahdeesdee forever. I stole Anza from her cradle in the dead of night. I fled north, until I reached a place where no one knew my name. I ran as far from war and death and memory as I possibly could.”
Zing! Anza let another arrow fly. The silence that followed was deafening. Burke looked out into the darkness with weary eyes. He sighed.
“In the end, I couldn’t escape. I, of all people, should have known you cannot outrun the past.”
Zing! Anza’s fourth arrow flew out into the night. Seconds later, she let out a triumphant grunt.
Burke leaned over to look into his owl.
“That’s my girl!” he said. “Right into the ribbon!”
Anza sat the bow down, looking satisfied and smug.
“I assume she’ll be leading the archers,” Pet said.
“You assume wrong,” said Burke. “She’s the only one in this fort qualified to copilot Big Chief.”
“Big Chief?”
“My giant.”
“Your giant what?” asked Pet.
“Patience,” said Burke. “You’ll see it soon enough. For now, though, I do need someone to lead the archers. It’s taken me three days to make three bows, but now we’ve got the process worked out and the machinery geared up. Tomorrow we’ll have another dozen. The day after, fifty. I’m going to let you drill and train the men, Pet.”
“Me? I’m not the best shot in the world.”
“No, but you’re a man who knows who the enemy is. Until someone rediscovers the formula for gunpowder, these are the most dangerous weapons any man will put his hands on. I want them aimed at dragons, not other men.”
Pet bit his lip, afraid to say the thought that instantly flashed through his mind.
“What?” Burke asked, reading the unasked question in Pet’s face.
“You seemed willing to aim your weapons at your fellow men the other night. You had no problem with killing the gleaners.”
“We weren’t killing them because we hated them; we were killing them out of strategic necessity.”
“They wound up dead all the same,” said Pet.
Burke reached out and put his hand on Pet’s shoulder. “The fact you feel this way makes me trust you all the more. I knew what you were made of the second you stepped to the defense of that poor gleaner. I told you, morality comes from the gut. I think you’ve got the guts to stand on this wall when the dragons come and, more importantly, after the dragons fall.”
Pet wasn’t certain that Burke had the right man. However, Burke was a genius and Pet wasn’t a genius, so his gut said to trust the man’s judgment. He gave Burke a nod of acceptance, and then pulled another arrow from the quiver. He gave Anza the most charming smile his chapped lips could manage before taking aim once more at the distant tree.
“I’ll split your arrow before the night’s out,” he said.
She smirked.
He never even hit the branch. But he did eventually hit the tree.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
* * *
AT DAWN, AS THE DRAGONS CAME
THE FOLLOWING DAY, Pet joined Burke in the task of auditioning archers. There were three thousand men inside the fort, but finding fifty with eyes sharp enough to meet Burke’s criteria proved challenging. Burke had sent Anza out to a rust heap about 700 yards away. She stood atop it, holding a dinner plate over her head. A large letter was painted on the plate. The plate was nearly a foot tall, but Pet could only see the letter as a smudge. He was glad Burke was apparently satisfied enough with his performance the night before that he wasn’t being asked to read the letter.
After they’d tested a hundred men and found only two with sufficiently sharp eyes, Pet said, “Burke, I know you’re a lot smarter than I am. But, isn’t this test tougher than it needs to be? We’re fighting dragons, not dinner plates.”
“True,” said Burke. “But your arrows are going to be mere specks at killing range. And while dragons are big targets, they only have a few body areas were a single arrow is going to knock them from the sky. If you can’t see where your arrow’s going, you can’t adjust your aim.”
Pet nodded. “Makes sense.”
Another candidate stepped up, a young man, boyish except for a wispy blond mustache. He was five feet tall at most, but looked wiry and tough. Pet felt there was something eerily familiar about the boy. The youth gave Burke a crisp salute.
“What’s your name, son?” Burke asked.
“Vance,” the young man answered.
“Where you from?”
“Stony Ford, sir.”
“Never heard of it. That one of the towns where Ragnar gave his ‘join or die’ speech?”
“No, sir,” said Vance. “It’s down the river a spell. My brother and I heard about the rebellion and came to take a stand, sir.”
Burke pointed toward Anza in the distance. “You see my daughter out there?”
Vance shielded his eyes from the sun. “Yes, sir.”
“What’s she holding above her head?”
“Looks like a plate, sir.”
Burke gave an approving nod. “And do you see something painted on the plate?”
“Yes, sir. Some kind of marking.”
“Good. It’s a letter. Can you tell me which letter?”
The boy shook his head. Burke looked disappointed.
The boy said, apologetically, “I don’t know one letter from another. But it looks like this.” The boy traced a serpentine shape in the air.
Burke smiled. “That’s an ‘S,’ boy. And you’re an archer now.”
The boy gave a wide smile.
“You won’t regret it, sir. Me and my brother were the best shots for miles around.”
“Excellent. Where’s your brother? What’s his name? Let’s get him to the front of the line.”
Vance looked solemn as he reported, “His name was Vinton, and he’s dead, sir. Vinton was charged with killing the disloyal gleaners the night we took the fort. We found him dead from an arrow shot. The two fellows he was running with were also killed. One had his head sliced clean off.”
Pet felt a chill run down his spine. Now he knew why the boy looked familiar. The rapist with the scratched cheek was a ringer for this boy if you added five years and thirty pounds.
“Sorry to hear it,” Burke said. “I’m sure Vinton was a good man.”
“Yes, sir,” said Vance. “One of the best.”
Burke gave a nod toward the ladder leading down the wall. “Go down and join the others. You’ll be given a bow. Later, we’ll start target practice. Welcome to the sky-wall.”
Vance couldn’t stop smiling as he climbed down the ladder.
Pet felt the need to say something about the boy’s brother.
“Don’t say anything,” Burke said, reading Pet’s mind.
“But . . .”
“But the past is past. As of now, Vance is your brother-at-arms. What happened before this moment is of no importance.”
Pet knew that Burke was right, but he couldn’t keep the scene from replaying in his mind. What could he have done differently? Would the world have been better if he’d just turned his back? If a dragon made it through the sky-wall, would he be haunted by the knowledge that Vinton might have fired the arrow that would have killed that dragon? He barely paid attention to the next candidate Burke tested. He was only broken out of his reverie by a sudden outcry from the eastern gate.
“Dragons!” someone was shouting.
“Four days,” Burke sighed. “So much for my fantasy of doing this with a well-trained army.”
THE DRAGONS WEREN’T ATTACKING, not yet. Instead, they gathered at a large field a mile downriver. Pet listened quietly as spies reported back to Ragnar, Burke, and the other leaders. Pet, as commander of the archers, was now privy to these meetings.
The lead spy, it turned out, was Shanna, the woman who’d rescued Pet from the dungeon. She hadn’t taken part in the raid on the Nest, but she had learned from her contacts that Blasphet had failed in his attempt at genocide. Only a handful of the sisters had managed to escape in the aftermath, but Shanna was confident there would be no valkyries joining in the attack on Dragon Forge. Blasphet hadn’t been found; the matriarch wasn’t letting anyone leave the Nest until his threat was neutralized.
Shanna was now dressed much more modestly than she had been as a servant of Blasphet. She was wearing the gray, non-descript clothing of a human slave. She hadn’t shaved her head in a week and already her scalp tattoos were vanishing beneath a haze of dark hair.
Burke listened impassively as the numbers were reported. Nearly ten thousand well-armed earth-dragons, with at least five hundred cavalry mounted on the backs of great-lizards. The earth-dragons had catapults and ballistae. There were also a thousand humans among the dragons, slaves working to assemble the tents, dig latrines, unload the supply wagons, and staff the mess tents.
“The supply wagons are the most dangerous thing we face,” Burke said. “If Shandrazel has any management skills at all, his army has access to all the food in the world. We have all the food inside the walls of Dragon Forge, which will last us, if we’re careful, a month.”
“I’m not eating those pickled earth-dragon babies,” said Pet.
“If a man gets hungry enough, he’ll eat anything,” said Burke.
“The Lord sent ravens to feed his prophet Elijah,” said Ragnar. “We shall have no want of provisions.”
Burke gave Ragnar a sideways glance and returned to questioning the spies. The next number that caught Pet’s attention was the figure of two hundred sun-dragons. He thought back to his former mistress, Chakthalla. She’d loved him like he was her child and had never mistreated him, but he remembered how intimidating she could be with her sheer size and power. Even as she had showered words of praise upon him, he’d never been completely unaware of the fact that those words came from a mouth that could have snapped him in two. As of this meeting, Burke’s manufacturing team had produced only thirty-six bows. Apparently, Burke had brought coils of cable from his tavern to use for the bowstrings, but those spools were now emptied. He’d assembled a machine to make new cable, but the process was a difficult one to calibrate, and the earliest batches were producing cables that were too brittle. If the dragons attacked soon, thirty-six sky-wall archers against two hundred sun-dragons wasn’t a promising ratio.
“How long it will be before the dragons finish assembling their army and decide to attack?” Pet asked.
Shanna shook her head. “We haven’t heard. Some say that Shandrazel is awaiting more troops from the Southern provinces.”
“That’s good and bad,” said Burke. “Good if we have more time—it would take at least a week for all those troops to arrive. But it’s bad if we wind up facing three times as many dragons.”
“However, it’s also said that Shandrazel is being prodded by Charkon to invade tomorrow at dawn,” said Shanna. “Charkon believes they have all the troops they need to take back the fortress.”
“Charkon is probably right,” said Burke. “But only because he doesn’t know about our surprises.”
“Surprises?” Pet asked, noting the plural. “Do we have something other than the wheel-bows?”
Burke nodded. “There’s Big Chief. I carted in most of his parts, and the team has him just about assembled. He’s mostly a psychological weapon. Earth-dragons aren’t terribly bright. They get confused and frightened easily by things they’ve never encountered before.”
Before Pet could ask further questions, Shanna stepped in with her own answer about surprises. “Our time with Blasphet has proven fruitful. We’ve learned how to make oil that, when burned, produces a smoke that paralyzes dragons. Unfortunately, it works best in a confined space. Also it requires a fungus that grows on peanuts, and Blasphet used most of his stockpile invading the Nest. I’ve had people producing a supply for us ever since I learned the secret, but we only have a few barrels. Still, if any dragons make it inside Dragon Forge, we can ignite the bonfires and spike them with the poison. We can put half the invaders to sleep if the wind is in our favor.”
“That sounds useful,” Pet said.
Shanna nodded. “That’s only part of the knowledge we’ve stolen from Blasphet. If we knew for certain that the attack was tomorrow, we could make life unpleasant for the invaders. There’s a tasteless, odorless mineral salt we can add to their breakfast that will produce diarrhea and vomiting three hours after its ingested. It doesn’t kill dragons, but it can make them wish they were dead.”
Ragnar spoke. “Tell your spies to poison tomorrow’s breakfast, Shanna. The Lord has revealed to me the attack will take place at dawn. Our ultimate weapon, of course, is the guiding hand of God.”
Burke took his spectacles from his nose and wiped them with his shirt. He said, in a thoughtful tone, “Not that I don’t trust the Lord’s word, but I’d like some insurance. Shanna, you’ve been good at gathering rumors. If we really want this attack to take place at dawn, I need you to spread one.”
“Do we want this attack to take place at dawn?” Pet asked. “Half my men don’t have weapons. We’ve had barely any training at all. We aren’t ready!”
Burke placed the spectacles back on his face as he nodded. “It’s true, we aren’t. But, right now, Shandrazel’s army is as small as it’s ever going to be. We’ll be better armed and better trained a week from now, but we aren’t going to have any more men. Shandrazel, on the other hand, might have doubled his army in that time. If he attacks tomorrow and finds half his army shitting themselves and the first wave of sun-dragons slain by our sky-wall, we’ll have achieved an important psychological victory. Shandrazel will no longer have the confidence of other dragons. If we’re lucky, his army will abandon him.”
“What if we’re not lucky?”
Burke shrugged.
Ragnar smiled. “We need not trust in luck. The Lord is on our side.”
Pet sighed. “Fine. I just wish I had more time for my men to practice.”
Burke grinned grimly. “As you pointed out, we’re not fighting dinner plates. Your men have a target forty feet across to shoot at. It’s like hitting a barn wall.”
“A barn wall moving straight overhead and dropping darts on us. Still, I’m not arguing. Your reasons for wanting the attack tomorrow make sense.”
“So what rumor do you want me to start?” Shanna asked.
“Say that we’re unprepared. Say we’re outnumbered five to one already.”
“That’s a cutting a mighty fine line between a rumor and actual intelligence,” said Shanna.
Burke nodded. “Most of all, make sure the dragons know that a man named Kanati is in here. It’s vital that Charkon hears that name.”
“Why Charkon?” Pet asked. “He already wants to attack tomorrow.”
“Yes. But he’s a good soldier and will wait until Shandrazel gives the word. Once Charkon hears the name Kanati, he’ll stop taking orders from Shandrazel and start giving them. He’ll make this attack happen no matter what Shandrazel wants.”
“Why?” Pet asked. “Who’s Kanati?”
“I am, or used to be,” said Burke. “And since you’ve met Charkon, you might have noticed he’s one ugly son-of-a-bitch.”
“That scar,” said Pet, shuddering. “Half his face is practically gone.”
“I only wish I’d swung hard enough to cut through to the other half,” said Burke.
AT DAWN, AS THE DRAGONS CAME, snow began to fall. During the night, Burke had fine-tuned the cable-making machine. Now Pet had bows in the hands of three-score men, and nearly three dozen arrows for each of them. Delicate snowflakes settled gently on the filthy gray-brown blanket Pet had turned into a cape. All around him, his men stood in silence as the sun crept over the horizon. The rust heaps and scraggly trees cast long, dark shadows over the faint film of white snow on the ground.
The rising sun tinted the shroud of low clouds subtle shades of pink. In all, it was a serene winter landscape, a picture of peace, save for the hordes of dull green dragons pouring over the distant hills and charging the walls of Dragon Forge.
Pet cast his eyes skyward. The earth-dragons weren’t his concern. A different squad of archers, armed with traditional bows, would be responsible for seeing that the earth-dragons didn’t reach the walls. His duty was to scan the clouds for the first signs of sun-dragons. Slowly, one by one, their dark ruby forms emerged from the shrouding snowfall.
There were at least seventy in the initial wave, coming in at a height of five hundred yards, all carrying large buckets in their hind claws. The buckets would be full of iron darts. The dragons wouldn’t even bother to aim, Pet knew. They need simply dump their cargo above the town and fill the winter sky with something much more deadly than snow. The men on the walls would either be killed, or forced into shelter, leaving the earth-dragons free to storm the gates and overwhelm the city. It was a time-honored strategy of the dragons, one that had crushed human uprisings for centuries.
As the dragons neared, Pet ran the back of his hand along his scratchy mustache. The mineral oil Burke used to lubricate the wheel-bows had thoroughly coated his fingers by now. It smelled faintly of pine.
“Aim!” Pet shouted. He drew a bead on an approaching sun-dragon. His lifelong familiarity with the beasts allowed him to judge their true distance against the trackless sky. He knew the dragons could see his men and their bows; they’d lose all element of surprise the second the first arrows flew. He had to wait until he was certain they would be in range.
He held his aim a few seconds, then a few seconds more, calculating the dragons' speed. Pet targeted the empty sky, aiming at the spot where the dragon would be when the arrow reached it, then shouted, “Fire!”
Arrows flash upward like frozen shards of light. The snapping steel bowstrings made the wall sound as if a large harpsichord were being stroked by a giant—zing, zing, zang, zing, zang! For an instant, Pet worried he’d overshot his target, until the sun-dragon dropped his bucket. The crimson-beast doubled over, clutching the arrow in its gut. A half dozen of its brethren performed similar aerial contortions before they began to plummet from the sky. The dragons that followed veered and wheeled away as the seven struck in the initial volley fell. Keeping his eyes on the sky, Pet paid no attention to where the bodies landed. He’d already drawn another arrow.
“Aim!” he shouted.
Behind him, there was a powerful WHANG as a catapult Burke had salvaged from the dragon armory sent a shower of shrapnel skyward. Its target wasn’t the sun-dragons, but the advancing army of earth-dragons who flowed toward the fort like a living river.
While some of the sun-dragons were pulling back in confusion, a full score continued to advance. Pet took a calming breath, making certain of his aim, then cried out, “Fire!”
Zing, zing, zang, zing, zang!
This time, ten dragons felt the bite of the arrows, some falling in gentle arcs, some in dizzying cartwheels, and a few simply plunging straight toward earth. One smashed into the ground outside the wall not twenty feet away from Pet. The vibration of the impact ran up his legs. A rust heap crashed with a noise like a band of drummers falling down stairs as one of the dying beasts smacked into it.
By now, the remaining dragons were near the wall. One by one, they tilted their buckets, and a black rain of darts fell toward the men.
“Shields!” Pet shouted. In unison, all the men along the wall lifted the wooden disks propped before them, ducking their heads as they crouched. The thick oak shields were banded with broad strips of steel. Seconds later, the darts struck, and the entire wall rang out with a clatter and chatter as a thousand tiny, deadly knives buried themselves in the wood. Men started screaming seconds later. Pet looked up. A few of the braver sun-dragons had swooped down, snatched up men from the wall, and lifted them skyward. Pet tossed his dart-studded shield aside and drew his bow once more.
“Fire at will!” he shouted, knowing there was no longer any hope of unified action. Dragons were everywhere. A score of sun-dragons remained high overhead, but their darts would now be striking their own forces if they dropped them, for at least as many of the sun-dragons had broken ranks and were attacking the bowmen on the walls directly. Below, the river of earth-dragons spread out in waves as they reached the walls. From every direction, there was shouting and confusion. Pet tried to put it from his mind.
It wasn’t courage that welled up within him at this moment. Instead, it was something far less passionate and far colder. He became deaf to the cries of his fellow men. He was undistracted by the bodies of sun-dragons falling from the sky around him and turning to red, meaty smears as they crashed into the snow. He gave no thought to his own life or safety. He simply became mindless, his body moving with a cool, machine-like efficiency.
The sole purpose of his life was to place an arrow in his bow, aim, fire. Again and again he followed this action, without a thought in his mind. Find a hole in the sky where a dragon would be, fire. Find another hole, fire. One by one, his victims fell. The sky was so thick with the bodies of dragons, it was nearly impossible to miss. If his arrow flew past one dragon, it would strike a second behind it.
Pet lost all sense of time. He maintained this trancelike state until he reached to the quiver on his back and found his fingers closing on empty air. Suddenly, the calm emptiness in him was broken and his thoughts came crashing back. His heart leapt into his throat. He consciously became aware of how empty the sky above suddenly seemed.
He cast his gaze down the wall, then toward the men on the other walls. He could tell their ranks had been thinned by the initial assault. In the city below, blood once again ran in the gutters. A wooden building near the center of town had been completely crushed beneath the remnants of a sun-dragon, and at least two more of the huge corpses blocked the streets. Yet there were no living dragons within the walls, not even an earth-dragon. Looking down, Pet surveyed a field of fallen green bodies. Many of those still surviving were crawling away on all fours, violently vomiting. The poisoned breakfast was taking hold! Despite this, there were still so many. Ten thousand earth-dragons, the spies had said. Were there even ten thousand arrows in Dragon Forge?
Turning his eyes skyward, he took comfort in the nearly empty palette of white. In the distance, he saw over two dozen sun-dragons in retreat, racing back toward their camp. Still, the aerial assault wasn’t completely over. One last dragon swooped down from the covering clouds and raced toward Dragon Forge, its dart bucket still in its claws.
Pet lowered his eyes back to the wall and began to run, spotting the body of a fallen archer ten yards away, near the eastern gate. He saw fresh arrows in the slain man’s quiver. Pet snatched up a handful of missiles and turned to find his target.
The sun-dragon he’d spotted was heading on a path toward Pet. Pet calmly drew a bead and let his arrow fly. He watched with great satisfaction as the arrow buried itself deep in the beast’s breast, a shot that almost certainly pierced the heart. The dragon’s eyes rolled upwards and its whole body went limp. It transformed instantly from a thing of grace in the air into a half-ton bag of falling meat.
For a second, it seemed as if the dragon were hurtling straight toward Pet, carried by momentum and gravity on a deadly path, but the dragon was actually coming down at a slight angle to his side. For a sickening second, Pet imagined the body of the dragon smashing into the gate he’d worked so hard to close, its corpse transformed into a swift and heavy battering ram.
Then, he no longer imagined it. He watched it, unfolding with an unnerving déjà vu, as the corpse rammed at high speed into the thick wood. The mass and speed of the dragon were such that the body didn’t so much crash as splash. A rain of dark gore shot in all directions as a thunderous crack split the gate. The wood tore from the hinges as the ancient logs snapped like sticks.
Pet found himself frozen, unable to think, as a hundred earth-dragons sprang against the ruptured gate, forcing it wider. Seconds later they charged into the city, with cries of victory shrieking from their turtle-like beaks.
Pet fumbled to place another arrow against the string. The calmness that had filled him so completely was now gone, replaced by the trembling certainty that he’d just doomed the city.
Then, a strange thing happened. A few of the dragons stumbled and fell, and others tumbled and tripped over them. Others who avoided colliding with fellow soldiers began to weave in drunken circles. A thick, oily smoke drifted through the city streets as Shanna and the men she commanded poured buckets of blue oil onto bonfires. Ragnar’s men surged from the doorways of the buildings, bringing a swift end to these drunken dragons. Yet for every dragon they slew, two more poured through the gate. Not all seemed affected by the smoke. Perhaps the open air didn’t allow the poison to spread evenly through the city, or perhaps the thick-headed earth-dragons possessed members of their race who simply were too dumb to be poisoned. Whatever the cause, Ragnar’s men soon found themselves being pushed back toward the open city square.
Chaos was again spreading along the walls. Some archers began firing into the city, while other aimed outside the walls. Pet looked up and found the dark shapes of sun-dragons once more on the horizon. It was time to bring order to the chaos.
“Sky-wall!” he shouted running up and down the walls. “Sky-wall, man your positions! Grab whatever arrows you can find and get ready for the next wave! Hurry!”
To his amazement, the men obeyed. He eyed the distant dragons. There were fewer than twenty. Where were the rest? If Shanna was right, there should still be over a hundred. Was this all that was left of the sun-dragons who would obey Shandrazel? Was the psychological element of the sky-wall working as Burke had predicted?
Behind him, he heard a loud, mechanical whistle. Breaking his own order to watch the sky, he looked toward the courtyard. A cloud of steam shot into the air as the whistle sounded once more. There was a loud clattering like the wheels of a thousand wagons. Into the courtyard rolled a human figure twenty-feet tall. It was a man made of iron, with buckskin-wrapped legs set on giant rolling treads as long as it was tall that propelled it forward with a rapid lurching gait. The giant had an angry, demonic, iron visage, and a headdress hanging down his back made from red and blue dragon feathers. The giant man brandished a long iron war club as it advanced and let loose another shriek of steam.
“Ah,” said Pet. “So that’s Big Chief.”
Burke the Machinist sat in the area where the giant’s crotch should be, in a wire cage that protected him from most blows but allowed him a wide field of vision. He was operating a series of wheels and levers that controlled Big Chief’s treads, while Anza sat in a similar cage at the giant’s throat, pulling levers that controlled the giant’s arms. Its left arm swung the war-club, easily seven feet long and as thick as a fence post. A lone earth-dragon stood near Big Chief, staring up, its turtle-mouth agape. The giant club came down on the stunned dragon like a sledgehammer on a watermelon.
The huge iron boiler on the treads behind Big Chief whistled in the aftermath, belching steam, giving the giant life by powering the chains and pulleys that drove it. Anza flipped a switch and flames shot out Big Chief’s eyes as she turned his head toward a crowd of earth-dragons pushing toward the square. The mouth of the demonic face opened and let fly a dozen of the razor disks that Pet had seen demonstrated in the initial invasion. The green hides of the earth-dragons suddenly sported horrid red stripes.
As a wave, the earth dragons turned and ran, leaving behind only a few stragglers.
No, not stragglers.
Warriors. The earth-dragons left behind wore gleaming armor and carried broad axes that cut a swathe through the humans around them. Pet recognized the dragon at the center of this band, and knew that Burke was in for a fight.
“Charkon,” he whispered.
The zings of the sky-wall bows rang out and he turned away. He had his own job to do. The rest was up to Burke.
CHAPTER THIRTY
* * *
STOMACH FOR BRUTALITY
BIG CHIEF LURCHED and shuddered as Burke pushed it in its second forward gear and rolled into the square. The mob of earth-dragons all turned toward the noise as he pulled the steam whistle. Their beaks dropped in astonishment as flames shot from the giant machine’s eyes. At his back, the falling snow sizzled as it vaporized against the boiler. Anza released a round of the razor disks; the ratchets and springs firing in sequence sounded like music. There were probably five hundred earth-dragons in the square—at least half of them turned tail and ran as Big Chief lumbered forward on its treads. Even though most of the components for the steam giant had been assembled over the years in his basement back at the tavern, until this moment he’d worried that building Big Chief had been a foolish waste of time and resources. But as the earth-dragons stampeded, he felt his devotion to the machine had been worthwhile. The fact that darts weren’t raining down on everyone in sight told him the sky-wall bows had worked as well. It looked as if they’d survived the initial assault. Now all they had to do was clean up stragglers, clear the streets of dragon corpses, and prepare for the inevitable siege.
In his confidence, Burke didn’t notice the human head hurtling through the air toward him until it clanged against the wire cage and splattered him with blood. The jolt of adrenaline that surged through him completely changed his view of the battle. Yes, most earth-dragons were running from the square. But so, too, were many of Ragnar’s men. Was Big Chief frightening them as well? Or was something worse hidden in the square behind the crush of bodies?
A second head flew up in the air, then a third, a fourth, a fifth, until it looked like a demented juggling act. The crowd between himself and the source of the flying heads parted as men fled. At last he had a good view of the problem.
“Charkon,” he muttered.
The earth-dragon leader and his five bodyguards advanced in a tight circle, protecting each other’s backs, spinning through the human warriors like a giant killing wheel, Their axes slashed out, cutting down anything in their path. Burke found himself in grudging admiration of the choreography and teamwork the six warriors displayed. They were fighting with years of experience, the finest weapons and armor the dragons had ever produced, and sheer superhuman power. Earth-dragon muscles grew denser as they aged. Charkon was twenty years stronger than when they’d last met. Burke was twenty years older.
And Burke had spent those twenty years designing this machine for exactly this moment.
“Okay Anza,” Burke said. “Chew them.”
The giant tilted its head and Burke listened with great satisfaction to the precise clockwork click zzizz, click zzizz as the razor disks shot from their cartridge. Anza handled the disk shooter better than he’d ever managed. Each one sliced through the air straight toward its target, a testament to Burke’s precision craftsmanship and Anza’s steady aim. Unfortunately, Charkon’s elite armor proved to be of an even superior craftsmanship. The disks snapped and ricocheted from his breast plate in a shower of sparks. The wildly careening shards cut into the human warriors nearby, biting into bone.
Anza stopped firing. Burke could tell from the clanking of chains that she was resetting the war club to strike. Burke shifted gears and spun the guide wheel to swing Big Chief into a better attack position. The ancient, hard-packed earth of Dragon Forge was the perfect surface for Big Chief. Not even the snow was slowing it down.
Charkon gazed up at the approaching giant. Suddenly, the elder dragon broke ranks with his fellows and leapt forward. Anza swung the war club. Charkon raised his massive shield and took the blow. The shudder of the impact knocked Burke’s spectacles free. He caught them against his chest. Slipping them back on, he found that Charkon’s shield had been shattered by the blow—but Charkon himself seemed unharmed.
Charkon tossed the fragments of his shield aside before Anza could raise the club again. Dropping his axe, Charkon grabbed the iron club in his gauntleted claws. He twisted the weapon with all his strength, grunting loudly. Big Chief’s arm groaned and creaked from the stress. The wrist joint exploded as Charkon tore the weapon free. Shrapnel rattled off the mesh cage surrounding Burke. Big Chief’s arm fell limp, the shoulder ratchets completely stripped.
“Kanati!” Charkon screamed, his voice given a metallic, cymbal-like quality by his helmet. He retrieved his axe and brandished it with both hands, launching into a charge. The arc of the swinging axe would slice directly into Big Chief’s crotch. Burke was fairly certain that the wire mesh wasn’t going to offer much protection. Then, to the surprise of both Burke and Charkon, the Big Chief’s left arm swung down and struck Charkon on the blind side of his helmet, knocking him from his feet with a loud whang! Charkon hit the ground hard as his dented helmet bounced away.
Big Chief, unfortunately, took the blow as badly as Charkon. Burke struggled to keep the giant upright as vibrations tested every bolt in the machine. Shrill whistles of steam cried out at his back as the boiler sprung numerous tiny leaks. Above, Anza ground gears as she tried to command the arm to rise once more, before Charkon could get back on his feet. The arm lifted barely a yard before freezing. Burke winced as cables throughout Big Chief’s arm snapped.
Charkon rolled to his belly, looking dazed. Burke saw one last chance. He jammed Big Chief to maximum speed and steered straight toward Charkon, hoping to crush him beneath the treads.
Charkon rose to his knees, facing the giant as it rolled toward him. His thick claws reached out to retrieve his fallen axe. He threw the gore-encrusted weapon parallel the ground, the blade spinning in an uneven orbit, until it buried itself between the tread and the grooved wheels it rolled on. With a jolt, Big Chief’s left leg ground to a halt. Burke kicked the right leg out of gear before they toppled.
Behind Charkon, Burke noticed that Ragnar was now leading the fight against the remaining earth-dragons. Ragnar almost flew as he leapt up, swinging his scimitars with such force they bit easily into his foes' seemingly invincible armor. When the earth-dragons returned the attack, Ragnar, naked and nimble, simply hopped away from their blows.
Burke sighed. He’d lived his life dedicated to the premise that preparation and inventiveness were of greater value than blind faith and naked savagery. Why did he believe anything at all when the world seemed intent on proving him wrong almost daily?
Burke was snapped from his philosophical musing as Charkon climbed onto the treads and stepped toward the wire cage. Burke was strapped into a leather harness, barely able to move. His little bubble of safety was now his death chamber.
“Kanati!” Charkon growled as he sank his claws into the mesh. “You should have learned your lesson twenty years ago!”
With a grunt, he tore the mesh aside.
“Humans are weak!” Charkon shouted, reaching in to take Burke by the throat. “Dragons are strong!”
To prove his point, Charkon yanked Burke from the remnants of the cage, snapping the leather straps that held Burke in position. Burke was certain his right thighbone fractured as it pulled free of the harness. However, since his whole leg was completely numb, he wouldn’t know until he put weight on it.
“This feeble rebellion was a fool’s dream!” Charkon snarled. His single eye was full of scorn. “They said the man who took my eye was clever! But a clever man would have stayed in hiding! A clever man would know there isn’t a chance mankind will ever best the dragons!”
Above, there was the rattling sound of a harness being unfastened. Burke struggled with both hands to try to open Charkon’s claws even a fraction of an inch, so he could breathe.
Charkon chuckled and squeezed even tighter.
“Go on, clever man,” he taunted. “Give me one reason mankind has for hope!”
Burke twisted his chin upward as heard the creak of the cage door swinging open above. The movement of his chin created a tiny passageway for air. His words escaped in a barely audible whisper: “We . . . don’t . . . eat . . . our . . . young!”
Anza dropped from the sky, her sword extended. The tip landed atop Charkon’s skull with her full weight driving it. The finest blade Burke had ever crafted lanced into Charkon’s head, sinking to the hilt. Anza somersaulted away, landing on her feet. If Burke knew anything about earth-dragon anatomy, the tip of her sword was now resting in the center of Charkon’s liver. The earth-dragon’s eye rolled up in its socket and his grip slackened.
Burke dropped to the ground, remaining on his feet for a full three seconds before he toppled over in agony. Ah, yes. Right femur, definitely broken. He hit the ground hard, blood speckling the white snow before him. His spectacles landed nearby with the unpleasant tinkle made by dancing shards of broken glass.
He could no longer see anything but blurs beyond the length of his arm. Ragnar’s men were cheering. From people shouting back and forth, he surmised that the last of the earth-dragons had been slain, and Shandrazel’s army was in full retreat. Mankind had won this day. Perhaps, if his internal bleeding didn’t finish him off, he’d give out a cheer of his own when he woke up.
For now, he settled on allowing the ghost of a grin to flicker across his lips. He closed his eyes as the sound of cheering faded. He was only barely aware of Anza’s hands on his face, increasingly lost to all sensation but the cool and gentle kisses of snow flakes melting on his cheeks.
JANDRA CLUNG TIGHTLY as Hex glided across the snowscape. The winter storm had stopped midday, leaving the world draped with a blanket of white. It was such a peaceful scene, it almost made her forget they were flying toward a war zone.
After they’d made the long trek through the underground to escape Jazz’s kingdom, she’d convinced Hex to return to the Nest. Bitterwood had refused to accompany them. He’d remained behind with Zeeky and Jeremiah, saying the children should not be left to face the world alone, despite Zeeky’s insistence that she wasn’t alone . . . her parents still spoke to her through the crystal ball.
Upon returning to the Nest, they’d learned of the invasion of Dragon Forge, and of Shandrazel’s plan to retake the fort. Now they were heading for the town, or, rather, for Shandrazel’s encampment.
Jandra felt introspective. The world below her seemed sculpted from cotton, a soft world with soft edges. The only unpleasant thing about the scene was the stench—even unseen in the distance, the foundries of Dragon Forge filled the air with their fumes.
“Bodies are being burnt,” Hex said as he smelled the smoke. “I expect we’ll find that Shandrazel has already retaken the forge.”
Jandra suspected that’s what they’d find as well.
“That will be one less problem to worry about then,” said Jandra. “When I left the palace, I had three big worries: who took Vendevorex’s corpse, where could I find Bitterwood and Zeeky, and what was Blasphet up to?”
“Now you know the answers to two out of three of these. This isn’t so bad.”
“But I still have two missing bodies to worry about. Since they didn’t find Blasphet’s body, I think the Sisters of the Serpent must have taken it. Are they planning to worship his corpse?”
“I don’t know much about religions, but could even humans be so irrational as to worship a disfigured corpse?”
“Maybe. And since Ven’s body vanished around the same time that Blasphet’s worshippers were freeing him, I can’t help but think there’s some connection. Since we never did learn the location of Blasphet’s temple, that’s going to be the second item on my list of problems to tackle after we make sure this Dragon Forge situation is under control.”
“What’s the first item?”
“My old tiara,” said Jandra. “It’s still sitting unguarded and unlocked back in the palace. I’d hate for it to wind up in the wrong hands.”
“We won’t tarry long at Dragon Forge,” said Hex. “Shandrazel may not be a warrior by nature, but he’s certainly smart enough to squash a human uprising on his own.”
Jandra frowned. Something about Hex’s tone made it seem like he felt that humans were naturally less intelligent than dragons. “Don’t underestimate mankind. One thing that Jazz’s implanted memories have shown me is that men didn’t wind up in subservience to dragons overnight. Humans might have ruled the world if Jazz hadn’t been actively working to cripple them. If she hadn’t killed everyone who knew how to make gunpowder, for instance, the world would no doubt look very different.”
“What’s gunpowder?” Hex asked.
Jandra furrowed her brow at the question. She was frequently beset by these moments of cryptomnesia. Odd bits of knowledge flashed through her awareness as her brain endeavored to catalogue Jazz’s forced memories.
“I’m not sure,” she said, as Hex flapped his wings to lift them higher. The winter wind bit into her bare cheeks. The cold helped pull her back into here and now; she had fallen too easily into daydreams since Jazz had altered her mind. “It’s so frustrating. It’s like parts of my brain aren’t talking to each other. I know that Jazz thought that gunpowder was dangerous, and spent centuries killing any human who knew how to make it. I have another memory of what it looks like and the chemical formulation. But these memories are just hanging there, disconnected. I’m not even certain what a gun is, or why you’d want to powder one! I have no idea if it would change the world or not.”
Hex’s shoulders stiffened ever so slightly as Jandra spoke. She’d grown quite sensitive to his reactions as she’d ridden him. She could sense his emotions in the subtle movements of his muscles beneath her thighs.
“What?” she asked.
Hex started to speak, then stopped.
“What?” she asked again.
“If an individual is nothing more than the sum of their memories, what will happen if Jazz’s memories ever fully take root within you? Will you become her?”
“That’s crazy,” Jandra said. “I still have my own memories. I’m still Vendevorex’s daughter first and foremost. I’m not going to forget that.”
“But you aren’t Vendevorex’s daughter, not in truth,” said Hex. “How can you trust your memories when the central memory of your life is so . . .” Hex paused, searching for the right word, “. . . so edited.”
“That’s a very diplomatic way of putting it,” said Jandra. “I know the truth, but I choose not to dwell on it. I know that Vendevorex killed my true family, though Jazz thought that I might still have a surviving brother. But I’m making the choice to remember the good things I got from Ven: self sufficiency, discipline, and compassion. So, yes, I suppose I am editing my memories.”
“Perhaps,” said Hex, “in the end, it’s not what we remember that defines us, but what we willingly forget.”
“Spoken like a true warrior-philosopher,” said Jandra.
On the horizon, the town of Dragon Forge was a dark blot on the white landscape. The chimneys belched black plumes toward the gray clouds. The ground for hundreds of yards around the city was dark brown instead of snowy-white. Mounds of rusted metal were stacked around the city, along with other unidentifiable heaps. As they drew closer, a jolt of realization ran through her. Some of these heaps were the corpses of sun-dragons.
“By the bones,” she whispered.
“I see it as well,” Hex said. “What could have caused such slaughter?”
Jandra’s finely-tuned eyes focused in on the town walls and the forms moving along them. Humans. Dragon Forge was still under rebel control.
A fountain of anger bubbled up inside her. It was true that humans had suffered horribly under Albekizan. When Albekizan had launched his campaign of genocide, she’d been swept up with a passionate desire to fight for humanity. But didn’t these people know Albekizan was dead? Shandrazel was intent on bringing peace and fairness to mankind. Why were these fools ruining the best hope of true justice this kingdom had ever known?
“It looks like humans are on the walls,” Hex said a few seconds later. Jandra was surprised to realize that her vision was better than his now. Sun-dragons had eyes that were the envy of eagles.
“I see them,” she said. “It looks like they have bows. We should veer away.”
“No worry,” said Hex, climbing slightly higher. “We’re well above the range of arrows.”
They closed in swiftly on the city. The little snow remaining on the ground was tinted pink with blood. Her eyes were drawn from the gore toward a strange contraption standing in the center of town. Some sort of machine, built to roughly resemble a man.
“I’m thinking we’ve just missed a fight,” said Hex.
“Yes,” said Jandra. “It looks to me as if the rebels beat back an attack of sun-dragons.”
“How is that possible?” Hex asked, sounding genuinely puzzled. “Shandrazel may not have a warrior’s heart, but I can’t believe he couldn’t command his forces competently enough to retake the city.”
“The facts speak for themselves,” she said as they drew ever closer to the fort. “Humans are still in control of the city, and the only dragons I see are dead ones.”
Before Hex could mount an argument, a volley of arrows rose into the air from the fortress walls. Hex didn’t react. Either he didn’t see them, or wasn’t afraid of them. But Jandra’s mind quickly calculated the paths of the arrows and realized Hex was wrong about their reach.
“Watch out!” she shouted, leaning down, extending her arm. Hex veered sharply to the left, out of the path of most of the deadly missiles. Jandra was thrown from his back by the evasive action. She paid no attention to the distant ground. Instead she extended the nanite cloud that surrounded her to disassemble the arrows as they drew close. In seconds, she’d transformed the deadly wall of arrows to a cloud of dust.
Hex’s hind-talons clamped around her waist as he wheeled back to catch her.
“I see the tents of the dragon army in the distance,” Hex said, racing away from Dragon Forge. “Let’s take the long way around to reach them.”
“Yes,” said Jandra. “Let’s.”
PRUDENTLY, JANDRA TURNED HERSELF and Hex invisible as they descended into Shandrazel’s camp. The camp had been transformed into a mobile hospital. Jandra had never seen so many wounded dragons. While Dragon Forge had been a flurry of activity, with men laboring to clear corpses from the streets and repair the broken eastern gate, Shandrazel’s camp was subdued and silent.
Hex landed and Jandra remained seated on his back. She was uneasy. There was no reason to think that Shandrazel would be angry with her over the human rebellion, but she was worried what other dragons might think. She’d always felt like an outsider growing up in the palace. Here among all this suffering caused by men, she felt that sense of isolation grow.
Hex pushed aside the flap of Shandrazel’s tent. The tent was palatial, an acre or more of canvas propped up by thick poles cut from the tallest pines. Though it was still early afternoon, the space was lit by hundreds of lanterns. Shandrazel was alone in the tent, sitting near the center, perched atop a mound of golden cushions. His cheeks were wet with tears. His bloodshot eyes looked haunted as he looked up.
“Who’s there?” he asked hoarsely. “I gave orders that I wasn’t to be disturbed.”
“Remove the invisibility,” Hex said.
Jandra released the dust around them. She hopped from Hex’s back onto the long, broad crimson rugs that covered the ground. The muffled crunch of dry leaves came from beneath the rugs as she walked.
Shandrazel looked up, staring at them as if he wasn’t positive they were real.
“Hexilizan?” he whispered.
“Brother,” Hex said. “What has transpired?”
“We lost,” said Shandrazel. “Charkon was so impatient. I wanted to wait for more forces. He convinced me that we had enough troops, and that the longer we waited, the better prepared the rebels would be.”
“How many troops did you have?” Hex asked.
“Ten thousand earth-dragons, two hundred sun-dragons. Nearly half that number is dead or wounded. Thousands more lie incapacitated in their tents, the victims of some unknown digestive illness that swept the camp.”
“I can’t believe things went so badly,” said Hex. “How many did we face?”
“Our spies said there were only a few thousand rebels. But they possessed a new bow that reached higher than any weapon we’ve ever seen. There are also reports of some monstrous armored giant. The earth-dragons claim he’s fifty feet tall, and has eyes of fire. I sent my troops into slaughter, Hex.”
Shandrazel sounded on the verge of tears.
Jandra stepped up. “What happened to the peace talks? Where’s Pet? Maybe he can talk to the rebels and—”
“Pet proved disloyal,” Shandrazel said, cutting her off. “There’s evidence he conspired with Blasphet. He’s now a fugitive.”
“You can’t be serious,” she said. “Pet? Working with Blasphet? On what? His nails? Nobody knows Pet better than I do. It’s absurd to think he’d help the Murder God. What really happened?”
“It isn’t important at the moment,” said Shandrazel.
“It’s important to me,” said Jandra.
“We have a much more pressing crisis,” said Shandrazel. “The humans still hold Dragon Forge. Many of the surviving sun-dragons have deserted. If we don’t retake the town, it won’t be a human rebellion I face, but a rebellion of my own race.”
“It was your goal to be the king who brought an end to kings,” said Hex. “It looks as if you’ll see your dreams come true.”
“Do not taunt me, brother,” Shandrazel growled. “I wanted to launch a new world order! I didn’t intend to unleash anarchy throughout the Commonwealth!”
“Anarchy need not be a bad thing,” Hex said. “Indeed, it may—”
“Silence,” Shandrazel said, raising up onto his hind-talons and spreading his wings wide to make himself look more intimidating. “I have no stomach for your juvenile philosophies.”
“Fine,” Hex said, coolly. “Then do you have the stomach for brutality? Because that’s the only choice remaining to you. The humans repelled a direct assault with bows and a mechanical giant. But they still occupy only one small patch of Earth, while you have the resources of the world to draw upon. You can starve the humans if you want a victory.”
“That could take months,” said Shandrazel.
“If it’s a quick victory you desire, you now know the range of the new bows. I wager it’s less than the range of your catapults. Shower the town with balls of flaming pitch.”
“That would burn Dragon Forge to cinders!”
“You would destroy the town,” agreed Hex, “but you would kill the rebels and command the ground Dragon Forge stands upon. You would look very kingly as you magnificently spend our father’s treasure to rebuild the forge.”
Shandrazel stroked the underside of his jaws with his fore-talon as he contemplated Hex’s advice.
Jandra felt it was time to intervene. “Excuse me,” she said. “But before you destroy the town and kill everyone in it, have you thought about talking with these people? They’re rebelling because of the actions of Albekizan. Maybe they just don’t know that you want to give them a better deal.”
“It’s too late for negotiation,” said Shandrazel. “I didn’t choose to start this war. Men spilt the first blood.”
“They probably think Albekizan spilt the first blood at the Free City,” said Jandra. “Let me go inside as your ambassador. I’ll talk to the leader. Find out his demands.”
Shandrazel took his head. “My spies say the leader is a survivor of the Free City named Ragnar. He’s a religious fanatic who would rather die than make peace with dragons. His only demand, from what I told, is that all dragons be slain. You can see why I’ve no interest in accommodating him.”
“If what you say is true and I can’t convince this Ragnar to make peace, then you won’t have to kill thousands to stop this rebellion,” she said. “It sounds as if one person might be enough.”
“Yes,” Shandrazel said, perking up. “Yes, if you killed Ragnar, the others would break. It’s only his charisma that holds their army together. If you kill him, victory is assured.”
“I didn’t volunteer to be your assassin,” said Jandra. “I’m going in to talk. After I speak to him, I’ll give thought to the appropriate actions.”
“Do it,” said Shandrazel. “I give you full authority to undertake this mission.”
“Shall I fly you there?” Hex asked.
“No,” said Jandra, fading into invisibility. “I’m in the mood for a little walk.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
* * *
REVELATIONS
THE SNOW CRUNCHED beneath Jandra’s boots as she hiked toward the fortress. The day was at its end. Long shadows painted the ground, and the dark clouds beyond Dragon Forge were tinted red. Here among the gleaner mounds, the winter evening was silent and peaceful. As she’d walked toward the fortress, she’d built dozens of hopeful scenarios in her mind, plausible, logical ways that this siege could end without further blood being spilled.
As she walked past the gleaner mound, she spotted the corpse of an earth-dragon. His body was riddled with arrows. His eyes were frozen open in death. From the scrapes in the mud behind him, she surmised he had crawled hundreds of yards in an attempt to escape the assault on Dragon Forge and return to Shandrazel’s camp before finally succumbing to his wounds.
Her optimism that further violence could be avoided was suddenly rattled. Earth-dragons wouldn’t soon forget this infamous day. Could she blame them? They’d want revenge. Would evicting the rebels from Dragon Forge be enough to calm them? Earth-dragons were such alien, stoic beings, it was hard to say. Perhaps there was still hope of peace, despite the atrocities committed by the humans.
She walked past the dead earth-dragon and found herself in the presence of another corpse only a dozen yards away. Her stomach tightened as she recognized that this twisted thing before her had once been a sun-dragon, like Hex or Shandrazel. The great beast had hit the ground so hard its body was half buried in the red clay. Only a single crimson wing, largely intact and jutting into the air like a sail, instantly identified the hill of flesh before her as a member of the royal race.
She knew, in her gut, that all hope of a peaceful solution was gone. Albekizan had launched genocide over the death of his son, Bodiel. Today, countless sons, brothers, and fathers had been slaughtered by rebel bows. The sun-dragons would now be a race of Albekizans. Human blood would be spilled throughout the kingdom if swift justice wasn’t visited upon the rebels.
She bit her lower lip, knowing what she had to do. She’d undertaken this mission as a diplomat. Shandrazel wanted her to be his assassin. Could she bring an end to this madness by killing, or at least capturing, Ragnar?
“Oh, Ven,” she sighed. “What would you do if you were asked to be an assassin?”
But, of course, she knew his answer. Vendevorex had confessed to her that he’d served as Albekizan’s assassin multiple times. Indeed, he’d killed her own family at Albekizan’s orders, simply to demonstrate his power. Her life story proved that when asked to be an assassin, Vendevorex had answered, “Of course, sire.”
It was strange to think of Vendevorex as a killer. He’d always been so kind to her. Indeed, she’d never seen Vendevorex show cruelty toward anyone. Though perhaps the most powerful dragon in the kingdom, he hadn’t abused his abilities. He never acted in anger, nor had she ever known him to hold a grudge. When Vendevorex had decided to use his powers to kill, he made the decision based on logic, and only acted when he felt that resorting to violence would serve some greater good.
She could almost hear his counsel now. “Killing one man might spare the lives of tens of thousands if a wider war breaks out.”
By the time she reached the eastern gate, she’d convinced herself. She was no longer here as a diplomat. Invisibly, she approached the bloodied wood of the eastern gate. The giant wooden structure looked as if it had been knocked flat, then hastily rebuilt. The ground had been trampled into a gory muck that sucked at her boots. The stench of vomit hung heavy in the air, making her eyes water.
Standing ankle deep in the dark mire, the air full of death, she remembered how she’d stood on the oily beach, cradling the dying seagull. Killing for the greater good wouldn’t be murder. Only, they weren’t her hands that held the seagull, were they? And it hadn’t been her decision. Those memories belonged to Jazz. She shook her head to try to push back the alien thoughts.
She touched the wood of the gate, impregnating it with her nanites. She allowed a few seconds for the tiny machines to slip between the molecules, then willed a hole to appear. A rough rectangle five feet high and two feet wide crumbled to sawdust. She ducked to step inside the gate and glanced back at the mound of pulverized wood, like a puzzle formed of a million impossibly tiny pieces. She could see in her mind’s eye how all these pieces had fit together only seconds before. With a nod, the sawdust rose and swirled as her nanites lifted it on magnetic pulses. In seconds, the hole began to close. A moment later, the door was restored, as if she had never touched it.
Shandrazel’s camp had been silent as a morgue. Even with the sun down, Dragon Forge was noisy. Men shouted back and forth, hammers struck metal, and dozens of carts rolled toward a central furnace, all loaded with the bodies of earth-dragons. The stink inside was even worse than outside, as the aroma of two-thousand unbathed men mixed with the other odors.
She wasn’t certain how best to locate Ragnar. She’d met him briefly in the Free City—he’d been the naked, wild-eyed prophet Pet credited with saving his life. She’d instantly disliked him. He manifested every unpleasant trait the dragons attributed to humans. He’d been dirty, irrational, and brutish. How had such a man bested an army of dragons?
Then she heard a familiar voice from above. She looked up. The wall here was thirty feet high. She couldn’t see who was talking, but was certain she knew the speaker.
“Pet!” she shouted out, losing all caution. Could he really be part of this rebellion?
Some of the men in the street glanced in the direction of her voice. Seeing nothing due to her aura of invisibility, they turned away.
A soldier in a tattered cloak leaned over the wall, staring down where she stood. This man’s face was misshaped, his nose bent and broken, his scabby brow knotty and bruised. His chin and cheeks were covered in a scraggly beard. Her heart sank. It wasn’t Pet.
The stranger asked, “Jandra?” He pushed the hood of his cloak back, revealing a head full of golden hair, greasy and matted. His face was smudged by mud and blood and soot. Yet, as torchlight caught his eyes, she saw they were the same blue as a sky-dragon’s scales. She only knew one man with such breathtaking eyes.
“Pet?” she asked.
“It’s me,” he answered. He dropped his voice to a whisper. “What are you doing here?”
“That’s what I was going to ask you!”
“I’m fighting to free mankind from dragons,” he said. He disappeared back over the wall. She heard him say, “Take over up here, Vance.” An instant later, Pet reappeared at a nearby ladder. He slid down the ladder rails in a fluid move that reminded Jandra of the first time she’d met him, when he’d performed as an acrobat.
“When did you get all militant?” Jandra asked. Pet approached with such confidence she wondered if he could see her.
“Since Shandrazel started torturing helpless women,” he said, now speaking to the empty air a few feet to her left. “Since he outlawed all weapons for humans, then threw me in the dungeon as a traitor for standing up to him.”
“Torturing women?”
“Yes. The Sister of the Serpent we captured.”
“What was the point?” she asked, confused. “She had no tongue. What could she have told him?”
“I don’t think there was a point,” said Pet. He turned his body a bit more, and was now speaking directly toward her unseen face, barely five feet away. “I think he’s in over his head and doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s drawing on the lessons his father taught him: the real power of a king lies in the force and fear he commands.”
Jandra shivered at these words, remembering how Shandrazel had been energized by the thought of her serving as an assassin. Was she now part of the fear he commanded? And if Shandrazel had fallen back on the lessons his father had taught him, was she any different? She was drawing on Vendevorex’s moral choices to guide her this evening.
“You never answered my question,” said Pet. “Why are you here?”
“I’ve come . . . on a mission of diplomacy. I need to talk to Ragnar.”
“I can take you to him,” said Pet. “But I don’t think he’s interested in diplomacy. Neither am I, to be honest.”
“I need to at least try,” she said.
“If diplomacy means surrendering Dragon Forge, forget it,” said Pet. “We’ve paid for this fort with blood. We won’t give it up.”
“Not even if it means more blood shed?”
“We’ve made our stand,” said Pet. “Every man here would give his life to keep this town in human hands.”
“You might get that chance,” she said. “Shandrazel’s talking about burning this city to the ground. And, from what I’m told, it sounds as if Shandrazel’s army might have lost their first attack due to bad luck. He says some sort of illness swept his army just after the attack began. Can you count on a mysterious illness a second time?”
Pet crossed his arms, looking stone-faced. He answered, in a cold tone. “We don’t rely on luck. Ragnar says the Lord is on our side. So far, he’s been right.”
“You used to be so scornful of prophets,” she said. “How can you be part of this?”
“I’m not the man I used to be,” Pet said.
“Look, this is getting us nowhere. Just take me to Ragnar. I should at least hear what he has to say. Maybe he can make a believer out of me.”
“Maybe,” said Pet. Then he paused again. He was now close enough that she could smell him. His scent didn’t trigger the same erotic response it had the last time she’d been near him. Her senses were now more under control, for one thing, and he smelled especially ripe, for another.
Despite this, a small chill raced through her as she met his gaze. Before, when she’d looked into his eyes, though they had been beautiful as gemstones, they’d been empty; vacant windows into a vacant soul. The only emotion she’d ever seen inside him was lust. Now, his eyes were lit with something else—a hardness, a seriousness that told her Pet no longer desired her. He’d surrendered his life to a larger cause.
“Shandrazel hasn’t sent you here to do something dumb, has he? You’re not here to kill Ragnar, are you?”
Jandra froze. Pet couldn’t see her face though he was less than an arm’s length away. Was there something in her tone that tipped him off? Or had war simply left him with a greater degree of caution than he’d once possessed?
“I told you I’m here to talk,” she said.
“Good. Because you’d be dead in a heartbeat if you tried anything.”
Jandra was incredulous. Pet couldn’t possibly be threatening her, could he? “Why?” she asked, scornfully. “His God would strike me down?”
“No.” Pet’s open hand darted out. He clumsily struck her shoulder, rapidly ran his fingers down her arm to grab her bicep, and growled, “I would.”
“Unhand me,” she hissed. His grip was solid; his rough and jagged nails were piercing the sheer fabric that covered her arms. “Or I’ll unhand you. You’ve seen what my powers can do to human flesh.”
He relaxed his grip, but still held her. They stood, unmoving, for several long moments. Pet stared at where he knew her eyes must be. She turned her gaze away. At last, he released her.
“As long as we have an understanding,” he said. “You can follow me.”
JANDRA DROPPED HER INVISIBILITY as Pet led her into the house at the end of the street. She hoped Pet would take it as a sign of goodwill. Plus, it could prove useful not to have anyone else in the room know she could turn invisible.
The wooden house was modest and plain. The place felt claustrophobic compared to the abodes of sun-dragons or sky-dragons. They entered in a kitchen dominated by a large table built of roughly-finished pine, with stripes of black grime caked into its oily surface. A bushel basket of onions sat on the table and, from the smell, a fair number of the onions were rotting. Pet opened the kitchen door into a room with a fireplace. The heat washed over her in a wave.
Ragnar sat on a wooden chair by the fire. There was a woman sitting on his lap, her clothes in a state of disarray. The woman looked toward the door; her eyes were hard and indignant at the intrusion. A serpentine tattoo was faintly visible under the short dark hair that covered her scalp. A Sister of the Serpent? Jandra tensed. Shandrazel had said Pet was working with Blasphet.
Ragnar sneered as he caught sight of Jandra, his eyes wandering in disdain over her fine clothes and careful grooming. They had never been formally introduced. The last time he had seen her, in the Free City, she’d been disguised as a peasant.
“Who’s this?” Ragnar demanded of Pet. “Why do you disturb my counsel with Shanna?”
“Sorry,” said Pet. “This seems important. Apparently Shandrazel wants to talk.”
“I’m Jandra Dragonsdaughter,” Jandra said, with a respectful bow. “I’m here to speak for Shandrazel.”
Ragnar’s face slackened. He stared at Jandra as if she were a ghost. It wasn’t the reaction Jandra expected. After an awkward moment of silence, she decided to proceed. “Shandrazel intends to take back Dragon Forge. Your most valuable weapon in the recent battle, your improved bows, will no longer have the element of surprise. The illness that swept his forces was a chance occurrence. You faced an army unfit to fight. When the dragons attempt to take this city again, you’ll face certain death.”
Ragnar didn’t say anything in response to her words. He continued to stare, his expression unfathomable.
Mildly rattled by the possibility that Ragnar was, in fact, a madman, Jandra tried once more to appeal to reason. “There’s still a chance that bloodshed can be avoided. I was at the Free City. I’m sympathetic to the cause of human liberty. Shandrazel, too, is a proponent of greater human freedom. Tell me your demands for the surrender of this city, and I’ll carry them back to Shandrazel.”
Ragnar’s face took on a gray pallor as he looked down at the floor. He said, quietly, “I almost killed you as an infant, you know.”
Jandra cocked her head, perplexed. Was this just insane babble?
“What?”
“When you were a baby. A sky-dragon killed all my family save one, my infant sister. Later, he attempted to return her to me. But I knew she’d already been corrupted. I tried to kill you. To this day, I’m not certain what saved you. One moment I held a rock, preparing to smash your skull. Then I was struck unconscious by an unseen enemy. When I woke, you were gone. I was never certain of your fate.”
Jandra’s forehead wrinkled in confusion as she stared at the nude man. His body was crisscrossed by a hundred scrapes and cuts, his hair hung around his face in tangles. There were clumps of horrible things in his beard that she didn’t want identified. This was the leader of the rebels? He was so obviously insane, she couldn’t believe anyone had ever listened to him.
“Wait a minute,” Pet said. “Are you saying Jandra is your sister?”
“Once,” said Ragnar. “Before the dragons stole her and infected her spirit. I’ve heard rumors over the years of a girl named Jandra being raised in the palace. She had the same name as my sister—I had blurted out her name to the dragon who’d stolen her. The powers attributed to the king’s wizard, Vendevorex, were the same as those the sky-dragon displayed that night—command of fire and ice, and the power of invisibility. These are powers of the devil.”
Jandra felt the hair rising on the back of her neck, at least where it wasn’t clamped down by her genie. “My powers have nothing to do with the devil,” she said defensively.
“Perhaps you believe this,” Ragnar sighed. “I regret that I couldn’t spare you such corruption, sister. The fact that you come here as a representative of dragons rather than standing for your own race is proof that you’re beyond redemption.”
Jandra felt like the room was spinning. Vendevorex had never told her of a brother—but, he’d never told her anything about her origins until she’d discovered it by chance. And the goddess had said an older brother had survived.
“She does kind of look like you,” Shanna said, looking back and forth between the two. “Same color eyes. The lips are similar. The hair color’s pretty close.”
Jandra shuddered. She didn’t look anything like Ragnar. Yes, they had a few superficial similarities, but it was impossible that she could be related to this brutish lunatic.
“If this is some kind of trick,” she said, “it’s not a very good one. Pet, what did you tell him about me?”
“I never mentioned you,” said Pet.
“Can you prove this?” Jandra asked Ragnar. “Do you have any evidence that I’m your sister?”
“None,” said Ragnar. “I lost everything that night. When I returned to the site of the fire, everything was burned, even the stones of the walls.”
Jandra nodded. Vengeance of the Ancestors burned stone. How could he know this if he wasn’t telling the truth?
“That night I made a vow to the Lord,” said Ragnar. “I would never again cut my hair or wear clothes as long as dragons had the freedom to kill humans without consequence. I gave myself over as an instrument of God, allowing Him to guide me to this great day. Go and tell your master there will be no surrender. Tell them we will slaughter any dragon who comes near this place.”
Jandra knew what Shandrazel would want if she went back with these terms. He would want Ragnar dead.
But what if Ragnar really was her brother?
She needed to get back outside, into the cool air. She needed time to think.
“I’ll tell him,” she said. “I should go.”
“Wait,” said Pet, grabbing her by the arm. “I want to come with you. I need to talk to Shandrazel.”
“What?” she said. “Why? Shandrazel thinks you’re a traitor. He’ll kill you on sight.”
“We both know you could protect me,” he said.
“What can you possibly hope to accomplish?”
“I spent weeks listening to Shandrazel talk about his dreams for peace. I know what he wants more than anyone in this room. Make no mistake: I’m willing to die to keep Dragon Forge in the hands of humans. I’m not going there to compromise. But I think I know what I can say to him that will change his mind about retaking the city. If he believes half the words he’s said, he’ll listen to me.”
“You cannot speak to that serpent,” said Ragnar. “I forbid it!”
“I take my orders from Burke,” said Pet. “He’s the one who made me commander of the sky-wall team. If you have a problem, go talk to him.”
“Talk to me about what?” a faint voice asked as a chill breeze swept through the room. Jandra looked into the kitchen. In the doorway, there was a man sitting in a strange contraption that was half-chair, half-wagon. His right leg jutted straight out before him, immobilized by steel rods. His eyes were red, as if he’d been crying, and he was squinting, as if he couldn’t see well. His wheeled chair was being pushed by a woman only a little older than Jandra. She was tall, dressed in dark buckskin. She stared at Jandra with an unnerving directness, like a cat watching a bird.
“Burke,” Pet said. “This is Jandra. She’s a representative of Shandrazel. The dragons want to talk.”
“I bet they do,” Burke said through clenched teeth. He was obviously in horrible pain.
“I know Shandrazel personally,” Pet said. “I want to talk to him. I don’t think there’s anyone in this fort better qualified to give him our demands.”
“We have no demands!” Ragnar shouted, waving his fist at Pet. “We have victory! We have Dragon Forge! Let him send his armies against us! We shall crush them! As the days pass, the forge will provide our armies with better weapons, better armor, and machines of war the likes of which no dragon has ever seen! The end days of Revelations are upon us. When next we march from this fortress, it will be to drive the dragons into the sea!”
Burke closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose as Ragnar ranted. He seemed to be thinking over Pet’s proposal rather than listening to the prophet.
“Ragnar’s right,” Burke said, at last. He sounded quite rational. “We have no demands. The dragons are only willing to talk because they’re scared.”
Jandra found herself worried that she’d given these people false hope. Shandrazel wasn’t truly interested in talking, either. But, perhaps if Pet could talk to him? Maybe Pet really did know Shandrazel well enough to persuade him to return to a path of peace.
Jandra walked over to Burke. The woman behind Burke lowered her hands to the hilt of her sword.
“Sir, you sound like a rational man. You look like you’re in pain. I can heal your leg with my magic if you let Pet go talk to Shandrazel. I can use my powers on all the wounded here in Dragon Forge if that will help avoid further bloodshed.”
“Magic?” Burke answered with a sneer. “Girl, I’m the last person you should talk to about magic. I know who you are. You’re that girl Vendevorex raised. He was either a pawn of the Atlanteans, or a pawn of the goddess. In either case, if you’ve been raised by him, you’re no friend of mankind.”
“I’m nobody’s pawn,” said Jandra. “If you know about the goddess, you may be interested in learning that she’s dead. Bitterwood killed her with one of her own weapons.”
Burke raised an eyebrow. “Do tell. Bitterwood? He’s still alive?”
“Yes.”
“Huh,” Burke said. He shifted in his chair as he contemplated this news. He winced at this minor movement. “You know, girl, if you’d told me anyone else had killed the goddess, I’d tell you you’d been tricked. My ancestors fought that high-tech witch many times, and thought she was dead more than once. But if I’ve ever met anyone up to the task of killing her, it was Bant.”
“So, I’m not a pawn,” said Jandra.
“Not her pawn,” said Burke. “But, if you possess Atlantean technology and aren’t staying in this fort to fight for the freedom of mankind, then you’re a pawn of the dragons. From what I know of Vendevorex, he had access to machines I can only dream about. If you possess a tenth of his knowledge, you have the power to change the world. Technology was mankind’s greatest competitive advantage in the Darwinian struggle for survival. If the goddess hadn’t crippled mankind, the dragons never could have risen to where they are today. If we still had gunpowder, the last dragon would have vanished ages ago. If you possess advanced technology, why aren’t you sharing it? Why do you allow your fellow men to grub around in the dirt to survive, rather than helping us rise once more to our rightful role as masters of this world?”
Jandra frowned. Burke was trying to make her feel guilty, but his use of the phrase masters of this world made her wonder if Jazz had been right. Maybe mankind couldn’t be trusted with the power she commanded.
“I don’t need you to heal my leg, Jandra,” Burke said, his bloodshot eyes burning into her. “If you want to use your ‘magic,’ heal the world. Lift mankind back to the top of the food chain.”
Jandra sighed. This was more than she could think about at the moment, and didn’t seem to address the immediate crisis at hand. “There’s no reason dragons and men can’t share this world. We’re intelligent beings. We can talk this out. Let Pet come back with me.”
Pet nodded in agreement. “Let me take my best shot.”
Burke sat quietly, looking past Pet and Jandra toward the fireplace in the next room. He looked tired.
“Go,” he said at last. “I guess it can’t hurt to hear what the big lizard has to say.”
AS THEY LEFT THE HOUSE, Pet lingered until Jandra had stepped into the street. Then he turned and fixed his eyes on Shanna. He’d worked many years on the ability to communicate his innermost desires to women with a single glance. Unspoken words passed between them. He held his hand open, as if to catch something.
Shanna understood. She moved to the table where she’d placed her belt. She loosened the sheath that held her poisoned dagger. She tossed the sheathed weapon toward Pet, who snatched it from the air, then spun smoothly on his heel to follow Jandra. He stuffed the dagger into the back of his pants, beneath his filthy cloak. Jandra wouldn’t be the only one this night in command of an unseen power.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
* * *
THAT STRANGE LAND TO WHICH WE MUST JOURNEY
JANDRA AND PET walked through the snow-covered night in uncomfortable silence. She found it difficult to look at him; his once fine face was now ruined. She knew she could heal him; he must also know this. But he hadn’t asked her to restore his looks. Somehow, in this most serious of times, it struck her as an insufferably trivial subject to bring up.
A driving wind cut down from the north. Pale patches of moonlight dappled the ground as the sky churned. Countless gaps in the breaking clouds opened and just as quickly closed.
In the end, it was Pet who spoke first. “I don’t think you look all that much like Ragnar.”
He said the words in an almost comforting tone, as if he sensed that the matter was weighing heavy upon her.
“I don’t either, but it’s not impossible that he’s my brother,” she said. “I guess I could use my powers to learn the truth. Compare our cells and find out how closely they match. But what if it’s true? What then?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I used to dream of having a human family. I saw the way that Ruth and Eve were so close. I envied the intimate bond they had as sisters. The way they knew that they were bound by blood to the best friend they would ever have. So what if Ragnar is my brother? I can’t possibly feel that same connection. It’s pretty obvious he loathes me. If I want the companionship of an irrational, dragon-hating fanatic, I can go hang out with Bitterwood.”
Pet laughed. “Killing Albekizan didn’t mellow him?”
“Did you know he eats the tongues of dragons?” Jandra asked. “I mean, he was preaching to me about how I shouldn’t trust sun-dragons because they eat people, and then he cuts out Blasphet’s tongue and eats it for dinner!”
“Wait, Blasphet? He killed Blasphet?”
“Oh, right. There’s a lot to fill you in on. And, just looking at your face, I’m guessing you have a lot to tell me.”
Pet cut her a glance that wasn’t exactly angry, but it let her know she’d crossed a line. He said, “If Ragnar is your brother, at least you can find out your family history. You don’t even know your family name. You might still have cousins out there, aunts and uncles and grandparents. You never know.”
“How about you, Pet?” Jandra asked. “You’ve never mentioned your family.”
He shrugged. “I’m a thoroughbred. I know my lineage. I know who sired me, and the mother I came out of. I know I have five half-brothers, six half-sisters, and two full-blood sisters. But dragon favorites don’t really have family lives. I went to live with Chakthalla when I was five. She thought young humans were cute, in the same way you might think a puppy is cute.”
“Oh,” said Jandra. She’d known this, of course. Many dragons over the years had assumed she was Vendevorex’s pet. She’d never really understood before how Pet and she shared such a common experience of being raised by dragons rather than humans.
“I’m not the most introspective person in the world,” Pet said. “But looking back, when I think about all the women I seduced, I feel really bad. I used my finely bred looks and Chakthalla’s wealth to earn the affection of tavern wenches.”
“From the way you bragged about it, I thought you saw that as sort of a privilege.”
“That was an element of it,” said Pet. “On a deeper level, I was seducing women because it made me feel human. I craved human companionship. Chakthalla would never have allowed me true love, or life-long mating. As long as I was still her faithful pet and could breed with other pets, she didn’t care about my trysts. All my little conquests were a substitute for a love I could never experience.”
Jandra felt an unexpected sympathy well up within her at these words.
“Perhaps you should try introspection more often,” she said. “It suits you.”
“Until now, when I’ve looked inside myself, I’ve found nothing there,” he said. “I was so empty, Jandra. But, fighting at Dragon Forge, I feel as if something has filled me. The human bond I could never find sleeping with the village women—I feel it, at last, with my fellow men. I would gladly give my life to save anyone in that fortress.”
“Even Ragnar?”
“Especially Ragnar,” said Pet. “He’s the will that drives our army. And Burke . . . Burke is the brains.”
“And what are you?”
“I’m just a soldier,” said Pet. “And it suits me.”
“Well, now you’re an ambassador,” she said. “Let’s hope you’re up to that role as well.”
Pet said nothing as the clouds above continued to roil.
INVISIBLY, JANDRA LED PET toward Shandrazel’s tent. There were angry shouts coming from inside. Was that Hex’s voice?
Jandra pushed aside the tent flap. The interior of the vast room was cold, but still a welcome sanctuary from the winter wind. As she dropped her invisibility, the two sun-dragons at the center of the room looked toward her. Shandrazel looked unhappy.
“Have I interrupted something?” she asked.
“Nothing important,” said Hex.
“It’s nothing important only because my brother believes that nothing is important,” said Shandrazel. “He advocates letting the world spin into chaos. He’s willing to enumerate the faults of the world, but unwilling to do a thing to fix them.”
Hex calmly said, “I’ve long maintained that anyone who thinks they have the right to fix the world is doomed to failure by their own arrogance.”
Shandrazel dismissively waved his fore-talon, as if trying to clear the air of such a preposterous utterance. “This discussion has ended. I see you’ve brought back a fellow human, Jandra. Do you plan to introduce our unexpected guest?”
Pet pulled back the hood of his cloak, revealing his face.
Shandrazel’s eyes widened.
“I need no introduction, sire,” Pet said.
“How . . . how did you get here?” Shandrazel asked. “Are you fighting for the rebels?”
“I am,” said Pet.
“I knew you weren’t at the talks seeking genuine peace,” Shandrazel said. “All along, you were—”
“No,” Pet interrupted. “No, when I was at the talks, no man in that room had more faith in your promises than I did. I believed your fine words, Shandrazel. I believed your philosophical arguments, and I trusted that you had nothing but the best interests of mankind at heart.”
“I still do!” Shandrazel said. “I will still be the king who brings an end to kings. I will be the dragon who brings an end to human slavery and inequality.”
“You say that while commanding an army where the menial labor is performed by slaves.”
“I would have no need of an army if you humans hadn’t launched a war!” Shandrazel snapped, spittle spraying from his jaws. “The nearby river runs red with the blood of dragons you’ve slaughtered. How can there be peace in the aftermath of such an atrocity? There can be no peace until there is justice. You humans have left me with no choice but to crush your rebellion, and return Dragon Forge to the earth-dragons.”
In contrast to Shandrazel’s temper, Pet sounded very calm. “If the earth-dragons need a new city to build a new foundry, let them have the Free City. It was designed by dragons. It should house dragons.”
“Don’t be absurd,” Shandrazel said, his voice trembling. “Dragon Forge is the historic home of the earth-dragons. They won’t—”
“I’m told that Dragon Forge was built by men long ago,” said Pet. “If it’s history that drives your decisions, then you will support mankind’s claim to the town.”
Shandrazel narrowed his eyes. “You’ve stolen the city by violence.”
“Yes,” said Pet. “And dragons rule this world by force. We can argue endlessly about which act of violence spawned which act of revenge. Back in the palace, however, you said something profound. You told me that history had ended. You declared the dawn of a new age. Do you still believe those words?”
“What are you talking about?”
“If you must declare an end to history, a stopping point for old grudges, let it be today. Take your armies home and allow Dragon Forge to remain in human hands. Show us that history has ended, and that you’re willing to open a new age of peace. Show us that your fine words actually mean something.”
Jandra held her breath as she watched Shandrazel’s eyes. She couldn’t begin to fathom the thoughts racing through them. Hex, meanwhile, was standing nearby with his wings folded to his side, with a look of something approaching amusement.
Shandrazel let out his breath slowly. He said, “Pet, you’re a fugitive. With a single shout, I can summon my guards and have you bound in chains once more.”
“This is a fine threat to direct at a man who’s come to talk,” said Hex. “I can tell you learned diplomacy from our father.”
“No,” said Shandrazel. “Father would have already killed this man. Pet, you may freely leave here. Tell your fellow men in the city that there will be no further negotiations. Your position is unacceptable. Dragon Forge must be liberated. Humans took the fort in a single night. I will give you a single night to flee. Come the dawn, we shall retake Dragon Forge and slay everyone we find within its walls. Reinforcements have arrived through the day. You humans no longer enjoy the element of surprise. You shall fall.”
“You’ll let us abandon the fort?” Pet asked. “You wouldn’t hunt us down?”
“No,” said Shandrazel. “Anyone who flees and leaves behind their weapons will be spared.”
“But if we take weapons?”
“There’s no corner of my kingdom where you can hide.”
“So, it’s a kingdom again? Not a Commonwealth?”
“I misspoke,” said Shandrazel. “Our old patterns of thought die hard, I fear.”
Pet scratched his beard, as if he was thinking over Shandrazel’s offer.
He looked toward Jandra. His shoulders sagged. His eyes looked mournful as he said, “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
Pet answered her by swinging his fist toward her. Her enhanced eyes tracked his hand as it approached her face. The knuckles were cracked, and caked with red clay. She recalled the first time he’d stroked her cheek with his soft and gentle fingers, back when they'd first met, at Chakthalla’s castle.
Then stars exploded throughout the room as the force of the blow knocked her from her feet.
She landed on the carpet, blood filling her mouth, unable to form a coherent thought. Her vision seemed softened by a veil as her head flopped toward a flurry of motion. A giant red blur lanced toward the brown-gray blob that was Pet. The red blur snapped its jaws around the human shape. Pet cried out in unintelligible agony.
Her vision cleared slightly as she tried to rise, but couldn’t. Pet had a black blade in his hand, and was lifting it again and again and driving it deep into Shandrazel’s snout. Shandrazel whipped his head and Pet went flying through the air, crashing into one of the tent poles with a back-snapping crunch. The light flickered as the lanterns that hung from the tent poles danced wildly.
A large red shape loomed over her, blotting out everything else in the room. Hex. She felt a sense of relief as the warrior-philosopher slipped his fore-talon under her back and lifted her. He rolled her over and pinned her hips to the ground beneath the tremendous weight of his hind-talons.
“What?” she mumbled through bloodied lips, not understanding what was happening.
She felt as if daggers were being driven into her neck as Hex dug his claws beneath the genie that clung there. With a jerk, he snatched the device away with a violence that tore away chunks of her hair and ripped her gown from neck to hip. The pain was unreal. The metal pulled from contact with her spine felt like her soul being ripped from her body.
Then, the weight of Hex’s hind-talons lifted.
She rolled over, still groggy, still confused by what was happening. Had Pet actually punched her? She sat up, feeling her teeth loose on the left side of her jaw. It certainly seemed as if it had really happened. She coughed and a stream of blood trickled down her throat. She wiped pink spittle from her chin.
She stared up from the red smear to see Shandrazel collapsed on the scarlet carpets, staring at her with cloudy, pain-filled eyes. Blood poured from stab wounds in his snout. A black dagger still jutted from just behind his nostrils. She crawled toward him and pulled the dagger free. Shandrazel shuddered with pain. The blade still dripped with venom.
She placed her fingers on his snout, intending to heal him. Only . . . She suddenly felt deaf, blind, and numb. She could see him clearly; she could hear his dying gasps, she could feel his hot blood trickling across her fingers. Still, something was wrong.
She felt the chill air touching her naked spine. She reached to touch the back of her neck and found nothing there but a sore patch from where her hair was missing.
She turned, and saw Hex standing behind her with the genie in his claws. She’d never seen it in this configuration. It looked like a long, thin, silver ribbon with a three-fingered claw at the top that had cradled the back of her skull.
“Hex, what?” she asked.
“If you had this, you would heal him,” he said.
“Yes!” she said, standing up. “Yes! Why do you want him to die? He’s your brother!”
“I’m not helping him die,” said Hex. “I’m helping him reach his destiny. He wished to be the king who brought an end to kings. When he takes his last breath, the age of kings draws to an end.”
“But—”
“Listen,” said Hex. “His armies will disperse. The sun-dragons will return to their abodes and resume squabbling over local matters. The earth-dragons will be free to pursue their own destinies, no longer mere pawns in the game of kings. It’s for the greater good that my brother must die.”
“Who gave you the right to decide the greater good?” Jandra shouted. “This isn’t like you, Hex.”
“Have you failed to take seriously a single word I’ve said?” Hex asked. “I was willing to slay a goddess because I didn’t trust any individual to possess that much power. My brother didn’t have the power of a god, but he did possess the power of a king. It had already corrupted him. It’s an act of mercy that he passes from this world now, before he ever understands what a brutish dictator he was becoming.”
“Give me back the genie, Hex,” said Jandra. “It won’t do you any good. It’s locked. No one can use it but me.”
“I don’t want to use it. I don’t want anyone to use it. If I knew how to destroy it, I would.”
“You’ve fought by my side. You know my heart. You know I haven’t abused my power. Give me the genie.”
“I know you have a mind that’s been altered by the goddess. Perhaps you could resist the temptation of power. But what if she’s changed you? What if you’re becoming her?”
“Hex, I know my own mind!”
“And I know mine,” he said. He pulled the silver ring of invisibility she’d given him from his talon. He tossed it toward her. It landed next to her feet. “Take this. It will let you pass safely from this camp. You’ve confided in me your inner struggle, Jandra, torn between your role as a human and your role as the daughter of a dragon. Leave here and embrace your destiny as a human. It may not be such a bad thing.”
Jandra held the poison dagger. Hex seemed so confident, so powerful.
She glanced at Pet. He was propped against the tent pole, eyes closed. She couldn’t tell if he was alive or dead. She might face the same fate if she attacked. The poison wouldn't act quickly enough to kill Hex instantly. But what choice did she have? If she could get even a single finger on the genie, she could end this nonsense.
She lunged toward Hex, gritting her teeth, driving the dagger forward with both hands.
She never reached him. He kicked out with his hind-talon, catching her torso, the force of the blow knocking the dagger from her grasp. She was thrown across the room, landing against the tent wall, the world again an incomprehensible jumble of light and dark.
She rubbed her eyes to clear her vision. When she opened them, Hex was gone. Outside, she heard the beating of his mighty wings as he rose into the night.
She stood on trembling legs. Her ribs felt as if they might be broken. She staggered toward Shandrazel. He was no longer breathing.
She stumbled toward Pet, dropping to her knees before him. His eyes flickered open.
“Why?” she demanded, as tears streamed down her cheeks. “Why did you do this?”
“I lived . . . as a p-pet,” he whispered. “I . . . w-wanted to d-die . . . as . . . as . . .”
His eyes fluttered shut.
Jandra brought her hands to her mouth, trying to silence the sobs that burst from deep within her.
GRAXEN SHIVERED as he was pushed onto the balcony railing. His fore-talons were chained together to prevent flight. His hind-talons were hobbled by a short length of chain that reduced his movements to uncomfortable hops. He looked down onto the jagged shores of the Nest and the moonlit waters beyond. The balcony was full of valkyries, all armed with spears. They fixed their hard eyes upon him.
He’d been kept in an unlit cell since the night of Blasphet’s invasion. He wasn’t certain how many days had passed. He stoically met the judgmental gaze of the valkyries. He’d brought great tragedy to the Nest. He could expect only the harshest of fates.
The valkyries parted as a second prisoner was brought forth. His heart fluttered as he recognized this sky-dragon, though her head was hung low and her shoulders were bent beneath the weight of the chains that bound her.
“Nadala!” he cried out.
She glanced toward him, her eyes full of shame. Her handlers lifted her to the balcony and forced her to stand beside Graxen.
For several long minutes, Graxen and Nadala stood in silence, unable to look at each other.
Finally, the quiet was broken by the clicking of a cane on stone. Graxen looked up to see the familiar form of the matriarch. The withered sky-dragon hobbled forward, glaring at her discolored son.
“Eight hundred seventy-three,” said the matriarch. “That is the number of valkyries dead due to your dishonorable lusts.”
Nadala jerked, as if the number were a physical blow.
The matriarch sighed. “You came asking for freedom from the Thread Room. You wanted a different future for sky-dragons. Many of the tapestries were destroyed by fire or smoke. So, you’ll get your wish. Those valkyries whose threadlines have been lost will be released from the breeding guidance of the Nest. Future matriarchs will monitor these unguided pairings; it will take many generations to determine if the choice I’m making is a wise one. It will be the duty of some future matriarch as to how to respond should our race find itself failing. It is, however, my duty to decide your fates.”
Graxen lowered his head. He knew her decision before she spoke it. They would not be the first dragons to plunge to their deaths on the sharp steel spikes below.
“You’re both to be banished,” the matriarch said.
A murmur ran through the valkyries.
Graxen looked up, uncertain he believed the words.
“Traditionally, I would send you forth as tatterwings,” the matriarch continued. “But fate has already distorted your bodies with malformed scales. It’s for the best that your wings remain intact. You must fly west, beyond the cursed mountains, that you may not contaminate our species further. You’ll have two days grace. After this, any dragon you encounter will be duty bound to kill you.”
“But,” Nadala said, her voice hoarse, as if she’d spent many days crying. “But you said in the Thread Room we would be put to death. We’ve caused so much harm. How can you spare us?”
The matriarch shook her head.
“Blasphet and his cult took so many of your sisters, Nadala,” said the matriarch. “This island has seen enough death.”
Graxen was confused. Was this a trick? The matriarch seemed incapable of mercy. Yet, there was no trick apparent as two valkyries approached and released them from the chains that bound them. The iron links rattled as the valkyries carried them away.
“Fly now,” said the matriarch, turning. “Darken these shores with your shadows no longer.”
As she said this, the valkyries who’d unchained them gave them harsh shoves. Graxen toppled toward the spikes below. His limbs were numb from confinement. He felt weak; he’d been given no food during his entire imprisonment. Yet, he instinctively spread his wings. The wind caught his feather-scales, and he pulled from his descent.
Nadala continued to fall. His heart raced as she drew ever closer to the spikes. Then, at last, she opened her wings and veered away from death by impalement, following him out across the lake.
Beyond the water’s edge, Graxen landed in the bare branches of a tall tree. The perch swayed as Nadala joined him. She looked forlorn.
“She should have killed us,” she whispered.
Graxen took her fore-talon into his own.
“Would our deaths have undone the tragedy?” he asked softly. “I’m surprised by her decision, but my mother is right. There’s been enough death. We’ve been given the chance to live.”
“We’ve been banished,” said Nadala. “I’ll never again see my sisters. I’ll never again see my home. Nothing lies before us but the unknown.”
“Not only the unknown,” said Graxen. “We have each other.”
Nadala met his eyes, looking lost.
“Graxen, why did we do such an insane thing? Why did we throw all caution to the wind? Is that love? Is it love that rips the world asunder? If so, I no longer know if I want any part of it. We’re banished to journey beyond the mountains. It’s for the best if we do not make this journey together.”
Graxen shook his head. “I don’t know. You may be right. I haven’t made the clearest decisions since I met you.”
“If love strips us of reason, maybe the old ways were correct,” said Nadala. “Perhaps love can only lead to ruin. The first matriarchs were wise to remove it from the breeding process.”
“Perhaps,” said Graxen. “When I first visited the Nest, I was driven from its shores hungry and thirsty, without hint of hospitality. You followed me, gave me food. That’s still a cherished memory; it gives me hope for the essential goodness of the world. Isn’t that love as well?”
“That wasn’t love, Graxen,” she said. “That was only . . . only kindness.”
“Then perhaps kindness will be enough to sustain us as we journey over the mountains,” he said. “If you’ll accept my kindness, I pledge to do all I can to help you survive in that strange land to which we must journey.”
Nadala let her fore-talon drop from his grasp. She looked down to the forest floor. A chilly winter breeze stirred the fringes on her neck. She shivered, looking lost in thought. She glanced back in the direction of the Nest. Suddenly, her body stiffened.
Graxen followed her gaze and found a squad of valkyries coming toward them. Some were wearing armor and carrying spears. Graxen and Nadala were naked—perhaps they could outfly them. Unfortunately, they were also half-starved, with bodies and wills weakened by days chained in solitary cells. These valkyries were no doubt at the peak of health.
Except, as they drew nearer, it became obvious that the lead valkyrie was injured. Arifiel led the squad, unarmored, her shoulders covered in bandages. She flew slowly, in obvious pain, yet the other valkyries controlled their speed to stay behind her.
The valkyries reached them and Arifiel landed in the same tree that Graxen and Nadala rested in. The other valkyries found perches in neighboring trees. Graxen looked around, expecting to find icy, hostile stares. Yet, instead of scorn, these valkyries had a different emotion in their eyes. Graxen was hard-pressed to interpret it. He noted that Arifiel wasn’t the only one among them who wore bandages. Several had bare, raw spots on their wings where feather-scales had been burned away.
“Nadala. Graxen,” said Arifiel. “The matriarch doesn’t know of my mission here. You’ve been sent into the world unarmed, without food, without even a blanket to shelter you from the cold at night. We’ve come to rectify this.”
Arifiel nodded toward a nearby valkyrie who tossed her spear toward them. Nadala caught it. Seconds later, she caught a helmet thrown her way, and one of the valkyries began to unbuckle her armor.
“Graxen,” said Arifiel. “You left a bag in my care. I’ve come to return it.”
Again she nodded toward one of the valkyries, this one carrying his satchel. It bulged, stuffed to the point where its leather seams looked as if they might rip open. The valkyrie tossed the bag to Graxen. In his weakened state, he was nearly knocked from his perch when he caught it.
“There’s food,” said Arifiel. “Dried fish, dried fruit. A wool blanket and flint and steel to start a fire.”
Nadala slipped on the helmet and caught the armor that was tossed to her by the valkyrie who’d stripped.
“Why are you doing this?” Nadala asked.
Arifiel looked around the band of warriors. “Every one of us fought against the sun-dragons; every one of us faced their flames. We will carry the scars for the rest of our lives.”
“And we are the cause of those scars,” said Nadala, her voice cracking. Tears rolled down her cheeks. “We betrayed you! I betrayed you! I’m the greatest shame of the valkyries!”
“Sister!” Arifiel snapped, sounding angry. “You didn’t give us our scars. Blasphet and his minions caused this suffering. Not one among us views you as our shame. Indeed, we view you as our greatest hope.”
Nadala sniffled. “What?”
“We all witnessed Graxen in combat. He was fearless and cunning; the shame of the valkyries would have been if his virtues were allowed to pass from our species. We have plain evidence that the system we were prepared to give our lives to defend was a flawed one.”
“But—”
“We must leave you now,” said Arifiel. “Buckle up your armor. Keep your spear sharp. I don’t know what dangers await you in the lands beyond the mountains. But before I part, give me your vow: whatever foes you may face, never surrender. If you find yourself facing an army of sun-dragons, face them as a warrior born. Teach them what it means to challenge a valkyrie!”
Nadala swallowed hard. “I so vow,” she said softly.
Arifiel gave some unseen signal to her fellows, and with a single movement they all leapt into the air. They spiraled upward, a flurry of dragons, then turned as one and soared toward the Nest.
Graxen stood quietly, watching the sky as Nadala buckled on her armor. Graxen slung the satchel over his shoulder, the limb swaying as the weight shifted. He dug his fore-talon in beneath the blanket and found the oily parchment wrapping the dried fish. There was something under the parchment that had an odd texture. He pulled the fish from his bag, then dug his claws back in as he realized what it was that he’d felt.
“I . . . When I went to the coast, I found this,” he said, pulling the beaded belt from his satchel. He held it toward her. She took it and unrolled it, looking confused.
“It’s a belt,” he said. “It’s probably not the best time to give it to you, I fear.”
“It’s lovely,” she said.
“It reminded me of you,” he said.
She fastened the belt around her waist. It fit as if it had been made for her. She sniffled again and said, “Now that we have supplies, it does make sense for us to journey together. It sounds as if there’s only a single blanket to share.”
“I could give you the bag,” he said.
“Keep the bag. Just share your kindness.”
Graxen nodded. He held out the dried fish toward her.
“I’m not hungry at the moment,” she said. She raised her fore-talon to the gray teardrop scale on her cheek and wiped away the moisture that lingered there. “We have miles to journey before we reach our new world.”
The branch shuddered as Nadala leapt.
“Try to keep up,” she called back, rising into the pristine winter blue.
THE MATRIARCH closed the door behind her. A soft talon reached out to touch her shoulder. She turned, and allowed herself to fall into Metron’s embrace. It was as comforting as she remembered.
“I did what you asked me to do,” she whispered. “I never could deny you.”
“You made the right choice,” Metron answered. “The books of our lives have reached their final chapter. But the story of Graxen and Nadala is just beginning, Sarelia.”
The matriarch sighed. “It’s been many years since I’ve been called by my true name. It’s been so long since anyone has known me as anything other than my title. They’ve forgotten the dragon underneath; perhaps I’ve forgotten as well.”
Metron slid his cheek along hers. She trembled at its smoothness.
“I’ll always be with you to help you remember,” Metron whispered. “I know you, Sarelia. You’re still the wise and wonderful dragon I met those long years ago; I love you still.”
The matriarch nodded as her cane slipped from her talon. As long as Metron held her, she had all the strength she needed to stand.
JANDRA PULLED Pet’s tattered cloak more tightly around her as she approached the gates of Dragon Forge. The ring of invisibility sat on her wrist like a bracelet. She’d not used it on her journey. She’d walked from Shandrazel’s tent boldly, never looking back, and no guard had challenged her. She’d been at the edge of the encampment before she’d heard the shouts behind her as the bodies were discovered. She’d made it to the shelter of the forest shadows soon after.
Only as she’d reached the gleaner mounds had she’d glanced over her shoulder. She was certain she could hear the distant beating of wings. The sun-dragons were abandoning the camp in droves, dark shapes in a dark sky. Jandra didn’t know what the dawn would bring when the earth-dragons found their sun-dragon masters absent. Nor, for that matter, did she know the fate of the human slaves. Hex would have his victory, it seemed. An age of anarchy was upon them.
Or, perhaps, the age of a new order.
She reached the gates and looked up, shouting, “Let me in!”
A young man looked over the wall at her.
“That’s Pet’s cloak,” he said. “Who are you?”
“I’m Jandra,” she said. “Pet’s dead. Shandrazel killed him. But Pet killed Shandrazel as well.”
“Oh my gosh!” the boy said. “Pet’s dead? Oh my gosh!”
“What’s your name,” Jandra called out.
“Vance, ma’am,” he answered.
“Will you open the gate?”
“No, ma’am,” he said. He threw down a rope ladder. “You’ll have to climb up.”
As Jandra climbed, Vance said, “I’ve heard your voice before. You’re the girl who called out to Pet earlier. He seemed mighty excited you were here.”
Jandra reached the top of the wall. She looked around the tortured landscape.
“I still can’t believe you beat back the dragons,” she said.
“I’m kinda surprised myself,” said Vance. Jandra noticed how short Vance was; he was barely up to her chin. He was also slightly older than his voice let on, judging from his wispy mustache. “Pet really kept us together up here on the walls. He was a good man, ma’am. I’m sorry to hear he’s dead.”
She nodded. “I have to speak to Burke,” she said. “Pet said he was the brains of the rebellion.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Vance. “He made our bows, and he built that giant.”
“Good,” said Jandra. “Then I may have some information that will interest him.”
Vance ordered a man nearly twice his age and girth to watch his post. He led Jandra down into the fortress. She coughed as the full force of the sooty smoke hit her. Now that her nanites were no longer protecting her lungs, she felt especially vulnerable. She wished she could at least seal up the open back of her gown. Even beneath the cloak, her spine felt cold and exposed.
Vance led her through filthy streets toward the central foundry. The doors of the great factory were wide open. The sound of hammers on anvils rang through the air. Jandra raised her hands to shield her eyes as a cauldron of white-hot molten metal was poured into a form.
Vance led Jandra to a small office. He pointed toward a chair and said, “Wait here.”
Jandra remained standing as Vance tapped on the door beyond the office. He looked back apologetically as several long moments passed. Finally, the door creaked open. The woman who’d been dressed in buckskins earlier was now dressed in a cotton nightgown and carrying an unsheathed sword. Jandra’s eyes were still highly tuned; apparently some of the physical changes the helmet had made were permanent. She noted the razor edge of the blade. It was the sharpest thing she’d ever seen.
The raven-haired woman glared at Vance. Then she cast her gaze at Jandra. Her expression softened as she saw the blood staining Pet’s cloak.
She gave Jandra a slight nod, and waved her inside.
The room beyond was pitch black. Jandra stood still inside the door as the woman struck a match. Seconds later, a lantern fluttered to life. Burke the Machinist lay in his bed, looking still as death.
The woman sheathed her sword and touched Burke on the shoulder. Burke’s eyes slowly opened. He stared up at his daughter, and then turned his head toward Jandra. He, too, nodded slowly as he saw Pet’s bloodstained cloak.
“Shandrazel gave his answer, then,” he whispered.
“Shandrazel is dead,” said Jandra. “Pet killed him, as he killed Pet.”
Burke rested his head back on the pillow. “That doesn’t end this. But it buys us time. We might win this thing yet.”
He turned back to Jandra. “We could win it tomorrow if you’d share your so-called magic.”
“It’s gone,” said Jandra. “Stolen by a dragon.”
“Oh,” said Burke, sounding weary. “Well, we’re screwed, I guess.”
“No,” said Jandra. “The dragon won’t be able to use the technology. Only I can use it. Pet said you were the brains behind this rebellion. I need your help to get my tools back.”
Burke sat up, intrigued. “I’ve always had an appreciation for tools. If we get them back, will you share your secrets? Will you help me bring an end to the Dragon Age?”
“I’ll help even before we get it back,” she said. She took a deep breath, searching her soul, trying to decide if she should speak the words that had echoed in her mind on her journey here. Whatever remained of the goddess within her grumbled at the thought of revealing the secret. And, the part of her that was the daughter of a dragon also rebelled, knowing that her words might bring death to all dragons.
But the part of her that was human knew it was her duty to speak.
“How can you help if you’re powerless, girl?” Burke asked.
Jandra narrowed her eyes, and spoke in a firm, calm tone: “I know how to make gunpowder.”
DRAGONSEED
For Simon and Veronica
DRAGONSEED CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE: HOPE OF THE SLAVE
CHAPTER TWO: GOOD BOSS
CHAPTER THREE: THE CITY AS A HEART
CHAPTER FOUR: PHANTOMS
CHAPTER FIVE: SLAVERY AS AN EVOLUTIONARY
CHAPTER SIX: A VICTORY, MORE OR LESS
CHAPTER SEVEN: SUCH IMAGINATION
CHAPTER EIGHT: CONSORT OF DEMONS
CHAPTER NINE: A TORCH TO VANQUISH THE NIGHT
CHAPTER TEN: SCARECROWS
CHAPTER ELEVEN: BONE AGAINST STONE
CHAPTER TWELVE: THE IMPORTANCE OF CLEAN WATER
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: DRAGONSEED
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: MACHINE HEART
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: VIOLENCE AS AN ACCEPTABLE
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: BLOOD-HUNGRY AVENGER
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: UH-OH
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: WE SHALL ALL BE HEALED
CHAPTER NINETEEN: BRAIN-DAMAGED FREAK WITH A
CHAPTER TWENTY: SWIFT DECISIVE ACTION
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: THIS CLOSE TO HEAVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: HER DRAGON SOUL
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: GET READY FOR MAGIC
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: STRUGGLE AGAINST MONSTERS
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: THIS LITTLE PATCH OF EARTH
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: RESPONSIBILITY TO MANKIND
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: THUNDER ON A CLOUDLESS DAY
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: THE PATH OF SCARS
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: THE GATE TO ATLANTIS
CHAPTER THIRTY: PARLOR TRICKS
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: LOST CITY
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: MORNING MEDICINE
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: FREEFALL
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR: DAWN OF A GOLDEN AGE
I shall appoint over you terror,
consumption, and the burning fever,
that shall consume the eyes,
and cause sorrow of heart:
and ye shall sow your seed in vain,
for your enemies shall eat it.
Leviticus 26:16
CHAPTER ONE
* * *
HOPE OF THE SLAVE
CLOUDS THE COLOR of bruises stained the winter sunset. Shay hoped that the yellow-brown sky meant they were near the foundries of Dragon Forge. He wasn’t certain Hemming would make it if their journey lasted another day. Shay, Hemming, and Terpin were at the edge of a pine forest on a steep hill leading down to a slow muddy river. On the other side of the water a broad, flat field had been trampled to muck. Shay wondered if this was evidence of the retreat of Shandrazel’s army. Thousands of earth-dragons had fled on foot. The ground would surely bear witness.
“I don’t think I can go on,” Hemming whined as he slid down the bank, landing on a bed of gravel beside the river. Hemming was the oldest of the three slaves, a stooped, white-haired man in his late sixties. In a perfect world, Hemming’s age and experience would have endowed him with wisdom and toughness, but in actuality it had left only a fragile shell of a man with an unceasing passion for complaint. “My blisters have popped,” Hemming moaned. “My boots are filled with blood.”
“All the more reason to keep moving,” said Terpin, sliding down beside him. Unlike Hemming, a house slave, Terpin had worked the grounds of the College of Spires. He was a short man, but heavily muscled. His wispy hair clung in a band around his ears, as white as Hemming’s more ample mane, though he was at least twenty years younger. Terpin’s face was a mass of wrinkles and he only had teeth on the left side of his jaw. His voice was authoritative and gruff as he said, “Walk while you still can, old man. If you can’t go on, we’re not going to carry you.”
Hemming’s lower lip quivered. “Y-you’d leave me behind? After we’ve come this far together?”
Shay cleared his throat. He still clung to a skinny tree on the steep slope. The last ten feet down to the river looked particularly treacherous. He couldn’t get the memory of the horse’s broken leg out of his mind. He announced, “We’re not leaving anyone behind. I’ll drag you both if I have to.” He was the youngest of the slaves, only twenty-two. He was lanky, tall despite his hunched posture, with a thick head of orange hair bright as the scales of a sun-dragon. Unlike the drab, threadbare outfits of the older men, Shay was dressed in a long red coat with shiny brass buttons. His black boots were scuffed and muddied from walking, but the upper parts still showed their former polish.
Shay had led a more privileged life than either of the older slaves. He’d been the personal attendant to Chapelion, the sky-dragon scholar who oversaw the College of Spires. Few humans knew how to read, but Shay’s precociousness had been recognized at an early age and encouraged by Chapelion, who’d seen advantages in having a literate slave. Chapelion had thought that his bright-eyed favorite had been smart enough to recognize the benefits of life in his service. Instead Shay’s relatively easy life in the face of the hardships of his fellow men had only made his status all the more intolerable. Not that his life had been easy—as a slave, he’d been subject to beatings for minor mistakes. His back bore scars from the bite of whips. When news of a human rebellion at Dragon Forge had reached the College of Spires, Shay instantly knew that he belonged there. He’d persuaded Terpin to accompany him, because he liked Terpin and hoped that the tough, worldly slave knew a thing or two about survival. They’d taken Hemming because he’d eavesdropped on their plans and asked to come, and they’d both been certain he would betray them if left behind.
“Hemming, I’m as tired as you,” Shay said. “I want nothing more than to stretch out on the ground and drift to sleep. But look at those clouds. That has to be the smoke from Dragon Forge. I’ve heard the sky above it is always tinted this way at sunset. We’re close.”
“It’s Terpin’s fault we don’t have horses,” Hemming grumbled.
Shay sighed to hear this argument brought up again.
“Oh lord,” Terpin groaned, throwing his hands up.
“If you’d listened to me, we’d be there already,” Hemming said.
This was arguably true, but Shay didn’t think it mattered. They’d left with two horses, with Hemming and Shay sharing a mount. On their first day out, they’d pushed too far. Terpin had assured them the horses could go another mile, then another, and he’d beaten the horses with branches to keep them moving. After hours of rough treatment the horse that carried the two of them fell dead, its heart burst. The next morning, they’d taken turns with the last horse, and as Terpin rode down a ravine the horse had stumbled and broken its leg. Shay knew they had made mistakes that cost them dearly, but he couldn’t see any advantage in dwelling on them, not when they were so close to freedom.
“What’s past is past,” said Shay. “We’re all cold and hungry. Dragon Forge will have fireplaces, and food to fill our bellies, and it wouldn’t surprise me if there’s whiskey as well. It’s worth another hour of walking, even in the dark.”
“Whisky gives me heartburn,” Hemming grumbled. “And you think they’re just giving out food? You think they’re going to welcome three runaway slaves with open arms?”
“It’s a rebellion. They need soldiers, and workers, and cooks, and any other talents we can bring,” said Shay. “They’ll feed us. Especially once they see what I’m carrying.”
He tapped the leather pack slung over his shoulder. It had been a heavy burden to tote all this way, but he thought the contents were the most precious thing in the world. He held onto the faith that Dragon Forge would welcome them with the same certainty that dawn would follow the night. Hemming didn’t look convinced.
“You youngsters think you’re immortal,” Hemming said. “But if we’re stumbling around out here in the dark with numb feet, we’re likely to break our legs. You remember the horse, don’t you? You remember the way that bone jutted through the hide, the way that blood shot out in a fountain?”
Shay did remember this. Any time he closed his eyes, he could see it. This was one reason he was still clinging to the tree instead of jumping down to the gravel.
Perhaps sensing he was touching Shay’s fears, Hemming went on: “None of us can see worth a damn in the dark, but the slavecatchers can. They’ll find us while we’re lying there in the open field with broken legs. Those bastards have eyes like cats.”
“Our ears are rather sharp as well,” said a voice overhead.
Shay looked up, his heart in his throat. Perched in the gnarled branches of a towering pine, he spotted a pair of golden eyes glowing in the last rays of the sun. The blue wings of a sky-dragon unfurled against the dark sky as the beast rose and glided down to the gravel bed, landing ten feet away from Hemming. The old man trembled. A high pitched cry erupted from his lips, a sound like a rabbit shrieking in the jaws of a hound.
The slavecatchers were frequent visitors to Chapelion’s chambers, and Shay recognized this one as Galath, a fairly young and inexperienced member of the trade. Perhaps they still had a chance. Hope faded as a second sky-dragon glided down to join Galath. This was Enozan, a much older and more experienced slavecatcher. Still, it was two against three; not all hope was lost. In the air, sky-dragons were much larger than men, with their twenty-foot wingspans and long whip-like tails. On the ground, however, standing on their hind-legs like oversized blue-jays, the two slavecatchers were no taller than Hemming. Perhaps this gave Terpin courage, because as Hemming fell to his knees to beg for mercy, Terpin grabbed a fallen tree branch and wielded it like a club.
“Stay back!” he shouted. “Or I’ll knock your brains out!”
There was a rustling in the tree behind Shay. A third dragon had landed in the branches. Shay recognized him immediately—Zernex, one of the most feared slavecatchers employed by the College of Spires, second in cruelty and cunning only to Vulpine, the infamous Slavecatcher General.
Zernex spread his wings wide and stretched his neck as he stood on the swaying branch, perhaps for balance, perhaps to emphasize his size. While sky-dragons were small compared to sun-dragons, they were still fearsome beasts. Their heads were the size of a large ram’s, with jaws that could open wide enough to close around a human throat and sink into it with gleaming rows of saw-like teeth. Their talons may have been little larger than a man’s hand, but they were tipped with sharp-hooked claws that could slice through flesh with ease. Zernex raised the fringe of long feather-scales that ran along the back of his neck as he snarled at Terpin. “Drop the branch, slave! I’m paid the same whether I bring you back alive or dead. I won’t hesitate to gut you.”
Shay shouted at Zernex. “If you don’t care if we’re alive or dead, why bring us back at all? Leave us alone! The College of Spires won’t miss three slaves!”
Zernex glared at Shay. “Do you think we’re fools, boy? You’re running off to join the rebellion. You think we’re going to let you go get armed with a bow and arrow so you can kill dragons? Besides, we both know you aren’t merely escaped slaves . . . you’re thieves as well.” His eyes fixed on Shay’s leather backpack.
Despair welled up within Shay like a black fog. He looked at Hemming, groveling on the damp gravel, his hands clasped behind his head. A small hard knot formed in Shay’s belly. He’d never been in a fight in his life. He’d never even thrown a punch. But he’d been running away to become a rebel, hadn’t he? He spotted another fallen branch on the slope below him. He let go of the tree and slipped the leather pack from his shoulders. He jumped down to the gravel, grabbing the branch. He stood back to back with Terpin and shouted, “You’ll never take us alive!”
“Take me alive, please,” whimpered Hemming.
The branch that Shay had grabbed was damp and half-rotten. He cast his eyes about for another weapon, but it was too late. Apparently emboldened by Shay’s defiance, Terpin lunged, hacking out with his more sturdy club. It was a powerful swing, but easily anticipated. Galath, the target of the blow, flapped his wings once and darted backward as the club passed through the air where he’d stood.
Terpin, off balance, didn’t show a similar talent for evasion. Enozan’s toothy jaws shot toward him in a serpentine strike, clamping onto the bald man’s windpipe. Terpin unleashed a gurgling yelp as the dragon shook his head back and forth. Enozan kicked out with a hind-talon, sinking his hawk-like claws deep into the man’s belly. In seconds the fight was over, as the dragon dropped Terpin’s lifeless body from his jaws.
Shay fought to keep from dropping to his knees as the older man fell.
“Oh god oh god oh god,” prayed Hemming, his head pressed into the gravel.
Galath hopped forward and opened his reptilian jaws wide. He snapped them shut on Hemming’s skull with a horrible crunch. Hemming’s whimpers suddenly went silent.
“Why?” Shay shouted, dropping his useless branch, clenching his fists. “Why’d you kill him? He wasn’t fighting you!”
From the branch above, Zernex answered. “It’s a long way back to the College of Spires. It’s easier to carry just the heads.”
Zernex dropped from the branches onto the bank, grabbing the leather pack Shay had dropped. He held it up, his eyes fixed on it hungrily as if he appreciated the importance of its contents. “This is what Chapelion cared about most. And while I won’t hesitate to kill you, Shay, I think your master would prefer to see you alive. I imagine he’d like the satisfaction of watching you flayed. Honestly, you’ve known Chapelion your whole life. Did you truly think he’d let you get away with even a single book from his private library?”
“I know the truth about those books!” Shay protested. “They were written by men! For men! In a time before the Dragon Age! They shouldn’t be part of a dragon’s library!”
“If dragons can own men, why can’t they own their books as well?” Zernex asked in a condescending tone.
“You can’t own us!” Shay shouted, reaching down and grabbing a smooth river stone the size of his fist. “You can only enslave us!”
Shay hurled the stone with all his strength at the hated slavecatcher. Zernex lifted the leather bag in his fore-talons, blocking the stone before it collided with his chest. Shay knew he had no chance in a fight. He turned toward the river. He didn’t know how deep it was. Could he dive and swim downstream? Lose his pursuers in the dark? Or would he only freeze to death in the icy water? What choice did he have? Better to drown a free man than ever to face the lash again. He darted toward the water.
Behind him, there was a hiss as a dozen feet of leather sliced the air. His charge was brought to a sudden halt as the tip of a whip curled around his neck like a noose. His feet flew out from under him and he slammed to the ground on his back.
Zernex loomed above him. The other two slavecatchers drew close, forming a rough triangle as their golden eyes looked down. Above their shadowy forms, a few dim stars glowed through the haze of clouds. Shay clawed at the loop of leather around his windpipe, trying to pry it free. He couldn’t breathe. The gravel beneath him was ice cold as dampness seeped through his coat.
“Hmmph,” Zernex sneered, looking down. “Chapelion should have known teaching a human to read was a waste. Even if your kind is smart enough to recite the words, you plainly lack the capacity to understand them. A truly educated being would have known that nothing but death awaited him if he stole from his master. I think there’s a famous quote from a human holy book about this, isn’t there? 'The wages of sin are death?'”
Shay had heard the quote, but wasn’t in a position to discuss its significance. His eyes bulged and his lips felt numb as he found the tassel at the end of the braided leather around his neck and tried to untwine it. No matter how he pulled, it only grew tighter.
The dragons chuckled softly as they watched his struggles. He could barely hear them over the pounding of his heart. When a new voice from the trees spoke, he heard the words almost as if they were part of a dream. Unlike the reptilian voices of the dragons, the new speaker was plainly human, a male, his voice chill as the winter wind.
“Nothing true in this world has ever been written in a book,” the man said. The three dragons whirled toward the slope, looking for the source of the voice. Black spots danced before Shay’s eyes as he suddenly found a way to tug the whip that produced slack. He fumbled with trembling fingers and worked the leather loose, until he drew a long gasp of damp air.
“Death has nothing to do with sin,” the man continued, still invisible in the shadows of the trees. “Death claims the righteous as surely as the wicked. It awaits the slavecatcher as certainly as the slave.”
“Who’s there?” Zernex growled. “Show yourself, human.”
“These have been the last words of many of your kind,” answered the voice.
“Spread out,” Zernex commanded Galath and Enozan. “Search the hillside. I would like to meet our mysterious philosopher.”
Galath spread his wings, flapping, rising up ten feet. A whistling sound rushed through the air and his wings went limp. He fell to the gravel bed, unmoving. The bloody tip of an arrow jutted from the back of his skull, having come all the way through after entering his eye.
Shay kept still, wondering if the dragons even remembered him.
Enozan leapt into the air. There was a second whistling sound, and he, too, fell to the gravel, though he was still alive. He was only a few feet away from Shay, down on all fours. An arrow was buried deep in his left breast.
“What?” Enozan gasped, looking confused as he twisted his neck to study the shaft that jutted from him. Perhaps it was a trick of the light, but the fletching on the arrow looked to Shay like living leaves. They were bright green, as if they’d been plucked in spring. It was the dead of winter. What tree had fresh green leaves this time of year?
Enozan spasmed. He coughed and pink saliva sprayed from his toothy jaws. His strength failed him and he collapsed, one of his broad blue wings draping over Shay. The dragon shivered; blood gushed from his wound with each heartbeat.
Zernex snarled. Shay was dismayed to discover he hadn’t been forgotten after all. The slavecatcher reached down grabbed him by the collar of his bright red coat. He yanked Shay to his feet, pulling him around to serve as a living shield.
“You obviously care about this slave!” Zernex shouted, his fore-talon pressed against Shay’s jugular. “Show yourself, or I’ll slit his throat!”
From the dark hillside there was no sign of movement.
“I mean it!” Zernex screamed. The dragon’s claws hooked more deeply into Shay’s flesh. A bead of blood slid down his throat.
Zernex’s demands were met with silence. Cold sweat trickled down Shay’s face as Zernex’s eyes darted back and forth, searching the shadows. “Come out,” he said, fear reducing his voice to a trembling whisper. “Your surrender is this slave’s only hope.”
In the branches of one of the tall pines, a shadow separated itself from the others, rising, taking on the form of a man.
“Do not speak to me of hope,” the dark figure said. “I am not the hope of the slave. I am the shadow on the stone. I am the black unbroken silence. I am the Death of All Dragons.”
“Bitterwood?” Zernex whimpered, sounding as terrified as Hemming had moments before. His claws began to tremble. His grip slackened. Seeing his chance, Shay grabbed the talon and pushed it away, dropping down, freeing himself. He leapt away as Zernex spread his wings to take flight. The slavecatcher let out a pained grunt. Shay tripped on the gravel and rolled to his back. Zernex had an arrow in his left leg, buried in the meatiest part of his thigh.
“Bitterwood?” Zernex whispered again, sounding like he was in shock. Terror flashed into his eyes. He craned his neck heavenward, and beat his wings in a mighty down thrust. He lifted from the ground, his tail swinging around toward Shay. Acting on pure instinct, Shay grabbed the slavecatcher’s long tail. Shay yanked hard, with his full weight. Zernex was thrown back to the gravel bed, landing on his left wing with a sickening snap.
Shay rose to his knees and saw a smooth river stone before him nearly as large as a skull. With both hands, he lifted it above his head and hurled it at the slavecatcher, who was struggling to stand. The heavy rock caught the dragon in the side of his jaw. Zernex’s head was knocked back to the gravel. He still wasn’t dead. He lifted his long, serpentine neck, his jaw bleeding and broken, and looked toward Shay with murder in his eyes.
In a flash, there was an arrow sprouting between those eyes, the green, leafy fletching shuddering from the sudden halt of its flight. Zernex’s golden eyes crossed as they tried to examine the object between them. Then they fluttered shut, and the slavecatcher’s head dropped. Shay grabbed another good sized rock and lifted it, holding it for a moment above his head, waiting for any sign of life. At last, he dropped the stone before him. Zernex wasn’t breathing. The dragon would never catch another slave.
Shay rose on unsteady feet. He was breathing hard, his heart racing. The last five minutes of his life seemed disconnected and unreal. The bodies of three dragon and two men sprawled before him, their dark blood blending with the gathering shadows. He saw the leather satchel and lifted it, slinging it back over his shoulder.
He looked up toward the hillside, searching for any signs of movement among the black branches of the pines. The shadow he’d seen earlier was gone.
“A-are you really Bitterwood?” he asked.
No one answered.
“Are you . . . are you going to Dragon Forge? To join the rebellion? I’ve read about you. You fought at the last rebellion. At Conyers.”
Shay listened hard, certain he heard movement.
It was, perhaps, only the rustle of trees in the winter night. Shay waited for several minutes, until the cold set his teeth chattering. He knew his only hope of surviving the night was to keep moving. He turned up the collar of his coat against the breeze. He rubbed his windpipe, feeling the indentations on his throat where the slavecatcher’s claws had been. When he lifted his fingers, the tips were red and wet. He turned toward the west, and saw that the clouds above the distant foundries glowing brightly, reflecting the furnaces of the rebellion.
Shay took one last glance at the pines, shifted the pack to better balance it on his back, and walked toward the glow on the horizon. The foundries of Dragon Forge burned like an eternal sunrise. This was the hope of the slave. With numb feet he staggered forward, freedom bound.
CHAPTER TWO
* * *
GOOD BOSS
THE EARLY MORNING LIGHT coming into the loft was tinted yellow by the sulfurous plumes that rose from the smokestacks. Jandra had been in Dragon Forge for a week now and still wasn’t used to the stench, the rotten-egg aroma of coal burning continuously. One of the furnaces had been transformed into a crematorium, adding a black, oily soot that coated every exposed surface and smelled disturbingly like charred bacon. The bacon-stink of the crematorium swirling together with the egg-stink of the foundry left Jandra certain she’d never want breakfast for the rest of her life. She leaned against the window, looking out through the wavy glass, her forehead touching the cold pane as she gazed toward the low hills beyond the walls of the fortress. The last of the snow had melted off, leaving the landscape a mucky, reddish brown.
She was waiting on the second floor of the central foundry, in a high-roofed loft with exposed ceiling beams and baked brick walls. The floors were thick, oily timbers, worn smooth by centuries of constant use. Half a dozen tables had been lugged into the space and all were covered with sheets of parchment scribbled with Burke’s notes and diagrams. Across the room, coals glowed cherry red in a large open fireplace. The room was chilly despite this. She sank her hands deeper into the pockets of her ridiculously large, ill-fitting coat. It was a dark green coat from an earth-dragon’s formal guard uniform, designed to fit a creature three times as broad across the shoulders as she was. Beneath the coat she wore a man’s cotton shirt and baggy britches. When she’d arrived at Dragon Forge, she’d been wearing a blood-stained blanket and a dress torn down the back from neck to waist. Everything she’d worn had been so ripped or filthy she’d wound up burning it all. The only things she'd kept were the large silver bracelet on her left wrist and her knee-high black leather boots.
Behind her the elevator chattered. The iron cage rattled as the lift chains locked into place. The door squeaked open and Burke the Machinist rolled his wheeled chair onto the thick oak planks of the floor. Burke’s eyes were bloodshot; he’d obviously worked through the night. His long dark hair was normally pulled into a tight braid, but this morning his hair hung freely around his shoulders, revealing numerous streaks of gray. Burke wasn’t ancient; he was only in his fifties, in reasonably good health despite his broken leg. A member of an ancient race known as the Cherokee, Burke possessed a sharp-featured face with a strong jaw that gave him an air of authority. The symmetry of his features was broken by three parallel scars along his right cheek. Behind a newly-fashioned pair of spectacles, Burke’s eyes glimmered with excitement. In his lap, he carried an iron rod, the final product of the night’s work.
“We’ve done it,” Burke said as he handed the long rod to Jandra. He winced from the movement. Despite the mobility allowed by the wheeled chair, Jandra could tell his broken leg was a source of agony. He clenched his jaw and drew a long breath through his nose, then said, “It’s a fully functioning prototype.”
Jandra took the device from Burke. The rod was four feet long and quite heavy despite being hollow. One end was open, slightly flared, sporting a perfectly circular hole almost a half-inch across; the other was fixed to a triangle of wood that served as a handle. The steel was lightly engraved with a scale pattern at the open end.
“So this is a gun,” said Jandra, turning the weapon every which way as she examined it. She stared down the shaft bored into the center of the tube. Could this weapon really change the world?
“More specifically, a shotgun,” said Burke. “And I wouldn’t look down that hole. It’s loaded. I’ve got the safety on, but there’s no reason to press your luck. Going forward, I’ll remember to mention this before I hand it to people.”
“So how does it work?” Jandra asked, examining the trigger.
“It’s a flintlock,” Burke explained, wheeling his chair around to get closer. He pointed at the small iron hammer that was pulled back, held in tension by a spring. A small sharp splinter of flint was held at the tip. “When you take off the safety and pull this trigger, the hammer snaps shut and the flint strikes a spark into the flash pan, here. That creates a small explosion and lights this fuse, which then triggers the black powder packed into the rifle itself. The black powder is loaded into the barrel from the front and jammed tightly with the ramrod beforehand.” He tapped a thin iron rod attached to the underside of the barrel.
“Oh,” said Jandra, not certain she could envision the process. She pulled out a small pad of paper from her coat pocket. “This sounds like something I should be writing down.”
“I doubt you’ll have the luxury of checking your notes in situations where you’d be using this,” said Burke. He showed her two white cotton sacks, each about the size of her thumb. “To speed the loading process and to keep the powder compact, I’ve sewed up the appropriate amount of powder into these bags. Each charge provides a serious kick. The other bag holds small lead spheres and is jammed in front of the charge bag. The explosion will produce an expanding force of hot gas that propels the spheres down the barrel at great speed.”
“How fast?”
“The balls of lead will come out of the barrel at about ten times the speed that an arrow flies off a bow. It’s going to make a crack like thunder.”
“Yowza,” said Jandra.
“Yowza?” asked Burke. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard that expression.”
Jandra frowned. “I haven’t either. It must be something she would have said.”
“The goddess?”
Jandra nodded, then sighed. She already had enough problems connecting with other humans, having been raised by a sky-dragon. The fact that her most recent adventures had left her head jammed full of alien memories only added to her sense of isolation and loneliness. Of course, having the memories of a thousand-year-old woman from a far more technologically advanced society had a few benefits. She now knew the long-lost recipe for gunpowder, for example.
Burke looked concerned. He was a member of the Anudahdeesdee, a Cherokee clan dedicated to remembering the secrets of the once dominant human civilization that existed before the Dragon Age. His people had a long history of confrontations with Jasmine Robertson, the so-called goddess, the woman who had altered Jandra’s brain.
“So, what are these scale marks along the barrel for?” She was eager to change the subject.
“I often design my inventions to resemble creatures in the natural world, like my spy-owl, my chess monkey, the time-frog, etc. I was going to call the gun the Noisy Snake, but the scale pattern was taking too long, so I gave up halfway. It had no bearing on the function.” He shook his head as he looked at the gun. “My grandfather used to scold me for being more concerned with making sculptures than machinery.”
Jandra smiled. “Your daughter showed me the spy-owl. I liked the attention to detail in the feathers. You’re a talented sculptor. The fact that you’ve only needed a week to design and build a shotgun from scratch shows that you’re an equally talented engineer.”
Burked didn’t look cheered by her words. “I’m putting a lot of trust in you, placing this in your hands and sending you outside the fortress. If the dragons capture this and figure out how it works, it could forever change the world. Are you certain you can get your powers back?”
“Nothing in this world is ever certain,” said Jandra. “But, the sooner I leave, the better the odds are that no one has taken the genie.”
Burke nodded. “Anza’s anxious to leave as well. She says she’s tired of the way this place smells. She should be here in a moment. Let me—” Before he could finish his sentence, shouting erupted outside the window.
“Get it!” someone yelled.
“Circle around!” a man called out. A dozen other excited voices chimed in.
Jandra went to the window. She raised the pane and leaned out. The action was taking place only fifteen feet below her. A crowd of men were chasing a tiny green earth-dragon. The earth-dragon was the smallest she’d ever seen, barely a foot tall, obviously a child. Unlike adult earth-dragons, wingless beasts who moved in a slow plod, the earth-dragon child was darting back and forth like a jackrabbit. Despite its speed, it was pinned in by the crowd, and quickly found itself with its back to the wall directly beneath Jandra.
The men gathered round, keeping a slight distance as the small dragon opened its turtle-like jaws wide and hissed. Its tiny claws flexed as it took up a defensive stance. Its long, skinny tail whipped back and forth like a cat ready to pounce.
Jandra recognized the leader of the men, a white-haired, bearded fellow named Frost, a blacksmith from the foundry. His eyes were wide and he was smiling, as if chasing this young dragon were great sport.
“Frost!” Jandra yelled. “What are you doing?”
The crowd looked up. Whispers ran among the men. Jandra caught the word “witch” among the murmurs.
“We found this lizard hiding in a cellar! We’re going to cook it!”
In response, the earth-dragon yelled, “No eat! No eat!”
Jandra felt her stomach turn at the thought of what these men were going to do. A month ago, the drop to the street would have looked imposing. But, in a process similar to the reshaping of her memories, her body had also been fine-tuned, leaving her with a physical prowess that rivaled even the legendary Bant Bitterwood. She leapt from the window, shotgun in hand, and landed in a crouch between the crowd and the dragon child.
“Back off!” she said. “The new rule is: if it talks, we don’t eat it.”
The men looked wary. Jandra knew it was due to her reputation as a witch . . . a reputation that, at the moment, was completely undeserved. Once, she’d commanded the elements, and would have been able to summon a ring of fire to shield her, or simply turn invisible to escape a fight. Unfortunately, she required a device known as a genie to use her abilities, and her genie had been stolen. Until she got it back, her “witchcraft” was nothing but bluff.
She stood, pulling back her shoulders. The green wool coat she wore hung down to her ankles. She hoped that the bulky coat and the thick heels on her leather boots helped hide the fact that the smallest of these men outweighed her by a hundred pounds.
Frost was the largest of them, broad-shouldered, barrel-chested, with biceps like hams. His face was speckled with a constellation of scars, pale white splotches from a life spent hammering hot metal. While some of the men looked nervous after Jandra’s sudden appearance, Frost didn’t show the least flicker of intimidation. He said, “Even if you are Ragnar’s sister, you have no authority to declare what is and isn’t food.”
Jandra put the shotgun to her shoulder, imitating the firing stance she’d seen in Burke’s sketches when he’d designed the gun.
“I think you’ll find this gives me the authority,” she said.
Frost didn’t look impressed.
“Is this more of your magic, girl?” Frost mocked. “Where I’m from, we burn witches. Perhaps we’ll cook the lizard over the fire we build from your bones.”
The dragon child grabbed Jandra’s coattails. He cowered behind her legs and yelled, “No eat! No eat!”
Frost took a step forward.
“Not one more step,” Jandra growled.
Frost took one more step.
Jandra raised the barrel of the shotgun, targeting the empty air above Frost’s head. She pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. What had Burke said about a safety? She examined the intricate firing mechanism.
Frost reached out to grab the gun. Jandra slipped aside the metal latch that kept the flint from falling. She pulled the trigger again as Frost’s fingers closed on the barrel. The hammer clicked down. For half a second, there was a flashing light and a sizzle, plus a lot of smoke.
Lightning struck.
At least, it seemed like lightning, with a bright flash, a thunderous boom. The butt of the shotgun slammed into Jandra’s shoulder, knocking her into the wall. Everyone in the crowd jumped in unison, wide-eyed.
Frost released the gun and spun away, cursing. He raised his hand to his right ear. Jandra had meant to aim above his head, but the gun had fired in a more or less random direction after Frost grabbed it. When Frost lowered his bloodied fingers, his ear was gone. Only a few shreds of bloody flesh dangled where it had been.
Jandra was disoriented. She hadn’t expected the gun to be so loud. She looked around, uncertain where the dragon child had gone. Her arm was numb from the impact of the shotgun.
She couldn’t help but wonder why the goddess had worked so hard to rid the world of guns. Of what use was a weapon that crippled its user?
The crowd grew deathly silent as Frost recovered his wits. He narrowed his eyes in anger.
“Witch,” he snarled. Jandra could barely hear him over the ringing in her ears. “The last time a woman scratched me, I tore her nails out!” He lunged toward her, arms outstretched.
Before Jandra understood what was happening, something human-sized dropped down from above, landing between her and Frost. The crowd sucked in its collective breath.
There was a loud SNAP. Frost shrieked.
Jandra blinked her eyes. The person who had jumped in front of her was Burke’s daughter, Anza. Anza was dressed in black buckskins and had at least a dozen blades strapped to her body. It was said that Burke had trained Anza in the art of combat from the day she’d learned to walk. Frost fell to his knees in front of Anza. Anza shifted her body slightly and Jandra could see that she had Frost’s middle and ring fingers in her grasp, bending them back much further than unbroken fingers could possibly bend.
Anza pushed Frost away and stood between Jandra and the crowd, drawing a long slender sword from the scabbard slung over her back. The razor-sharp edge gleamed like a mirror in the smoky light.
Men at the back of the mob looked around and wandered off, as if suddenly remembering other appointments. Some of the nearer men looked down at the ground as they, too, walked away. Only two men remained behind to help Frost back to his feet.
Frost looked as if he were on the verge of spitting at the two women. Then, his eyes flickered upwards. Burke was at the window above, looking down sternly.
Frost growled, “Wait until Ragnar learns of this!”
“Why don’t you go tell him?” said Burke. “He can come to me if he wishes to discuss the proper punishment for a man your age threatening teenage girls with violence. I’m disappointed in you, Frost. You’re one of the best fighters I know. But there’s a fine line between a fighter and a bully. I would advise you to learn where that line is.”
Frost glared as he turned away, leaving the two woman alone.
Anza gazed up at her father, a smug look in her eyes.
“Don’t feel proud,” Burke scolded. “You just ruined the hand of one of my most experienced blacksmiths. And Jandra, that was a damned stupid thing to do. Why didn’t you let them eat the varmint? It may be small and cute, but it’s still an earth-dragon. We killed them by the thousands to take Dragon Forge. What’s one more dead lizard?”
“This is only a child!” Jandra protested. “He’s innocent! He’s more frightened of us than we are of him.”
“Where’d the lizard go?” Burke asked. He was still in his chair, and couldn’t look straight down.
Jandra studied the area. Had the dragon slipped away while she was distracted? Finally, she noticed a shadow on the wall, and a peculiar outline. She knelt and reached toward the shadow.
The outline on the wall shifted color slightly. The eyes became visible as they looked at her. The chameleon-like camouflage vanished as the dragon shifted back to a deep green hue, almost black. It held a skinny arm toward her, the claw at the end outstretched like a human hand, though it had only three fingers. These digits ended in claws that any bobcat would have envied.
“No eat?” the dragon child asked.
“No eat,” said Jandra, taking his hand. “I’ll protect you.” She lifted the dragon child up and hugged him to her chest.
“Good boss,” he cooed.
IT WAS LATE MORNING when Vulpine, the Slavecatcher General, drifted down to the rocky bank, his eyes drawn to the blue-scaled corpses being picked at by black-feathered buzzards. The buzzards hopped away as he landed, some taking to the air to perch in the branches of nearby pines, others, more bold, backing up only a few yards to glare at him. Even though the faces were mutilated, with the eyes torn away and the flesh around the mouths pecked and peeled, Vulpine recognized these dragons, fellow slavecatchers, good and honorable defenders of order. He shivered as a chill wind stirred his feather-scales.
There were human corpses as well, similarly mutilated by the buzzards. Vulpine recognized them as Hemming and Turpin. The world was no worse off without them. He noted that Shay wasn’t among the corpses, nor was there any sign of Chapelion’s stolen books.
Had Shay somehow managed to kill three slavecatchers? It made no sense. It was plain that all three dragons had been downed by arrows. He’d heard about the new bow that had caused the massacre at Dragon Forge, a weapon with more than twice the range of a longbow. Dragon Forge was barely ten miles distant. Had these slavecatchers fallen victim to a rebel patrol?
He noted something odd about the arrows. He reached out and plucked one from a corpse and held it to better catch the light. His eyes weren’t playing tricks. These arrows were yard-long, perfectly straight shafts of living wood. The fletching at the end wasn’t feathers, but fresh green leaves growing in perfect symmetry. Stranger still, the killing end of the twig showed no trace of an arrow head. The wood simply narrowed down to a hard, thorn-like point. What tree grew such twigs? One final artifact of the arrow disturbed him. The shaft couldn’t have been in the corpse for more than a day, judging from the condition of the bodies. Yet, the part of the arrow that had been buried in the body was covered with white, threadlike projections, as if the arrow had been taking root. The shaft sported several fresh pale bumps, like it was budding.
Vulpine snapped the shaft. The bark that peeled away from the jagged break was bright green and full of sap. He sniffed the wood. It was an unremarkable odor; he still couldn’t identify the species. The biologians back at the College of Spires perhaps could assist, though his gut told him that this was something new under the sun, that no one had ever seen living arrows before. Most biologians were rationalists, but Vulpine was old enough and wise enough to suspect there were invisible forces beyond the comprehension of dragons. Most slaves believed in magic, in ghosts and witches, angels and demons, and Vulpine had some sympathy with these beliefs.
He felt a chill creep along his spine as a shadow passed over him. The long fringe of feathery scales along his neck stood on end. He looked up, then immediately let out his breath and chuckled. It was only Balikan, a young slave-catcher he was training, drifting down from the sky to join him. The vultures skittered back even further, but Vulpine was glad of his company.
Balikan wrinkled his nose in disgust at the odor. The corpses weren’t rotting yet, but their bowels had emptied, and the gallons of blood that had seeped into the gravel had its own aroma. Vulpine had barely noticed; he’d been around corpses so often the odor had little effect on him.
“By the bones,” Balikan said softly. “Who could have done this?”
“That, my young friend, is an excellent question.”
“I don’t see Shay’s body. Could he—?”
“Doubtful,” said Vulpine. “Shay’s never held a bow in his life. Nor has he displayed much in the way of a spine. He probably groveled for mercy when the slavecatchers caught up to him. Someone else killed these dragons. They must have been hidden in the trees.”
Balikan scanned the steep bank, his eyes darting from branch to branch.
“I don’t think they’re still around,” said Vulpine. “These corpses are at least twelve hours old. Maybe sixteen.”
“How can you tell?”
Vulpine nudged the twisted talon of the nearest corpse with a hind-claw. “They plainly didn’t die today. The bodies are cold and stiff—it takes several hours to lose body heat, although one cold night on a damp bank can do it. Rigor mortis sets in little by little—the degree these limbs are contracted tells me it hasn’t reached its peak. I also know it’s not been more than a day because the buzzards haven’t made much progress.”
Balikan shuddered. “I’ve never been around this many dead bodies.”
“Get used to it,” said Vulpine. “You’ll see many more in the coming days.”
“Why, sir?”
“King Albekizan kept this kingdom stable for almost half a century. Now he’s dead, and his son didn’t last a month before a human assassinated him. The humans have taken advantage of all this instability and captured Dragon Forge, just to the west of here.” He pointed to the brownish tint in the sky, evidence of the distant smokestacks. “I suspect that’s where Shay is, along with Chapelion’s books.”
“Then he’s escaped for good,” said Balikan.
“Nonsense,” said Vulpine. “I’ve had a few slaves vanish on me over the years. I can’t claim a perfect record. But I’ve never let a slave go when I still had a lead simply because pursuing that lead was dangerous. Dragon Forge is a magnet for slaves. Shay and these two fools were among the first to hear the rumors and make a break for it, but they won’t be the last. Our jobs are going to be much more difficult if the humans are allowed to hold on to Dragon Forge. It’s imperative that we sky-dragons act now to strangle this revolution while it’s still in its cradle.”
“But, the humans defeated an army of sun-dragons!” said Balikan. “They slaughtered earth-dragons by the thousands. Why will we fare any better?”
Vulpine chuckled. “Besting an earth-dragon isn’t so hard. In my experience, the average human is twice as smart as an earth-dragon. Sun-dragons might be as smart as the humans, but they’re also bullies. They’re used to winning fights due to their size, but if a few of them get hurt, the rest turn tail and run. They don’t know the first thing about real courage—and next to nothing about strategy—because they don’t need it. When evolution has left you with the deadliest jaws in the food chain, you get used to solving all your problems with your teeth. We sky-dragons are made of different stuff. Our brains might be half the size of sun-dragons, but we actually bother to use them. We study the world. We learn things. Brute force failed to break the rebellion at Dragon Forge. It’s time for a more thoughtful approach.”
“You have a plan in mind?”
“The rough outlines of one, yes,” said Vulpine. “This isn’t something we’re going to be able to do alone, however. We should go consult with Chapelion.”
“So it’s back to the College of Spires.”
“No,” said Vulpine. “To the Grand Library of the High Biologian. That’s where Chapelion will be by now. He’s bringing some order to this chaos.”
“How?”
Vulpine ignored him. “Our second priority should be reconnaissance. Let’s study the area and gather the information we’ll need to solve this problem once and for all. They say the new bows can reach out up to a mile . . . but there’s a lot we can learn from over a mile away.”
Balikan looked puzzled. “Our second priority? What’s our first?”
Vulpine looked down at the bodies of the three slavecatchers. “We should build a pyre and cremate the remains of our brethren. I’ve known Zernex almost thirty years. He deserves a more noble end than to be pecked apart by buzzards.”
“Of course,” said Balikan, sounding embarrassed that this had required explanation. “What of the slaves?”
Vulpine shrugged. “Let the birds have their fill.”
CHAPTER THREE
* * *
THE CITY AS A HEART
JANDRA LOOKED DOWN at her notes on the thick oak table beside her. “Unlatch safety,” was underlined. “One second delay between spark and shot,” was underlined twice. “Keep butt of gun against shoulder,” had four thick lines beneath it.
She looked back across the spacious loft at the target, a round wooden shield balanced atop a stool about fifty feet away, with a feather mattress behind it, and a thick brick wall behind that. She braced herself as she aimed, gritting her teeth as she pressed the butt of the weapon firmly against her bruised shoulder. She pulled the trigger. There was a flash, a hiss, a curl of peppery smoke, then BOOM. The force rattled every bone in her body, but she kept her balance. A cloud of thick white smoke in front of her hid the target for a few seconds. When it dispersed, she found the target gone, reduced to splinters jutting from the feather mattress. A few puffs of down floated in the air.
“Bull's eye,” said Burke. “That’s how it’s supposed to work.”
Anza had her fingers in her ears. Her nose wrinkled as the acrid smoke reached her.
“Does it have to be so loud?” Jandra asked.
“Yes,” said Burke. “The cannon I’m building will be even louder. It’s the sound of the future, girl. Get used to it.”
Jandra tried reloading the weapon the way Burke had shown her, stuffing the wad of powder-filled cotton down the barrel with the ram-rod, then stuffing the shot bag in with it. She tapped some fresh powder into the flash pan, and inserted a new fuse.
“This isn’t exactly a fast weapon to reload,” said Jandra.
“I’m still working on a percussion-activated cartridge,” said Burke. “In the Human Age, guns took centuries to refine. I had a week.”
“I wasn’t criticizing your work.”
Burke sighed. “Sorry if I’m defensive. I’ve had almost no sleep. It’s got me on edge.”
“Is your leg keeping you awake?”
“That’s part of it. The bigger part is trying to keep this town running. Ragnar’s management skills are somewhat lacking. He had no plans for securing resources like food and water, let alone coal and ore. We’ve had some lucky breaks so far, but it’s only a matter of time before the dragons reorganize and set up a blockade. It’s what I would do. Holding onto the town isn’t enough. We have to be able to project force.”
Anza set up a new target, the top of a crate on which the crude outline of an earth-dragon had been drawn. Jandra looked toward the fireplace, where Lizard, the earth-dragon child, sat on the hearth, staring at the flames. The scales on his back shifted slowly through shades of dull orange and red. If Lizard had been frightened by the rifle shot, he didn’t show it. She wondered if he’d even recognize the outline on the board. Once Anza was clear, Jandra pulled the trigger again. She clenched her jaw as the fuse sizzled . . . BLAM! Her shoulder felt bruised down to the bone. Again, though, she was pleased with the results. The target was shredded.
“Okay,” Jandra said, lowering the gun. “This gives me the firepower I need if I get into a bad spot. And, I still have this if I need to turn invisible.” She raised her left arm, sporting the silver bracelet, the ring of invisibility she’d created for her sun-dragon friend Hex. Her former friend, to be exact, now that Hex had stolen her genie, the source of her powers. Jandra had charged the bracelet with enough reflective nanites to work a half-dozen times. Hex had used it once, to her knowledge, meaning she had five chances to vanish from sight if needed.
Burke said, “Anza will be along to help remove obstacles. I’m also sending Vance.”
“Vance?” Jandra asked. Anza glanced up from the stack of targets, looking as if she, too, was surprised by this news. “The short guy with the bad mustache? Why him?”
“He’s the best archer we have with a sky-wall bow,” said Burke. “Also, I like him. He’s got a good heart. I trust him.”
Anza made a flurry of hand signals toward her father. Burke frowned. “How can you say he’s just a kid? I think he’s the same age you are. He’s definitely older than Jandra. He’s going. I don’t have the energy to discuss it further.”
Anza scowled. Though Anza’s feelings were easy to interpret at the moment, Jandra worried more about Anza as a companion than Vance. Anza didn’t speak, and Jandra didn’t understand her hand signals. Without Burke around to translate, she was worried about how they were supposed to communicate. Jandra was also worried about Burke’s health. He was sweating despite the frigid drafts that cut through the loft. If she still had her powers, healing his leg would be a simple matter. She was frustrated that he had to be in such pain.
There was a knock on the floor. The trap door swung open, revealing the bald pate of Burke’s chief foreman, a portly fellow everyone called Biscuit. “I know you said no visitors, Burke, but I think you’re gonna want to talk to this guy. He says he’s an escaped slave from the College of Spires. Used to work for Chapelion himself.”
Burke raised an eyebrow. “Of course. Bring him up.”
The man who followed Biscuit up through the trap door was dressed in a fine red coat with shiny metal buttons. The coat was mud-flecked and covered with brambles and small rips. Despite the poor state of the coat, it reminded Jandra of the finery she used to have access to growing up in the palace. Unlike many of the rough, rugged rebels who populated Dragon Forge, the new arrival looked as if he had at least a passing familiarity with soap. His bright orange hair was pulled back into a short braid with a black ribbon. He was young, in his early twenties perhaps, quite tall despite his atrocious posture, and too thin for his height. His face had a slightly feminine quality, perhaps due to the unusual fullness of his lips; his cheeks were dotted with freckles.
The new arrival cleared his throat. “You must be Kanati,” he said, addressing Burke. “My name is Shay. I can’t believe I’ve actually found you.”
“Nobody calls me Kanati anymore,” said Burke. “I left that name behind when I fled Conyers. I don’t miss it. Call me Burke.”
“By whatever name, it’s an honor, sir,” Shay said, crossing the room and extending his hand. Burke reached out and grasped it, giving it a good shake. “Chapelion wrote the history of the battle of Conyers. Even though Chapelion wrote from the perspective of the victors, you remain a sympathetic character in his narrative. Chapelion respects genius.”
Burke cocked his head. “You can read?”
“Yes sir,” said Shay. “Chapelion used me as a living quill. He would dictate his books while eating his dinner, or taking his bath, or simply walking the grounds of the College. I faithfully followed behind, recording his every thought. In the hours when his duties took him elsewhere, I had access to his private collection of books, some of the rarest manuscripts in the kingdom.”
“How rare?” asked Burke.
“From the Human Age.”
Shay slipped his leather pack from over his shoulder and sat it on the floor. “I stole several works from Chapelion before I escaped,” he said, pulling out books one by one. The tomes looked ancient; Jandra noted the titles: The Origin of Species, The Wealth of Nations, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Leviathan. The fifth book was comparatively new—A Glorious Victory: The Defeat of the Southern Uprising. Shay held this book out to Burke. “I’ve marked the pages documenting your role in the rebellion.”
Burke didn’t reach to take the book. “Why would any man want to read a catalog of his failures? My sole claim to fame before Dragon Forge has been losing a rebellion.” Burke shook his head, then glanced toward the fireplace. “Now I fear the next history written about me will say I learned nothing from my mistakes. They’ll note how poorly planned our uprising was, and how little thought was given to what would come after we took Dragon Forge.” He took off his spectacles and cleaned them on his shirt. “It’s bad enough that people who don’t read history fail to learn from it; how much worse is it that the men who lived it are unable to gain any wisdom?”
“The blow you struck here is still echoing through the kingdom,” said Shay. “The dragon hierarchy is on the verge of collapse. Sun-dragons plot to seize advantage over other sun-dragons in this time of turmoil. And now, Chapelion has allied himself with the valkyries and plots to overthrow Androkom as High Biologian, risking a civil war among the colleges. The dragons are so busy with their intrigues, you may never face an attempt to retake Dragon Forge.”
Burke shook his head. “We can’t count on that. If it does work out that way, I still don’t expect to wind up as a hero in anyone’s history. Ragnar is going to get all the glory.”
As if the sound of Ragnar’s name had summoned him, a voice boomed from below: “All glory belongs to God!” The elevator that carried Burke’s chair up to the loft rattled as the chains lifted it. The bushy, unkempt mane of hair that wreathed Ragnar’s leathery face came into view. As usual, Ragnar was naked. He’d taken a sacred vow not to wear clothes or cut his hair until the last dragon was slain. His body was crisscrossed with scabs, souvenirs from the battle to capture Dragon Forge.
Jandra cast her gaze at his feet. Ragnar was her brother, though they’d been raised apart. As an orphan, she’d dreamed her whole life of finding a blood relative, someone who would instantly resonate as a member of her true family. Now that she’d found one, it had left her feeling even more orphaned than before.
Ragnar hadn’t arrived alone. He was surrounded by eight burly warriors in armor he’d taken to calling his Mighty Men. The biggest of these, Stonewall, was a true giant—easily seven feet tall and thickly muscled. Unlike the other Mighty Men, veterans of battle whose grizzled faces were marred with scars, Stonewall’s face was pristine, youthful, and clean-shaven, beneath wavy black locks.
Frost, the man she’d shot, stepped from behind Stonewall, looking furious. His head was wrapped in bandages, and brown blood stained the cotton gauze where his ear had been. Jandra felt a twinge of guilt; she’d only intended to frighten Frost. If she still had her powers, she could have grown him a new ear. Of course, she would likely have been denounced as a witch for the effort.
“Burke,” Ragnar growled. “My tolerance has limits. Your usefulness as a weapon maker doesn’t give you the right to shelter a witch. This is to be a holy city; turn over Jandra, that she may face the fitting punishment for her kind.”
Jandra used the ramrod to slide a new bag of powder down the muzzle of the gun.
“I’m not a witch,” she said, calmly. “And I’m not Burke’s to turn over.”
“If you’re innocent you have nothing to fear,” said Stonewall. His voice was as deep and smooth as a sun-dragon’s. “There are tests we will apply to determine whether or not you’ve been touched by the devil.”
Jandra pushed a bag of shot into the gun.
Suddenly, there was a heavy weight clawing up her back. Lizard, the dragon-child, scrambled onto her shoulder and flashed the same shade of green as her coat.
“No eat! No eat!” he hissed at Frost.
“And now you harbor dragons?” asked Ragnar.
“Where did that come from?” Shay asked, approaching Jandra. “Did it just change color?”
“He was sitting by the fireplace,” said Jandra. “He blends into the background when he’s not moving.”
“Remarkable,” said Shay. “The chameleon mutation is exceedingly rare; fewer than one in ten thousand earth-dragons display it. When he’s fully grown, he’ll become part of the assassin unit known as the Black Silence.”
Jandra already knew more than she wanted to know about these assassins. She’d nearly died when one of them had slit her throat.
“If he’s one of those monsters, it’s all the more reason to kill him,” said Frost.
“And all the more proof that you are a witch,” growled Ragnar.
“Consorting with dragons doesn’t make one a witch,” Shay argued. “I’ve been a slave of dragons since birth, yet I’m not a witch. I’ve come to volunteer for the cause. I confess I am lacking as a warrior, but I have other skills that may prove useful. I’ve brought books, great works from the Human Age.” He held up a tome by Charles Darwin in one hand and by Adam Smith in the other. “If there are children here, I could set up a school. I want to lay the foundation for a new golden age of humanity.”
Ragnar walked toward Shay, his eyes contemplating the books. He picked up the copy of The Origin of Species. The book was over a thousand years old. Shay held his breath as Ragnar opened the yellowed pages. Jandra’s finely tuned eyes could see the dust that showered down from the book as it was opened, fine flecks of the ancient paper crumbling away.
“It’s very fragile,” Shay said softly, as if fearing that his own breath might damage the pages. “Please be careful. I intend to transcribe it before I—”
“The world needs only one book,” Ragnar said, closing the pages with a violent clap. He flung the tome into the fireplace.
Shay sucked air, as if he’d been punched in the stomach. He dived for the fireplace, reaching into the bright flames to retrieve the book. He snatched it out, but it was too late. The ancient paper flared as quickly as gunpowder in a flash pan. In seconds, all that remained of the manuscript was a mound of black ash.
“You monster!” Shay, shouted, spinning around, his fists clenched. “Do you know what you just destroyed?”
“Useless old words by a man long dead,” said Ragnar. His Mighty Men drew their swords, ready to strike if Shay approached.
Jandra raised her gun. Frost stepped back behind Stonewall.
“Stop this!” Burke snapped, wincing as he shifted in his seat. “Ragnar, you’re not taking Jandra. She’s brought us the formula for gunpowder. Right now, I’m designing and testing weapons that will make the sky-wall bows seem like toys. She and I are the only two people who know the secret. If you so much as lay a finger on Jandra, I’ll have Anza slit my throat. I won’t use my talents in the service of a man dedicated to launching a new dark age.”
“Suicide will damn your soul to eternal torment,” Ragnar growled.
“And it will rob you of the weapons that will let mankind rule this world. I’m a pessimist, Ragnar. I’ve anticipated that you’d ruin this since the day we met. I’ve been in constant, non-stop, pain since Charkon ruined my leg. Don’t think I wouldn’t welcome death.”
Ragnar glared at Burke, as if trying to determine if the machinist was bluffing. Ragnar frowned; no doubt in his mind all heathens were unstable enough to kill themselves out of spite. The prophet turned his gaze toward Jandra. Lizard hissed at the hairy man. Glowering, Ragnar looked toward Shay, then to the pile of books beside the leather backpack.
“Take the books,” he barked to Stonewall.
“No!” said Shay, rushing to grab the pile.
“Let him have the books,” Burke snapped. Anza leapt forward, sword drawn, putting herself between Shay and the bag. She shook her head slowly as she eyed Shay.
“These may be the only copies of these books left in the world,” Shay said, on the verge of begging. “You can’t let him take them.”
“Books aren’t equal to human lives,” Burke grumbled. “Ragnar, take the books. Use them to wrap fish for all I care. As for Jandra, she’s leaving Dragon Forge before nightfall. You won’t have to worry about her witching up any more of your men.”
“I’ll allow her to leave,” Ragnar said, “provided she doesn’t return.”
“Fine,” said Burke.
“But—” said Jandra.
“Drop it,” Burke said, through gritted teeth. It was obvious that the stress of the encounter was causing him great pain.
Stonewall gathered up the books and went to Ragnar’s side. Ragnar and his Mighty Men turned and went back to the elevator. He glanced back over his shoulder.
“Burke,” he said. “Don’t think I will tolerate your blasphemy indefinitely. I can be pushed too far.”
“So can I,” said Burke, narrowing his eyes. The elevator rumbled, lowering Ragnar and his men from view.
Shay fell to his knees in front of the charred remains of the book on the hearth. “This book survived twelve centuries, only to vanish at the whim of a fanatic. Why did you give him the books, Kanati? I would have thought you, of all people, would have valued those writings. Aren’t you one of the Anudahdeesdee? The tribe that calls itself the Memory?”
“The Anudahdeesdee have copies of all the books you showed me,” said Burke. “I’ve got a collection of over two-hundred manuscripts in the basement of my tavern. The physical books you lost were rare, but the information inside them is more than just the paper they’re printed on. Information is essentially immortal with a little technological assistance. At my tribal home beyond the mountains, my people maintain an old press to preserve copies of essential works. We lost nothing here today.”
Shay perked up. “There’s a printing press in human control? That’s fantastic! I wish I could see it.”
“Maybe you can,” said Burke. “You aren’t going to be on Ragnar’s list of favorite people. You should get out of here tonight. Go with Jandra and Anza. They’ll be passing through Burke’s Tavern, my adopted hometown. Assuming the town is still standing, and hasn’t fallen victim to reprisals by retreating earth-dragons, there’s a map in my basement that would be of interest to you. It contains instructions on how to go to my homeland. It’s coded, but Anza can give you the key.”
“But . . . but I only just arrived,” said Shay. “I came to fight for the liberty of mankind.”
“Stay here and you’ll get your throat cut in your sleep by one of the Mighty Men,” said Burke. “You’ve never held a sword in your life, have you?”
Shay lowered his head, looking embarrassed. “No, sir.”
“You’re lucky I’ve already forged the pieces to make a second shotgun,” said Burke. “The beauty of a gun is the way it equalizes the slave and the warrior. Let me get the crew to assemble it and whip you up an ammo belt. I’ll send you off with Anza, Jandra, and Vance.”
Shay looked as if he were about to argue further, but held his tongue. Lizard, still on Jandra’s shoulder, stared intently as Burke rolled his wheeled chair over to the elevator and pulled the lever to raise the cage.
“Strong boss,” the little dragon whispered, sounding awed.
VULPINE DRIFTED on the winds high above Dragon Forge, with Balikan a few yards off his left wing. Reports were that the sky-wall bows could reach a mile, and Vulpine took care to stay well beyond that range. He could see scores of humans armed with bows crowded onto the thick stone walls that surrounded the town. They watched him closely, though he knew at this distance he was little more than a speck.
“They look rather alert,” said Balikan.
“Alert enough,” said Vulpine. “This is why the brute strength, head-on approach of the sun-dragons was doomed to failure. Shandrazel was too eager to prove his strength and crush the rebellion in a grand slaughter, the way his father crushed the rebellion at Conyers. If he’d been more patient, he could have broken this insurgency without spilling a drop of dragon blood.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” said Balikan. “He had catapults in his army with a greater range than the bows. He could have lobbed in barrels of flaming pitch and burned the town to the ground.”
Vulpine shook his head. “There’s a difference between destroying Dragon Forge and reclaiming it.”
Vulpine motioned with his head, inviting Balikan to follow his gaze. Dragon Forge wasn’t a large town. The fortress was diamond-shaped, encompassing roughly one square mile of earth. Save for a few broad avenues, the interior of the fortress was cramped with buildings built on top of buildings, so that one dragon’s floor was another dragon’s roof. Three smokestacks dominated the skyline of Dragon Forge, belching plumes of ash high into the sky.
Outside of the walls there were hundreds of heaps of rusting metal dotting the low red hills, the raw material of the foundries. Amid these heaps were hovels where gleaners lived, among the poorest humans in the kingdom.
Threading through these heaps were four major roads. All were busy with traffic. In the absence of dragons, humans throughout the kingdom rushed to Dragon Forge. Some of this traffic, though, wasn’t here for the rebellion. Mule trains hauling wagon loads of coal wound along the western road. They cared little who brought their wares, be it human or dragon.
Along the southern side of Dragon Forge there was a river; a canal had been dug long ago to divert water into the city, where a water wheel powered the bellows that fanned the foundries. The water also served to flush the gutters and sewers of the town—crude but effective sanitation. In addition to this water, Vulpine could see a large well at the center of town. The rebels wouldn’t perish from thirst. “With the right eyes, you can see the city as a heart. The roads and rivers serve as arteries and veins, carrying in the lifeblood, carting off the waste. Choke off the roads and the city dies.”
“But by now the rebels will have been stocking up on supplies. They could hold out for weeks, or months.”
“And is the world suddenly in short supply of weeks and months?” asked Vulpine.
Balikan clamped his mouth shut, looking properly chastised.
“In any case, I don’t think they will hold out for months,” said Vulpine. “Humans lack the capacity for long term planning we sky-dragons possess. Presented with a blockade, with food and resources dwindling, they will likely turn on themselves in short order, especially once plague breaks out.”
“If plague breaks out,” said Balikan. “I must admit, it looks as if they are doing a fair job of keeping the town clean.”
“This need not be something left to chance,” said Vulpine. “Let’s pay a visit to the Nest. It’s only thirty miles away and a few dozen valkyries can easily blockade the western road and cut off the coal supply. The valkyrie engineers can also block off the canal feeding water into the town. After that, we’ll follow the Forge Road back to the Palace to confer with Chapelion and get the authority to gather all the elements I need to truly solve this problem.”
“We are slavecatchers, not soldiers.”
“After I tell him his books are in the fort,” said Vulpine, “he’ll give me every last soldier in the kingdom.”
CHAPTER FOUR
* * *
PHANTOMS
SHAY TOOK A SIP of the steaming sassafras tea. The licorice bite of it opened up his sinuses, clearing his ears so he could better hear Burke as he whispered to Anza. It wasn’t Shay’s intention to eavesdrop, but over the years he’d grown sensitive to hushed conversations. All the politics and intrigues that swirled around a dragon of Chapelion’s station unfolded in whispers and nods. Thus, though he sat on a wooden stool by the fireplace across the loft from Burke and his daughter, he heard Burke’s words as clearly as if he was standing between them.
“We had several groups of refugees report that the earth-dragons are raiding human villages.” Burke slipped her a sheet of folded parchment. “It’s only a matter of time before they strike the tavern. Take this to Thorny. There are tools in the hidden room I need, and my notebooks would also be useful. Have him bring them to me.”
Anza scowled and made a hand gesture that Shay didn’t understand.
Burke gave a weary shrug. “Thorny will just have to sober up. I need you to stay with Jandra and Shay. If anything happens to either of them, make sure their guns don’t fall into the possession of dragons.”
Anza’s scowl faded.
“Thorny won’t be coming alone. Tell the villagers it’s time to join me here in Dragon Forge.”
Anza nodded, looking serious. Shay found himself intrigued by the tall, dark-skinned woman dressed in black buckskins. He’d yet to hear Anza say a word. Ordinarily, he would have assumed she was deaf, or perhaps an imbecile. Yet she followed Burke’s whispers easily enough, and she carried herself with an air that hinted of great intelligence.
Jandra sat cross-legged by the fire with Lizard in her lap. Lizard had numerous cuts and scrapes. She spoke to him in a soothing patter as she cleaned and bandaged his wounds. Shay knew Jandra by reputation—she was the human girl who’d been raised by the sky-dragon wizard Vendevorex. He assumed she’d been the dragon’s pet. In general, slaves and pets despised one another. Both were legally the property of dragons, but slaves were regarded as little more than domestic animals, useful for certain labors, while pets were pampered and treated as children.
Having grown up as the pet of a wizard, it was said that Jandra had acquired supernatural powers. He’d heard she could turn invisible, and set things on fire by staring at them. Shay wondered if it was true. Chapelion had been a strict rationalist, dismissive of supernatural forces. Shay, however, had seen proof that magic had once been a powerful force in ages past. He was certain that Chapelion was too quick to ignore evidence of things beyond his understanding.
Jandra was currently eluding his understanding. She looked human enough, yet there was something unmistakably alien about her. Perhaps it was her voice; her words had an odd inflection, an accent that made her sound more dragon than human. There was also a strange quality to her posture, the way she carried herself. Most humans tended to keep their gazes toward the ground and walked with their shoulders slouched. Jandra had the unnerving habit of looking straight at people like Burke and Ragnar when she spoke, even though they were obviously her superiors. Finally, her fussing over the dragon child struck him as wrong on some fundamental level, that a human should be displaying such motherly behavior toward a creature covered with scales.
Jandra cradled Lizard in her arms and scratched him beneath his chin. The little dragon’s eyes rolled up in his head and he made a soft humming noise.
“He doesn’t need all that attention, you know,” said Shay.
Jandra looked up. “What?”
“It’s a waste to give him so much affection,” Shay repeated. “Earth-dragon children are never coddled or cared for. They’re regarded as little more than parasites by adult earth-dragons. They live like rats after they hatch, hiding in walls, eating scraps and bugs and their smaller siblings. They absorb the dragon language by spying. Earth-dragons raise themselves until they’re old enough to hold a tool or a weapon, at which point they’re put to work and treated like any other member of the horde. They don’t get any mothering in their natural upbringing. They aren’t even clear on what the concept of a mother is.”
Jandra looked annoyed by his argument. “He’s not a rat,” she said. “He’s an intelligent being who can talk.”
“It’s probably nothing more than imitation,” said Shay. “I’d guess he’s as smart as a parrot.”
“If a parrot were injured, I’d treat his wounds too,” said Jandra.
“Good boss,” cooed Lizard, reaching up and stroking Jandra’s cheek.
Shay turned away, shaking his head. He discovered their fourth companion climbing up through the trap door. This was Vance, a young man roughly his own age, with a wispy blond beard and close-cropped hair that looked as if it had been trimmed with a dull razor. Vance was dressed in the modest clothes of a farm boy; a simple brown wool coat and patched-up cotton britches tucked into boots badly in need of new soles. The only thing new in his possession was his bow—one of the now famous sky-wall bows, forged from steel, strung with wire, the tension tamed by a set of cams at each tip of the bow. Vance was short, barely five feet tall. A series of small white scars on his brow and around his lips, plus calluses covering his knuckles, gave Shay the impression that Vance was someone who’d survived many a tussle.
“Howdy, Shay,” Vance said, with a nod in his direction. They’d met earlier at the eastern gate. Vance had been the guard who’d allowed Shay’s passage into Dragon Forge.
Shay raised his hand in greeting. “I’ve heard that you’re going to be our bodyguard. They say you’re good with that bow.”
“I’m not anybody’s bodyguard if Anza’s around,” Vance said with a soft grin. He stepped close to Shay, and glanced nervously back toward Burke. He cleared his throat, and said, in a whisper, “I heard tell you came here with books. They say you wanted to teach people to read.”
“Ragnar didn’t approve of this plan, I’m afraid.”
“Well, um . . .” Vance said, his voice growing even softer as he leaned in closer. “I’ve got a good head on my shoulders, but I don’t have no formal learnin’. I did my part up on that wall fighting the dragons, but the battle was really won by Burke and his foremen. Them fellows are all the time looking over blueprints and books and sending notes back and forth. That’s the kind of person I want to be. Can you teach me to read?”
Shay smiled broadly. “I’d be honored.”
Before they could discuss the matter further, Biscuit came up through the trap door and announced, “The horses are ready at the north gate. I’ve got men I trust standing guard. They’ll get you out without Frost and his friends bothering anyone.”
Burke nodded. “There’s no point in tarrying. I told Ragnar you’d be gone by nightfall. I’m not sure I have the energy to face him down again.”
Anza leaned over to hug Burke. She gave him a silent nod as she grabbed her pack and headed for the elevator. Shay noticed the shiny steel tomahawks strapped to the pack. Anza was a walking arsenal, sporting swords, knives, darts, and a sky-wall bow identical to the one Vance carried. Shay picked up his own pack, and the shotgun with which he’d barely had an hour to train. He was impressed with the weapon, but if guns were as deadly as Burke claimed, why didn’t his own daughter carry one?
He joined Anza and the others on the elevator. As it began to lower, he caught the grim, worried look in Burke’s eyes. He had a feeling that there was some secret Burke was keeping from them.
Jandra waved and said, “Thanks, Burke.”
Lizard waved as well, and said, “Strong boss.”
Anza didn’t wave. She stared ahead, her face unreadable, as the elevator carried them down.
BURKE SAGGED as the elevator lowered Anza and her companions from his sight. He’d been in pain ever since his thigh had been broken, but the stress of his confrontation with Ragnar had pushed him to a new level of agony. It had taken all he had to hide his suffering from Anza. He’d always taught Anza to bear her wounds stoically and never surrender to pain. He was glad he hadn’t broken.
Biscuit stood by the window, watching as the four adventurers left the foundry and marched toward the North Gate.
“They’re on their way,” he announced. “Let’s get you started on the whisky.”
Burke flung back the heavy wool blanket that covered his lap. His right leg was thrust straight out before him, naked save for bandages securing it to a splint. The entire limb was blue-gray with bruises. Large chunks of his foot were now black, the flesh dead and stinking. Vicious red streaks ran up his hip into his torso. His fever had been rising every day. If he didn’t act now, the infection would spread into his entire body.
“The whole leg has to go,” Burke said flatly, as if he were discussing a broken wagon wheel.
“I sharpened the saw,” Biscuit said, handing Burke a brown ceramic jug. Burke uncorked it. The fumes made his eyes water. “Drink until the bottle falls out of your hands. It won’t take me ten minutes once you’re down.”
Burke tilted back the jug. Even though it was ice-cold, it burned his throat going down. He wiped his lips after the swig, not looking forward to how many more times he’d need to do that before he passed out.
“This might take a while,” he said, then hiccupped. “There’s some paper on the desk there. I have something important I need you to take down.”
“Sure,” said Biscuit, grabbing a quill jutting from an ink bottle. The quill was fiery red and almost 18 inches long, not a true feather but a feather-like scale from the wing of a sun-dragon. In the recent battle, the sky-wall archers had killed dozens of the great beasts as they’d attacked Dragon Forge. An unanticipated consequence of victory was that Burke always had a pen nearby when he needed one.
“You got some new orders for the boys on the floor?” Biscuit asked.
“No,” Burke said, taking another swig. He belched in the aftermath. “I might not survive this.”
“I appreciate the vote of confidence in my surgical skills,” Biscuit said, a wry grin wrinkling the leathery skin around his eyes.
“There’s something I know that shouldn’t vanish from human memory. I don’t want Ragnar to learn the secret—it’s my only real leverage over him. But I also don’t want this secret to die with me, or with Jandra should she not survive. So listen closely. I’m going to tell you how to make gunpowder.”
THE FORGE ROAD ran through a landscape of rolling hills and farms, one hundred eighty miles to the Dragon Palace. In normal times, it was considered a safe road, heavily trafficked by the king’s armies. Human villages were abundant along the Forge Road. The one nearest Dragon Forge was Mullton, a hamlet of two hundred souls, only ten miles distant. Jandra was in the lead as she and her companions approached the town. In the weeks before Hex had stolen her genie, her senses had been fine-tuned by the device, so she still had excellent night vision. A cloudy sky without a hint of stars hung over them. They’d ridden slowly for the last few hours; it was too dark to ride a horse at a gallop.
They traveled in silence. Outside the walls of Dragon Forge they’d encountered the worst of the aftermath of the battle; week-old decaying corpses of sun-dragons, the stench of rot thick even though the cold snap of recent days had frozen the bodies. Lizard had clung to her tightly as they’d passed through the killing fields, trembling, from the cold or from fear she couldn’t guess.
She’d half expected to find the town of Mullton razed by the retreating dragon armies. Thousands of earth-dragons and dozens of sun-dragons had fled in the aftermath of defeat. Burke had said there would be reprisals, earth-dragons attacking undefended human villages for revenge or banditry now that law and order had broken down. Yet, as they crested the top of the hill, she was relieved to see the village a few hundred yards away. Little stone cottages were interspersed with log cabins in a model of rustic serenity.
She felt a tension she hadn’t been fully aware of until now pass from her body. She breathed a little easier to find this vision of peace so close to Dragon Forge. Except, as she took that easy, deep breath, she couldn’t help but taste rotting meat in the air, the same battlefield stench she thought they’d left behind. She noticed that there wasn’t a single light in the village. No candle, lantern, torch, or fireplace burned anywhere that she could spot. As they rode past the silent farm houses, no dogs barked as they caught the scent of strangers passing by.
Anza quickened the pace of her horse and caught up to Jandra. She held the reins in one hand, in her other she held a drawn sword.
Jandra asked, “Do you think—?”
Anza brought her fingers to her lips and guided her horse into the lead. She sat tensely in the saddle, her head turning back and forth as she watched the shadows. They rode toward the center of town, toward a stone well. Behind the well was some sort of monument, like a small pyramid of piled round stones. As they drew closer, Jandra realized they weren’t stones.
One by one the four riders drew up in a line, halting before the well. All eyes were fixed on what lay beyond—a neatly stacked pyramid of heads, mostly human, a few dogs. The eyes were all hollow—the ground was littered with the black feathers of buzzards.
Vance was the first to speak. “I’ve been to Mullton once or twice. My village used to trade with them.” He paused, swallowing hard. “It’s . . . it’s only half a day’s ride from here.”
Jandra noted that the heads were mostly women and children. All the adult men, no doubt, had been pressed into service by Ragnar for the invasion of Dragon Forge. His army had roamed the countryside, raiding villages, offering all men a choice: Join or die.
“There was a girl here named Eula,” Vance said, softly. “She smiled at my brother Vinton last spring and he spent all summer thinking about her. I kept telling him he should ride up here and court her if he was that crazy about her.”
“Guess he missed his chance,” said Shay.
Jandra thought this was a particularly callous sentiment, but Vance didn’t seem to take offense. “Vinton died the night we took Dragon Forge. In the end, I guess it don’t matter if he’d talked to her or not.” He shook his head. “Looking at this, it’s hard to know. Did we do the right thing? Was taking Dragon Forge worth this price?”
Shay said, “I was taken from my family when I was four. Chapelion selected me because he thought the color of my hair went well with the décor. I’ve been whipped a hundred times, for little things, like getting ink smudges on a sheet of parchment. I can’t pull my shoulders all the way straight because of the scars.”
He looked at Vance. “I’m one of the men your brother died to free. If I ever have children, they’ll be free because of him. I promise every one of them will understand the price that was paid.”
Vance responded with a brave, thin smile.
Anza raised her hand toward her cheek, as if to wipe away a tear, but turned her face away before Jandra could focus on it.
Jandra looked back at the mound of skulls. She felt the pressure of all their empty stares, accusing. Bitterwood had tried to tell her that peace with dragons wasn’t possible. Even Pet, before he died, had preached that war was the only answer. Burke, the smartest man she’d ever met, didn’t believe that dragons and men could ever share the earth.
So why was she cradling a dragon as if it were her own blood? Why, with the world so obviously split by this enormous rift between men and dragons, was she still straddling the chasm?
The world was broken. This pyramid of death bore plain testament to that. And yet, some tiny, small voice inside whispered that if she could only get her powers back, it wasn’t too late to fix the world, to patch back together all the broken pieces and spare both man and dragon from the dark days coming.
“Let’s ride on,” said Jandra. “I’m not tired at all.”
BURKE WOKE to feverish heat and darkness. He felt as if his brain had swollen to three times its normal size and was threatening to split his skull. He was awash in sweat. Invisible ants were crawling over his whole body, from scalp to toes.
Toes.
Since Charkon had broken his right leg, he’d not felt the toes of that foot, or anything much below his hip. Now, his leg felt restored—not good, for it was subject to the same fevered agony that plagued the rest of his body—but at least it felt like part of his body once more, not simply dead meat hanging from his hip.
Why hadn’t Biscuit performed the amputation? He ran his hands beneath the heavy wool blankets down his right hip. The steel splint he’d fashioned was gone. His fingers traveled further, and found bandages.
His leg ended only six inches below his hip.
While his mind felt ghostly toes wiggling, his fingers revealed the truth. Biscuit had done what needed to be done. Burke let out a long, slow, shuddering breath. He felt a pang of loss as sharp and clear as if he were at his own funeral. He swallowed hard, feeling tears rising. He hadn’t cried since he was six. His brothers had long ago pummeled this weakness out of him. He sniffed and clenched his jaw, fighting the urge to surrender to the grief. He closed his eyes tightly, grateful that he was alone in his bedroom. He was certain that if anyone had been here with him, he would have burst into tears. This feeling turned out to be wrong.
“It’s been a long time, Kanati,” a raspy voice said by his bedside.
Burke sucked in a sharp gasp of air; his heart jumped around in his chest like a startled rabbit. He sat straight up, his eyes wide, searching the darkness for his mysterious visitor. By his bed sat a figure in a dark cloak, his face hidden by a hood. Burke was a rational man; until this moment he’d had no fear of some anthropomorphic manifestation of death coming to carry him away. His throat, wet with unshed tears only seconds before, went as dry as the parched fields around Conyers in the decade of drought.
“Who are you?” he tried to say. His lips moved, but only the barest sound came out.
The figure pulled back his hood, revealing an old man, his hair thin and gray, his skin wrinkled and leathery. “Have I changed so much?”
Burke stared at the visitor. There was something familiar about his eyes. “Bant?” he asked, his voice cracking. He swallowed and tried again. “Bant Bitterwood?”
“I always wondered if you’d made it out of Conyers in one piece.”
Burke stared at the flat spot on the blanket where his leg should have been. “Defeat left me with a few scars. It’s taken a victory to rip me in two.”
“Not a bad victory,” said Bitterwood. “The fields around here are full of dead dragons. The stench for miles is unbelievable. I was walking by buzzards too fat to flap away. You did good, Kanati.”
“I did what I had to,” said Burke. “Ragnar had no plan; he had passion and an army, but I knew that wasn’t enough. If I’d let him take this fort, then allowed the dragons to crush him, the dragon’s grip on this world would only be stronger. This wasn’t a battle I chose. Still, I admit, watching those dragons rain from the sky made it worth it.” He looked down at his missing limb. “It was worth even this.”
Bitterwood face went slack. It looked as if Burke’s words had triggered some distant memory. Burke thought he might be about to speak, but when he didn’t, Burke chose to break the silence.
“You’ve been busy yourself. Jandra tells me you killed practically the entire royal family, including Blasphet. And, you took down Jasmine Robertson, the so-called goddess. She was the real threat to humanity, even more than the dragons.”
Bitterwood scratched the raspy stubble under his chin. “You know me,” he said. “I’ve never been good at nothing but killing. Killing the goddess wasn’t a big deal. Once I saw past her tricks, she was only a woman.” His shoulders sagged. His voice was softer as he said, “If you’d told me twenty years ago I’d one day kill a woman, I’d have said you were wrong. I thought there were some lines even I wouldn’t cross.” He wasn’t looking directly at Burke as he spoke. As he finished, he slowly shook his head.
“Don’t beat yourself up over killing that monster,” said Burke.
Bitterwood looked him in the eyes. Something hardened in his expression. “I did what I had to. I don’t regret it. I’d do it again.”
“I’m sure you would,” said Burke. “I didn’t mean to imply that you wouldn’t.”
“Blasphet claimed he was the god of murder. He believed it, I think. He thought he was a god.”
“I never met him,” said Burke, uncertain where this change of subject was heading. “I always did admire the body count he racked up among dragons, though. You too, by the way. You put the fear of God into every dragon in this kingdom, Bant.”
“No,” said Bitterwood. “That wasn’t who they feared. There is no god, Kanati, to dispense vengeance upon the wicked. I had to do the job myself. I am the Death of All Dragons. I am the Ghost Who Kills.”
Burke studied the lines of Bitterwood’s face. There was a haunted look to the man’s eyes. Something about dragon-hatred eventually broke the minds of almost anyone it seized.
“What brings you here, Bant?” asked Burke.
“A girl who talks to ghosts.”
Burke furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”
“I’m not traveling alone,” said Bitterwood. “I’m the guardian of a girl named Zeeky, and her brother, Jeremiah, once I find him. Their family was killed by the goddess. The ghosts of everyone from their village are trapped in a crystal ball. Zeeky can hear them whispering to her. They’ve told Zeeky we need to save Jandra.”
“You’re here because you’re guided by ghosts?” Burke asked. Saying it out loud didn’t help it make more sense. “I’m afraid the ghosts have led you astray. Jandra was here, but she left at sunset. What time is it?”
“Almost dawn,” said Bitterwood.
“She’s miles away by now.”
Bitterwood sighed. “In fairness to Zeeky, the ghosts didn’t say Jandra was here. We followed her first to the Nest. We learned that she’d come to Dragon Forge. I should have come straight to the gates yesterday. Instead I wanted to investigate the area. It wasn’t a waste of time. I killed a few slavecatchers.”
“Did the ghosts say what you’re saving Jandra from?”
“No,” Bitterwood said. “I can’t hear them myself. Only Zeeky can. She says they’re tough to figure out. They all talk at once.”
“I don’t place any faith in the words of ghosts, but if you want to chase after Jandra, she’s heading up the Forge Road. My own daughter, Anza, is with her.”
“You have a family now?” Bitterwood asked.
“Only Anza. Biologically, she’s my niece, but I’ve raised her as my own. She’s definitely my child in spirit.”
“How so?”
“Do you remember what they called me at Conyers?”
“Kanati the Machinist.”
“Now I’m Burke the Machinist. My name I wear lightly; the Machinist is my true identity. I’ve always been comfortable working with cogs and clockwork and springs, far more than I have with my fellow men.”
“What’s this have to do with your daughter?”
Burke lowered himself back down onto the bed, his weight resting on his elbows. Perhaps it was the pain in his head that weakened him. Perhaps it was the presence of the man who’d shared in his darkest defeat, long ago. Whatever the source of the weakness, there was something he had to confess: “From the day Anza was old enough to pick up a dagger I’ve been . . . programming her. When she was five, I captured a young earth-dragon and had her kill it.”
Bitterwood didn’t look shocked by this confession. Somehow, this caused Burke’s guilt to well up even faster. “I’ve raised her with a single-minded focus on combat. I’ve taught her to think of her body as a weapon, precise and tireless. She fights like nothing you’ve ever seen, Bant. She’s my ultimate weapon. But there are times when I look into her eyes, and there’s something cold and mechanical staring back at me. Fate gave me a daughter. I turned her into a machine.”
Bitterwood winced as Burke’s words triggered memories. “I had daughters once,” he said, softly.
“I remember your story. Albekizan killed your wife and children and burned your village. It was the spark that brought flame to that time of drought.”
“I was wrong,” said Bitterwood.
“About what?”
“My family hadn’t been killed. They were taken captive and sold as slaves. They lived another twenty years, beyond the day I believed they’d died.”
“Oh,” said Burke.
“They were executed the day after I killed Bodiel, Albekizan’s beloved son. The king ordered all the palace slaves slain in retribution.”
“Oh,” Burke said again. What else was there to say?
“It’ll be light soon. I should leave.”
“I hope you find Jandra,” said Burke. “Do you . . . do you need anything before you go? I’ve made a new type of bow that’s going to be far superior to whatever you’re using.”
Bitterwood grinned. It was an unsettling expression. “I doubt that.”
“How about fresh horses?” asked Burke. “We don’t have many to spare, but I . . .” He let his voice trail off. Bitterwood was still grinning.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“I was thinking of what you would say if you saw my ride. I won’t be needing a horse.”
Burke lay back on his pillow. The movement made his brains slosh. He closed his eyes, fighting back a wave of nausea. A cold draft washed over him. He welcomed its cool touch. “If you don’t need anything from me, I guess you should be on your way.”
Bitterwood didn’t answer. Burke opened his eyes. He was alone in the room. For a moment he wondered if he’d dreamed the whole encounter, a phantom companion to match his phantom toes. But he could still smell Bitterwood’s distinctive smell, a mixture of stale sweat and dried blood. Not for the first time in his life, Burke wondered if he’d done the right thing. He hadn’t known Jandra long, but he liked her, and judged her to be competent and sane. Had he done her any favors by putting this strange ghost onto her trail?
CHAPTER FIVE
* * *
SLAVERY AS AN EVOLUTIONARY STRATEGY
THE CHILL OF NIGHT yielded as the winter sun climbed in a flawless blue sky. Shay unbuttoned the collar of his coat as they stopped by a stream to allow the horses to rest. The cool fresh air felt good against his throat. The tiny puncture wounds from Zernex’s claws were scabbed up and puffy beneath his fingers. He wished he had a mirror. The grooves on the underside of a sky-dragon’s claws collected a foul-smelling goop that harbored disease. Shay hoped he hadn’t survived the encounter with the slavecatchers only to perish of some horrible illness.
Shay was exhausted but didn’t complain when the others voted to keep going. As the day wore on they passed through three villages, all destroyed, the severed heads gathered into mounds. The tracks of earth-dragons were everywhere. They all rode in silence. Anza looked especially withdrawn, her face an emotionless mask. She had to be wondering if her home had also suffered this fate.
Shay was also worried about the town. Had Burke’s hidden library been destroyed? He felt guilty that the fate of the books weighed so heavily on his mind, when Anza no doubt faced the loss of friends and family. He could still feel the empty hole that had opened in his gut when he saw The Origin of Species crumble to ash. How could he have been so wrong about Ragnar? The prophet had been delivering firebrand sermons calling for human rebellion for years. His words traveled throughout the kingdom as hushed whispers from slave to slave. Burke may have been the strategist who supplied the rebels with a worthy arsenal, but it was Ragnar’s vision that the rebels followed. How could such a great leader despise books?
It was late in the evening when the dragon tracks they followed suddenly veered south, leaving the Forge Road. Ruts from a convoy of supply wagons led up the sloping hill of a field gone fallow. Shay looked toward the top of the ridge, wondering if an army was on the other side.
“Where to you think they’ve gone?” Vance asked, pulling his horse beside Shay.
Anza snapped her fingers and traced a wavy line in the air. Shay was puzzled by what she was attempting to convey. Anza looked frustrated, and repeated the motion.
“A river?” Jandra asked.
Anza nodded.
“I’d noticed we hadn’t passed any good drinking water in several miles. They must have gone to the river to camp. How far south is the water?”
Anza held up two fingers.
“Two miles?” asked Jandra.
Anza nodded.
They all stared at the hill. The trampled ground was reasonably fresh, but whether the army had turned south an hour ago or a day ago was beyond Shay’s guess.
Lizard stood up on Jandra’s shoulder, his head held high. He sniffed, then crouched down and assumed a brown shade that matched Jandra’s hair.
“Bad bosses,” he whispered.
“If they’re close enough for Lizard to smell, we should get going,” said Shay.
“Or we should spy on them,” said Vance. “Find out how many there are. See if they’re settled in for a long stay, or just resting for a night.”
“No,” said Jandra. “We should press on to Burke’s Tavern. Warn any towns along the way that the dragon armies are on the march and they should run.”
“Run where?” asked Vance. “If they head toward Dragon Forge, they might run into the army.”
“Then east,” said Jandra. “Toward Richmond. Shandrazel may be dead, but Androkom, the High Biologian, will maintain law and order around the palace. The High Biologian can command the aerial guard in the event of the king’s absence. He’ll keep the peace in his immediate vicinity, at least.”
“You have a lot of faith in Androkom,” said Shay. “He was somewhat infamous at the College of Spires. He was a prominent abolitionist, and made a lot of enemies among the biologians. I’m not certain the other sky-dragons will obey him.”
“I didn’t like him either,” said Jandra. “He had a snooty air that made it clear he didn’t think anyone else in the world was as smart as he was. Still, while I have every reason to hate dragons”—Lizard whined; Jandra stroked his arm— “I trust Androkom. If anyone is smart enough to keep the kingdom from spinning into chaos, it’s him.”
“Don’t we want the kingdom to be spinning into chaos?” asked Vance. “Order and peace haven’t been all that great for humans. That’s the whole reason I joined up with the rebellion. If peace means that dragons are in charge, count me as friend of war.”
Before they could debate this any further, Anza gave a silent sigh, rolled her eyes, and turned her horse in the direction of Burke’s Tavern. She dug her heels into the flanks of her steed and trotted off.
“I guess we’re following her,” said Jandra, shaking the reins of her mount.
“For someone who can’t talk, Anza always manages to win arguments,” said Vance.
IT WAS LONG PAST DARK when they reached Burke’s Tavern. Jandra was exhausted. She’d almost forgotten what it was like to be truly weary. When she’d worn her genie, the device had constantly monitored her physical state, negating the fatigue poisons that built up her blood. She resolved not to complain about her discomfort. She knew she was experiencing nothing worse than the others.
Burke’s Tavern, the town, wasn’t much more than a cluttered spot on the Forge Road, a few dozen houses clumped together. In the center of all this was a two-story building with a large porch and a painted wooden sign that read, “Burke’s Tavern.” The town was silent and still, but it was the quietness of sleep, not death. There were no signs of violence; the retreating dragon armies hadn’t reached this far. It was quite possible no one here knew anything about the events from further down the road. The size of a dragon’s world and a man’s world were quite different. Sky-dragon messengers could cover two hundred miles a day, spreading news quickly. Humans lived much more insular lives—it could take many days for information to spread a hundred miles among humans. For a winged dragon, a town ninety miles distant was part of the neighborhood. For a human, a town ninety miles distant was out of sight and out of mind. Vendevorex had told her that most men never traveled more than fifty miles from their birthplace, though Jandra wondered if this was true or merely a myth believed by dragons. Many of the men she knew, like Bitterwood and Burke, had traveled through more of the world than she could imagine.
Lizard was asleep, his limbs draped over the horse’s neck like it was a tree branch. The swaying motion didn’t disturb him. In sleep, his coloration had taken on a drab, dark shade of green—a shade she remembered well. It had been the color of the earth-dragon that had slit her throat during the battle of Chakthalla’s castle. Though that had happened only a few months before, it felt like some impossibly distant past. So much had unfolded in her life in the intervening weeks, she felt as if her adventures could fill a book, perhaps an entire trilogy of books, one that any biologian worth his salt would salivate over.
It was difficult to accept that this tiny dragon-child would one day grow up to be a fierce warrior. All the earth-dragons she’d ever known had led violent lives as soldier and guards. Was this the result of their biology or their upbringing? Earth-dragon children were treated with abuse and neglect their whole lives until they became big enough and strong enough to be the abusers. Yet, Lizard responded to her affection. Could raising an earth-dragon with compassion, teaching it reason instead of rage, result in a new kind of dragon? Or only a weaker one, fated to never fit in with his peers? Would her act of kindness leave Lizard as much an outcast as she was?
Anza dismounted on the steps of Burke’s Tavern. She walked onto the broad porch, stood next to a chess board atop a large barrel. A sculpted monkey sat on the far side of the board, a grinning beast crafted from tin and copper, with large glass eyes. Though immobile, its hand was held in such a way that it looked ready to reach out and grab a chess piece, had there been any on the board. Vance and Shay got off their horses, stretching their backs.
“I need brandy,” said Shay.
“What’s brandy?” asked Vance.
Shay looked puzzled by the question. “It’s a liqueur. You drink it. It warms you.”
“Like moonshine?” asked Vance.
“I think brandy is only going to be found in the dens of sky-dragons,” said Jandra, getting off her horse to join the others on the porch. Lizard remained sound asleep, breathing peacefully. “I’m not sure human palettes are refined enough to distinguish between the various liqueurs.”
As she said the words “human palettes” she realized she was still thinking like the daughter of a dragon. The others didn’t react to her words—were they avoiding her gaze because they recognized how alien she was? A voice within her thought, “Not alien. Superior.”
A chill ran down her spine. It wasn’t her own voice in her head—it was the voice of Jasmine Robertson. Before Jazz had died, she’d “gifted” Jandra with a thousand years' worth of her memories. Jazz had told Jandra she’d done this as a time saving device to help Jandra understand why Jazz had aided in the fall of mankind and the rise of dragons. Jazz was dead now, but her memories lived on inside Jandra. This is why Hex had stolen the genie. He’d been worried that Jazz was still alive inside Jandra, since what was a person but the sum of their memories? Jandra knew she was still in control of her own personality, but these stray recollections worried her. Ironically, Hex had robbed her of the very tool she needed to fix her brain—she was certain she could have commanded the genie to erase the alien thoughts.
“I can’t think of the last time I was this tired,” said Vance, addressing Anza. “Can we get some sleep before we find the person your father wants you to see? What’s his name? Thorny?”
Anza nodded, though since Vance had asked three different questions, Jandra wasn’t certain which one she was answering.
Shay looked even more exhausted than Vance, but he said, “Before we go to sleep can I see the library? The thought of it will keep me awake all night if I don’t see it.”
Anza motioned with her head for the others to follow. She pressed a board beside the door to the tavern. The panel of wood looked like any of the countless shingles that covered the place, but there was a click from inside the wall. Anza pushed the door open and slipped into the dark room beyond.
The others followed into the large room that was the heart of Burke’s tavern. There was a huge stone fireplace, with a faint orange flame still flickering over a mound of red coals. The room was warm, and the air was rich with the sweet aroma of ale. Jandra held her breath when she realized they weren’t alone. An old man sat beside the fireplace in a wooden rocking chair, his head tilted back, softly snoring. His open mouth sported the most snaggled collection of teeth Jandra had ever seen—it was as if the old man had lost every other tooth in his mouth. His face was framed by an ill-groomed salt-and-pepper beard. The old man’s hair jutted out from his head in all directions, composed of a hundred shades of gray, in every hue from charcoal black to cotton white.
Anza walked up to the sleeping man. She carefully reached out and touched his shoulder.
His head slowly lifted as his eyes opened.
“Anza?” he whispered. He rubbed his eyes. Jandra noted that his fingers were horribly knotted and twisted by arthritis. He lowered his hands and stared at Anza with bloodshot eyes. His breath was absolutely rotten, a stench that carried all the way to Jandra, nearly fifteen feet away, as he said, “It is you.”
The old man rocked forward, looking at Jandra, Vance, and Shay. “Where’s Burke?” he asked. Anza held out the folded letter. He grasped the paper awkwardly in his bony fingers.
“You must be Thorny,” said Shay.
“That’s what my friends call me,” the old man acknowledged. His speech was slightly slurred. “Thor Nightingale is my birth name.” He sounded quite proud of this fact. He looked around the empty tavern as he unfolded the letter, slowly, awkwardly, wincing as he moved his fingers in delicate motions for which they were ill formed. “I guess I fell asleep again.” He grinned sheepishly. “Drank a few too many celebrating a birthday.”
“Whose birthday?” asked Shay.
“It’s always someone’s birthday,” said Thorny. He rose, swaying, his unbuttoned, threadbare coat hanging loosely on his frame.
Anza went to the fireplace to stir the ashes. The light brightened as the flames leapt back to life. A large clock beside the fireplace ticked rhythmically as she worked. Suddenly, the ticking was overpowered by the sound of gears within the wooden framework of the clock. A door opened near the floor and a brass frog hopped out. It released a series of croaks, a loud, metallic sound somewhere between a washboard’s rasp and a bell’s chime. The frog hopped in a circle back into the clock. The gears sounded again as the door closed.
“That was odd,” said Vance.
“You get used to it,” said Thorny, looking down at the unfolded letter. “Just another of Burke’s gizmos, like the chess monkey. Burke’s always tinkering on something.” He squinted as his eyes flickered over the letter. “Looks like he’s got more than tinkering in mind. I gather he’s taken control of the foundries?”
“Yes,” said Jandra. “But there’ve been unanticipated ramifications. The defeated dragon armies are taking revenge on human villages in the area, killing everyone.”
Thorny shook his head. “That’s not unanticipated, girl. Burke knew. He’s spent the last twenty years plotting to overthrow the dragons, but he was like a chess player thinking ten moves ahead. He could imagine a hundred gambits that would produce quick and satisfying victories against the dragons. But any victory he imagined was followed by chaos and slaughter throughout the kingdom. He could have launched a war at any time, a war he thought he could win, but he didn’t because he didn’t want the blood of innocents on his hands. He would have lived out the rest of his life here in peace if Ragnar hadn’t forced him to battle.”
Anza frowned as Thorny spoke. She glared at him and made a few rapid hand signals. Thorny looked embarrassed.
“You’re right,” he said. “Ragnar couldn’t have forced Burke to do something that wasn’t already in his heart. I was here when Ragnar confronted Burke. Burke could have killed the prophet where he stood. We both know that. But, no matter what Burke’s gut feelings were toward dragons, I think his head was in charge of his emotions. Ragnar is nothing but emotions—he’s like Burke’s hidden anger given human form. Ragnar needed Burke, but maybe Burke needed Ragnar as well.”
Jandra was surprised by Thorny’s analysis. On the surface, he looked like nothing more than an old farmer, and a drunken one at that. But his words hinted at a level of education and thoughtfulness she didn’t often encounter in her fellow humans.
Anza gave a few more hand signals. Thorny nodded. “You’re right,” he said, heading for the bar. “Let’s get packing. We might not have much time.” He led them through a door behind the bar into a kitchen, then through a second door that opened onto a set of stairs heading down. The stairs descended at least thirty feet, until they reached a third door that opened onto darkness. Anza bounded ahead, moving confidently in the gloom. There was a series of clicks and suddenly a score of lanterns leapt to life, illuminating a large cellar with a high ceiling. The walls were made of red brick and the floor was crafted from huge flagstones. The rafters were full of gears and rods and wires, including a grid of long metal shafts that looked as if they were holding up the floor of the bar above. Jandra couldn’t even begin to guess at their purpose. Chains draped around the room in all directions, like the web of some unseen iron spider.
Tall shelves lined the room, full of wooden boxes holding an impressive collection of springs, levers, rods, pins, screws, and cogs. Other shelves held hundreds of thick books bound in leather. A large iron stove sat on the far side of the room with a bin of coal beside it. A bellows affixed to the side was powered by a clockwork mechanism. The room stank of rust, must, and dust.
Thorny said, “Anza was only a baby when Burke arrived. He needed an assistant to build all this. I showed up a few months after he did. I was a former slave with no place to call home. I’d been trained to read and write, so Burke hired me to assist him in making this workshop. It’s sort of a combination of foundry, library, and apothecary all rolled into one.”
“You were a slave?” Shay asked.
“Long ago,” said Thorny. “I used to serve as a living quill to the biologian Bazanel before he changed his position on slavery and freed me. Still, my ruined hands bear testimony to my service to him. I was made to write until every bone in my hands ached, and would face whippings if I failed to keep pace with Bazanel’s nearly endless speeches and lectures. I take it, judging from your garb, that you were once a slave at the College of Spires?”
“I served Chapelion himself.”
“Ah. You must have escaped. Chapelion would never willingly free a slave.”
Shay nodded. “Chapelion’s convinced that slavery is of benefit to mankind. He believes that people wouldn’t long survive in the world in direct competition with dragons—only by serving dragons can humans endure. I know the argument well. I was the living quill that recorded every word of his five volume history of human bondage, Slavery as an Evolutionary Strategy.”
“Isn’t it risky to trust his words defending human slavery to be recorded accurately by a slave?” asked Jandra.
“Chapelion doesn’t see it this way. Dogs are carnivores, with the instinct to hunt, yet they’re trained by men to protect sheep and cattle. They’re even trusted as companions for human children, though a wolf would regard the same child as a meal. Chapelion trusted me with his words the way men trust dogs with their families.”
“You’re lucky you escaped before you were used up,” Thorny said. “These days, I can’t even button my own clothes.”
During this discussion, Anza had her arms crossed. She looked impatient. Thorny, apparently sensing this, said, “I should get a wagon from the barn to load Burke’s inventory. Since we’re abandoning the place, the rest of you can look around and see if there’s anything you want to take. If you don’t grab it, the dragons will. I’ll wake some of the other men to help; it looks like you all could use some rest.”
He and Anza moved toward twin wooden doors on the southern wall. She pulled them open to reveal a long tunnel leading up. Unlike the steep stairs, the tunnel had a gentle slope. Anza grabbed a lantern and stayed at Thorny’s side as they walked toward the far end of the brick lined tunnel. Vance trailed after them. Shay remained in the workshop, taking books from the shelves and reverently looking at their title pages. Jandra decided to stay behind as well. She’d witnessed Burke’s handiwork at Dragon Forge, and was intrigued by the unfamiliar tools that lay around the room.
Fresh air swirled into the room as Anza and the others reached the end of the tunnel and opened the broad doors. Jandra looked up the long shaft, seeing starlight.
Shay let out a gasp. Jandra looked at him. He was in front of the bookshelf.
“By the bones!” said Shay. “He has all seven!”
“All seven what?”
“The Potter biographies! The College of Spires only had five of the volumes . . . four now, since I stole one.”
“What’s so special about these books?” She picked up one of the fat tomes and flipped it open.
“Potter was a member of a race of wizards who lived in the last days of the Human Age,” said Shay.
Jandra frowned as she flipped through the pages. “Are you certain this isn’t fiction?” she asked.
“The books are presented as fiction,” said Shay. “However, there are other artifacts that reveal their reality. I wouldn’t expect you to know about photographs, but—”
“I know what a photograph is,” she said. In truth, the goddess knew what a photograph was, and Jandra was only borrowing the memory.
“Photographs recorded the physical world, and a handful of photographs of this famous wizard still survive. Some show him in flight on his . . .” His voice trailed off. He turned toward Jandra, studying her face carefully. She knew what he was about to ask.
“Is it true you know magic? That you and your master Vendevorex command supernatural forces? Are you one of the secret race?” His voice was quiet as he asked this, his tone almost reverential.
Jandra twisted a strand of hair around her finger as she contemplated her answer. When she still had her genie and could turn invisible, or disintegrate solid matter, or heal almost any wound, she’d always been quick to deny that she possessed supernatural powers. She’d shunned the label witch. Now, stripped of these powers, it might be dangerous to deny them. Having people believe you commanded supernatural forces was a kind of power in its own right.
She decided to answer his question with a question. “How did Potter control his magic?”
“With a wand and words. Is this how you use your magic?”
Jandra was intrigued. Her genie could take on any shape she desired. Why not the form of a wand? Of course, she’d never needed any magic words—the genie responded her thoughts. Still . . . could this Potter have been a nanotechnician? Perhaps one of the Atlanteans Vendevorex had warned her about?
She knew little about Atlantis, but perhaps Shay knew more. “Have you ever heard of Atlantis?”
“Certainly,” said Shay. “It’s referenced in . . .”
His voice trialed off. He cocked his head toward the tunnel.
Jandra tilted her head as well. What was that noise? Was someone screaming?
Now, there could be no doubt. It was Thorny’s voice they heard as he ran toward the tunnel doors. He stumbled as he reached the slope, falling on his chest, the air forced out of him. He rose to his knees, sucking in breath. The entire workshop echoed as he shouted, in a high, panicked voice, “Dragons!”
CHAPTER SIX
* * *
A VICTORY, MORE OR LESS
JANDRA RAN UP THE TUNNEL, shotgun at the ready. She stopped in front of Thorny, who was still sprawled on the ground. She glanced over her shoulder at Shay, whose face was pale as he trailed behind her.
“You ever been in a fight?” she asked.
“Once,” Shay said.
“You win?”
“I survived,” said Shay. “Because of Bitterwood.”
“Bitterwood?” Jandra took Thorny’s twisted fingers into her hand as she helped him back to his feet. “You’ve met him?”
“‘Met’ really isn’t the right word,” said Shay. “I watched as three slavecatchers who were brought down by an archer I never saw. The slavecatchers thought it was him, though.”
“Sounds like him.” She nodded toward the gun in Shay’s hands. “Burke’s placing a lot of faith in you. You think you’re up to this?”
Shay clenched his jaw. “Let’s do it.”
Jandra gave Thorny a gentle shove back down the tunnel. “Lock the doors behind you,” she said.
“I’d be out there if I could still hold a sword,” Thorny said mournfully as he loped down the slope.
In the distance, Jandra heard a woman screaming. She turned toward the sound and ran out into the starry night. A half moon cast stark shadows over the town. The bare branches of a nearby apple tree swayed in a rising wind. She spun around, trying to get her bearings. The Forge Road was almost a hundred yards behind her. She ran, staying in the shadows of Burke’s tavern. Dozens of earth-dragons swarmed on the road, their steel armor glinting in the moonlight. Beyond the tavern lay a simple stone cottage. She watched as a trio of brawny earth-dragons kicked in the door and charged inside. A dog barked savagely at the invasion, then yelped and fell silent. Somewhere in the distance, a baby was crying.
Jandra pressed her back against the tavern wall, mere feet from the road. The earth-dragons hadn’t spotted her yet. There were too many to count, a hundred at least, maybe twice that number. Even though this town hadn’t been stripped of its men by Ragnar’s recruiting, the villagers were still hopelessly outnumbered.
Jandra fingered the silver bracelet on her wrist. Should she turn invisible? The shotgun was a powerful weapon. Burke assured her it would punch through a dragon’s armor. But it took so long to reload. After one or two shots, she’d be swarmed. From an invisible fighting stance, perhaps she’d have a chance. On the other hand, invisibility wasn’t the greatest tool against earth-dragons. As a race, they were notoriously near-sighted. They compensated with sharp hearing and a sense of smell far superior to humans. The shotgun was loud and the smoke stank. It wouldn’t take them long to find her.
She looked over her shoulder to see if Shay was behind her. He was nowhere to be seen. In the distance, there was a clap like thunder. He’d apparently found a place to make his stand. Many dragons in the street paused at the sound, turning their heads toward a nearby barn.
The brief moment of inactivity quickly gave way to resumed violence. One of the earth-dragons glanced in her direction. He cocked his head as he untangled the shadows that concealed her, and then narrowed his eyes. He lifted his battle axe in meaty paws and stalked toward her. Jandra raised her gun.
She never got the chance to fire. The dragon toppled as a silver tomahawk dug into the back of its neck. As the dragon fell, Anza was revealed, standing in the middle of the street, a second tomahawk in her left hand, her right hand going for one of the throwing knives strapped to her leg. Anza spun on her toes and whipped out her arms. Two more dragons toppled as she released her weapons. A score of dragons all looked her way. As one, they raised their axes and charged.
Anza drew the longsword from the scabbard slung over her back. In her left hand, she produced a smaller, curved blade. A dragon neared. Before it reached her, an arrow flew down from above and punched through the dragon’s breast plate with a loud thunk. The dragon dropped to his knees as a ZING rang out and a second dragon that neared Anza suddenly had an arrow in its belly.
Bitterwood? thought Jandra.
There was another ZING and Jandra realized where she’d heard the sound before. It was a sky-wall bow. Vance was on the roof of Burke’s Tavern, slaying dragons with every shot. The kid really was as good as Burke claimed.
Anza also proved worthy of her reputation. Even as Vance slew a half dozen dragons in under a minute, there was a crowd of the scaly soldiers mere yards from Anza, with more approaching. Anza faced them calmly, her face utterly devoid of emotion.
Anza’s arms were close to her chest. She crouched down, looking small against the backdrop of the brutish earth-dragons. She was taller than Jandra, but still had the slim, willowy build of a girl in her late teens. Any one of the dragons surrounding her outweighed her three to one. All were armored in heavy plate, while she wore only buckskin.
Jandra raised her shotgun, wondering how close she could aim to Anza without risking hitting her.
Before she could pull the trigger, Anza unfolded, a motion that reminded Jandra of a flower blossoming, but at the speed of an arrow leaving a bow. Anza’s blades flashed in the moonlight, and suddenly the turtle-like head of one earth-dragon was freed from the shoulders that held it. The axe-hand of a second dropped to the ground, leaving its owner staring wide-eyed at a blood-spurting stump.
As Vance continued to rain arrows down upon the dragons, Anza began to whirl like a dervish. Dragons dropped around her in a neat circle. Their bloodied bodies formed a small wall that the other dragons would have to step over. She stopped spinning, as the remaining dragons hesitated, their jaws agape as they looked down at their slain brethren.
In the distance, there was a second BOOM. Jandra grimaced. If Shay was killing more dragons than she was, she wasn’t pulling her weight. She darted onto the porch. The horses were gone. Perhaps they’d fled when the invasion began—she hoped that Lizard was okay.
She paused at the door to the tavern and smacked the shingle Anza had pressed earlier. She charged through the open door and turned, looking out into the street. She raised her shotgun and fired into the crowd of dragons. She slammed the door shut without waiting to see the result of her shot, running to the stairs that led to the second story. At the top, there was an open trapdoor to the roof. A ladder was leaned against the opening. She climbed the ladder and found Vance. He startled as he heard her step onto the flat roof and spun around, an arrow drawn. She flinched, knowing that this was a stupid way to die. She relaxed as Vance lowered the bow.
“Whew!” he said. “Good thing I’m running out of arrows. A minute ago I’d have shot first and figured out what I hit later.”
“How many arrows are left?” Jandra asked, running to the edge of the roof.
“Three,” said Vance.
“Burke needs to build bigger quivers,” said Jandra, looking down into the street below. There had to be at least fifty dragons circled around Anza. Who knew how many were unseen, in the houses of villagers, bringing havoc?
Yet, Anza wasn’t completely alone. There was another blast, much closer, as Shay fired again. Some dragons behind Anza dropped. Jandra didn’t know where Shay was, but apparently he was holding his own. Further down the road, she saw a half-dozen humans banded together. They were middle-aged men with longswords similar to the one Anza used. While they were dressed in nightgowns, they did have helmets and shields. They charged a small band of dragons near the barn and joined battle.
The pile of dragons around Anza had grown. There were at least thirty corpses. Jandra felt an acute sense of her own inadequacy. Two weeks ago, she could have rained Vengeance of the Ancestors, a disintegrating flame, down upon these dragons with the speed of thought. She reloaded her shotgun, counting the long seconds. Vance perched on the edge of the roof, his arrow drawn, but held his fire.
“What are you waiting for?” Jandra asked.
“Anza’s amazing, but she ain’t got eyes in the back of her head,” said Vance. “I gotta put my last three shots into dragons attacking where she can’t see them.”
Jandra nodded. “Good strategy. I’m going to be messier.”
She brought the shotgun to her shoulder and took a bead on the thickest cluster of dragons she could find. With a flash and a thunderclap, the gun rained down a shower of deadly missiles. Four dragons were staggered by the blast, one falling over, the other three clutching at the wounds that suddenly peppered their shoulders. They looked toward the rooftop, squinting. A dragon pointed toward Jandra and barked, “Up there!” A dozen dragons broke from the crowd and thundered onto the porch. The whole building shuddered as they kicked at the door. Burke’s engineering held better than most of the other doors in town, but she could still hear woodwork splintering with each kick.
“Vance,” said Jandra as she pushed another gunpowder charge down the barrel with her ramrod, “Why don’t you go pull up the ladder?”
“Good idea.” He ran back across the flat roof to the trap door. He crouched over the ladder and grabbed it, as another voice yelled, “Hold on!”
“Shay?” asked Vance.
“I saw you on the roof,” said Shay, panting as he bolted up the ladder. “Thought I’d join you. Things were getting hot in the stables. That’s not a joke. The stables are on fire.”
Jandra could see the flickers of flame from a building several doors down. The odor of burning hay and dung flavored the night air. She squeezed the trigger again and every odor but the sharp kick of gunpowder vanished. As the smoke cleared, she saw three more dragons had fallen. Perhaps hoping Anza would be distracted by the blast, a pair of dragons lunged, swinging axes. With a flurry of silver blades, the barrier of corpses surrounding Anza grew by two. Shay fired his shotgun, and another dragon fell. By now, the band of armed villagers had proven victorious in their initial skirmish and were shouting for blood as they charged toward the tavern.
The earth-dragons below looked frightened and confused. Anza circled slowly within her knee-high fortress of armored corpses. Vance’s sky-wall bow sang out as a dragon behind Anza lifted its axe, preparing for a charge. The dragon fell, and the dragon next to him spun on his heels and ran, his thick tail jutting straight out behind him.
Jandra finished loading her gun and fired. By chance, Shay fired at precisely the same instant. The twin blast was deafening. Amidst the smoke, Jandra couldn’t tell how many they’d hit, but when the air cleared, full blown panic had seized most of the remaining soldiers. Only a handful nearest to Anza weren’t running, either braver than their brethren, or dumber. Jandra reloaded. Vance targeted a dragon with one of his two remaining arrows. ZING!
Shay reveled in the apparent victory, standing right at the edge of the roof. “Ha!” he shouted, holding his gun over his head. “Run you green-scaled bastards! Run from the light of a new human dawn!”
The moonlight grew dim as a shadow fell over the roof.
“How poetic,” a voice said, as blue talons shot down from the sky and snatched the shotgun from Shay’s grasp. Spreading its wings wide, a sky-dragon dropped to the roof behind them.
“Vulpine!” Shay shouted as he twisted around, his voice changing from triumph to despair.
Vance swung around with his final arrow, drawing a bead on the new arrival, but before he could complete the movement a second blue form shot down toward the roof. The sky-blue crocodilian jaws of a second sky-dragon clamped onto Vance’s face. The momentum of the impact jerked Vance from the roof. The sky-dragon released the young archer and Vance dropped twenty feet onto the hard-packed earth below. He landed on his head with a sickening crunch. His arms fell limply to his sides as he stared up with unfocused eyes, his face bleeding from twin rows of puncture wounds.
Anza leapt to attack the remaining dragons that surrounded her, but Jandra didn’t have time to watch. The sky-dragon who’d attacked Vance was wheeling back around toward the roof, his jaws wide, a satisfied look in his eyes as it targeted Jandra. Jandra pulled the ramrod from her shotgun, having just finished tamping down the shot. She raised her gun. The dragon’s open jaws were only yards away when she pulled the trigger. The gap closed as the fuse sputtered.
Half a second later, there was a tremendous amount of smoke and noise. Jandra was knocked from her feet as the dragon’s now headless corpse crashed into her. The wind gushed from her lungs as the wet, twitching body pressed her down into the tarred boards of the roof. As she kicked and rolled to get free, Vulpine chuckled softly. Shay made a pained squeak, a noise like a kitten getting stepped on. At last, she crawled free of the corpse. Still on her knees, she wiped hot blood from her eyes as she tried to make sense of what was happening.
Shay was pressed flat on the roof, face down, with Vulpine’s hind-talon pinning the back of his neck. Vulpine was searching Shay, his long serpentine neck swaying back and forth. He held Shay’s shotgun in one of his fore-talons. He’d pulled free the belt that contained the bags of powder and shot. The sky-dragon sniffed the flash pan of the gun, his nostrils suddenly contracting, as if he found the smell unpleasant.
“An interesting toy, Shay,” said Vulpine. “But not the grand prize. Where are the books?”
“I’ll . . . never . . . tell,” Shay said, straining to breathe.
Smoke was starting to rise from the trapdoor that opened onto the roof. Had the earth-dragons who’d charged in earlier set the place on fire? Jandra had to admit it was a rather straightforward approach to dealing with snipers on the roof.
Vulpine eyed Jandra as she tried to stand.
“Girl, if you move another inch, I’ll kill you.”
Jandra glanced down at the silver bracelet on her wrist. She still had one chance . . .
There was creaking noise behind Vulpine. Two sets of human fingertips grasped the edges of the open trapdoor to the roof. The hands were small, tanned, and female. Anza’s head appeared above the edge as she pulled herself up.
Jandra’s felt a tremendous sense of relief. Short of Bitterwood, Anza was the person she most wanted on the roof beside her.
Vulpine calmly pulled Shay’s head backward and slammed it down, hard. Shay went limp as Vulpine leapt toward the trap door. He kicked out with his hind-talons, aiming for Anza’s face. Anza ducked, letting her body drop back down into the room below, but maintaining her grasp on the edges of the hole. Vulpine grabbed the wooden door, which was held up by a pole, knocked the pole free, and then slammed it down. Anza let go a fraction of a second before the wood could crush her fingers.
Sparks swirled up from the sudden rush of air. The roof was growing hot. Thick smoke poured from the sides of the building. The fire beneath them roared as the winter wind whipped through shattered windows.
Jandra didn’t waste the handful of seconds Vulpine was distracted by Anza. She shoved in the wad containing the gunpowder. She was ramming down the shot when Vulpine turned toward her.
“I told you not to move,” he snarled. “I saw how your toy worked,” he said, pointing the shotgun toward her with his fore-talon. He flinched slightly as he pulled the trigger, no doubt anticipating the explosion. However, the flintlock shot its sparks into an empty chamber. Shay had never reloaded. Vulpine looked baffled as Jandra pulled the ramrod free. She pressed the gun into her shoulder as she snarled, “This is how it works!”
Before her finger could twitch on the trigger, Vulpine spun. His long, whip-like tail struck the barrel of her gun as she fired. When the smoke cleared, Vulpine was still standing, looking amused. He leapt toward her, his jaws open wide. Jandra swung the iron barrel of her shotgun up, grasping the metal with both hands. The just-fired gun burned her fingers as she jammed it sideways into Vulpine’s mouth, blocking his bite. The slavecatcher knocked her backwards, pushing her closer to the edge of the roof. Though his teeth were blocked, the sky-dragon still bristled with natural weaponry. He kicked his hind-talon into Jandra’s gut and raked . . . snapping the tips of his claws. Jandra was grateful that Burke had insisted she wear the chain-mail vest beneath her coat.
“No eat!” a small voice cried. The slavecatcher hissed and staggered backwards as Lizard leapt from his hiding place near the chimney and landed on Vulpine’s back, claws digging in, his turtle-beak clamping onto Vulpine’s shoulder blade.
Vulpine snarled, whipping his tail up, knocking Lizard free. “Enough of this madness.” Vulpine leapt for the sky, the downbeat of his twenty-foot wingspan fanning the smoke. A dozen small fires erupted across the wooden roof.
Jandra tried to reload, but it was hopeless. Vulpine lifted further into the sky with each second. By the time she was ready to fire again, he was hundreds of yards away. Still, they’d chased off the most notorious slavecatcher in the kingdom. She would count this as a victory, more or less.
Lizard leapt onto Jandra’s shoulders. “Bad hot,” he said, looking at the flames.
“It’s okay,” said Jandra, going over to Shay. She wasn’t certain if it was her imagination, but the roof felt shakier than it had earlier. The earth-dragons couldn’t have set the fire more than five minutes ago. Even with the wind, should there be this much structural damage already? Almost in answer, something beneath her groaned, then crashed. She wondered if Anza had made it out.
“Shay!” she cried, kneeling beside him. She shook his shoulders.
He groaned as he opened his eyes. There was a large gash across this chin. He coughed violently as he sat up in the ever worsening smoke. He looked disoriented. “Where’s Vulpine?” he asked.
“Gone,” said Jandra. “I think he was rattled that my gun worked and his didn’t. Lizard pounced on him like a bob-cat and Vulpine turned tail.”
“Wait. His gun?”
“He took yours. Your ammo too. I hope he’s not clever enough to figure out how to use it.” Shay looked like this was a dumb thing for Jandra to say. “I’ll cling to any hope I can get at the moment, false or not. You may have noticed we’re on top of a burning building. And, unlike that wizard you mentioned earlier, I’ve never been able to fly.”
“Good thing Vance dragged up the ladder then,” said Shay, rising. “We can get down to the porch roof with this, then down to the ground.”
Jandra nodded. It was a sound plan. Shay lowered the ladder to the roof and held it as he motioned for her to go first. It was an unexpected gesture. The two human men she was most familiar with, Bitterwood and Pet, would have escaped down the ladder first and left her to fend for herself.
“Hurry,” he said.
Jandra descended the ladder. Anza was in the street again, crouched over Vance. There were no sign of any living dragons in either direction down the Forge Road. Human families were now rushing into the street, running from house to house to check on the wounded and count the dead.
Shay came down the ladder to the porch roof. The heat from the open windows made it hard to breathe. They lowered the ladder to the street and climbed down, then ran to Vance’s side.
“Is he okay?” Jandra asked Anza. Anza looked up, frowning. She shook her head.
Vance’s eyes were wide open, fully dilated, focused on nothing. He was bleeding from a gash on his scalp. “Why is it so dark?” he whispered. “Why is it so dark?”
Jandra turned away, utterly powerless. With her genie, she could have looked inside Vance to discover the nature of his injury. She could have repaired whatever damage she discovered from the cellular level up. She looked back toward the tavern as the roof collapsed, sending a whirlwind of flames heavenward. “Thorny!” she said. “He’s still in the basement!”
She tossed her shotgun to Shay. “This will only slow me down.” She took off running, darting down the alley that led behind the tavern. She looked up as a shadow flickered overhead—Vulpine?—but it was only the smoke blotting out the moon. She tripped as she reached the back of the ally, landing hard, skidding in the dirt. Lizard’s weight on her shoulder vanished as he flew off. A darker shadow fell over her. The hairs on the back of her neck rose at the metallic clank to her right. From the corner of her eye, she saw the thick, scaly foot of an adult earth-dragon.
She rolled as the earth-dragon grunted. A battle-axe bit into the earth where she’d been an instant before. The earth-dragon was dressed in full battle gear, breast plate, helmet, shield.
“Bad boss!” shrieked Lizard, sounding terrified.
The earth-dragon growled as he pulled the axe free of the cold ground, brandishing it above his head to strike again. Jandra kept her eyes fixed on her attacker. As he swung, she rolled again, to the side of the blow. Earth-dragons were strong, but not especially fast, definitely not under a full load of armor. Jandra braced her back against the ground and kicked up with both feet, targeting the dragon’s elbow. Her feet connected with a satisfying crunch and the dragon hissed as its talon released the axe handle. The beast staggered back, pain flashing in its eyes. Just as quickly, the pain turned to rage. The dragon dropped his shield and lunged, his free talon aimed at Jandra’s face. Jandra again rolled away, using her momentum to spring to her feet as the earth-dragon landed with a clatter on the spot where she’d been.
She leapt over his body before he could rise, grabbing the axe buried in the ground. The weapon was impractically heavy, probably fifty pounds. Before the genie tuned her body, there was no way she could have swung it. She spun around, letting momentum add to the strength of her swing. The dragon was raising his head as she sunk the axe into the back of his neck, just below the helmet. The force of the blow tore the weapon from her hand. She looked down, wincing at the large black splinter buried in her palm.
The dragon collapsed, lifeless. Lizard skittered forward and poked the half-decapitated earth-dragon on the beak.
“Not move?” he asked.
“Not move,” she said.
She turned as she heard footsteps behind her. It was Shay. He looked at the dead dragon, wide-eyed. “Are you all right? I heard a fight.”
“I have a splinter,” she said, holding up her palm. Her words were drowned out by a loud crash from inside the tavern. Sparks shot from every window. The fire roared as the wind whipped it into an ever-growing fury. Jandra scooped up Lizard and cradled him against her breast as she ran toward the tunnel. Shay followed at her heels. Her eyes searched the shadows for any further sign of dragon-stragglers.
“Thorny!” she yelled as she reached the tunnel doors. There was a small pile of clutter next to the tunnel, boxes full of tools, several round dials, their faces covered with numbers, plus stacks of notebooks, and vials of unrecognizable fluids.
“Thorny!” Shay shouted, using his hands as a megaphone. No one answered.
“Come on,” said Jandra, running down the tunnel. The doors at the end were closed, but reddish-orange light danced through the gaps. The air was distinctly smoky. Before they could approach the doors burst open, sending forth a blast of heat and a cloud of smoke. A tall, black-haired girl in buckskins with an old man slung over her shoulders marched out of the cloud.
“Anza?” Shay asked. Anza gave a slight smirk, as if to ask who else he might have been expecting. Thorny coughed violently. Anza marched up the slope, breathing evenly. Her buckskins were splattered shoulder to ankle in blood, but as near as Jandra could determine, Anza didn’t have a scratch on her.
“But . . . you were just in the street,” Shay said, following Anza. “How did. . . ?”
Behind them, there was another crash, and another wave of smoke gushed up the tunnel, hiding everything from view. Jandra found the tunnel wall and held her breath as she groped her way back toward fresh air. Behind her in Burke’s workshops, things began to pop and sizzle in small explosions. Over this noise came a series of powerful twangs as springs began to burst free of the braces that held them.
Jandra made it outside and took a deep breath of the relatively clean air. She looked toward the tavern. Red hot iron rods six feet long were shooting up into the air, rising a hundred feet before they fell back toward the burning building, already losing their glow. The heat of the flames could be felt even here. The human villagers gathered around to gawk as the building began to tremble. Something deep within the guts of the building exploded with a deep bass rumble and the entire structure fell in upon itself. Jandra stepped away from the tunnel entrance as a jet of sparks shot out into the night air.
“Good light!” Lizard said, excited. The sparks swirled up into the winter sky like some sort of reverse snow. Jandra did have to admit that, stripped of all the horrors of the night, the sparks possessed a sort of primal beauty.
Shay stared down the tunnel, his face forlorn. “All those books,” he whispered. “Have I been cursed? Why does every book I touch lately go up in flames?”
“It’s just bad luck,” said Jandra.
“It’s more than bad luck,” said Shay. “It’s the end of my dreams. I had no plan but to escape to Dragon Forge. Now that I’m not welcome there, I don’t know where I’ll go. I had thought perhaps, with a few books, I could find some village that would want my services as a teacher. Without books, what do I have to offer?”
“You could come with me the rest of the way to the palace,” said Jandra. “If I get my tiara back, we can move freely through the place since I’ll have full control over my invisibility again. You can take all the books you can carry.”
“So . . . you admit you’re a wizard?”
“No,” said Jandra. “I’m a nanotechnician.”
“I don’t know what that word means,” said Shay.
“It means I command unimaginably tiny machines,” said Jandra. “At least, I used to.”
Shay looked at her skeptically, as if judging whether she was putting him on. He held the shotgun he carried out toward her. Jandra shook her head and loosened her gun belt, offering it to him.
“You keep it. You have a talent for it.”
Anza had laid Thorny on the grass after she’d carried him from the tunnel, but now the old man was back on his feet, his cheeks tarnished with soot. “Damn,” he said. “I didn’t get a tenth of the stuff on his list. If I were younger, or my hands a little stronger . . .”
Anza flashed him a few rapid hand gestures.
“You’re right,” he said. “I’m alive. That’s what counts.”
“You understand Anza a lot better than I do,” said Jandra.
“She grew up in my company,” said Thorny. “I’m like an uncle to her. By the time she was seven or eight, I never even thought much about the fact she didn’t speak. Once you know how to read her, she gets her thoughts across just fine with her eyes and her hands.”
“She’s never talked?” Shay asked.
“She made some noises as a baby, but stopped when she was about a year old. After that, she didn’t even make sounds when she’d cry. Some of the townsfolk whispered that she might be an imbecile, but anyone who knew her could see that she was smarter than other kids her age. Burke used to tell anyone who asked about her that it’s better to be silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.”
Anza crossed her arms, looking uncomfortable with this discussion.
“I guess I should go talk to the rest of the townsfolk,” Thorny said. “Tell ‘em what I know, have them get ready to head to Dragon Forge. Get Burke his notebooks and those gauges. The note said the rest of you were heading on to the dragon palace. We can probably find somewhere in the village where you can rest up for what’s left of the night. Get you washed up, too. Anza, you look a fright.”
Anza shrugged and brushed back a loose lock of her hair from her cheek, leaving a streak of dark blood like war paint.
CHAPTER SEVEN
* * *
SUCH IMAGINATION
IT WAS DAWN when Vulpine arrived at the Dragon Palace. The ancient structure loomed like a small mountain near the banks of a broad river that gleamed like silver in the morning mist. The human city of Richmond lay nearby, the docks already bustling with laborers. The rebellion at Dragon Forge must seem very distant to these men, thought Vulpine. Richmond was a bustling center of trade, a gateway between the flat coastal plains to the east and the hills and mountains to the west. Thirty thousand humans dwelled in Richmond, by far the largest city in the kingdom.
Even though Richmond lay in the shadow of the Dragon Palace, it had escaped Albekizan’s genocidal schemes unscathed. Albekizan had drawn upon the labor of the humans here when he built the Free City not ten miles distant. The Free City had been designed by Albekizan’s wicked brother Blasphet to serve as a trap for humanity, a promise of paradise that was actually intended to bring about the final solution to the human problem. Yet, in the end, the trap did more damage to dragons than men. The first wave of humans brought to the city had fought back when Albekizan ordered their slaughter, led by the legendary dragon-hunter Bitterwood, aided by the treacherous wizard Vendevorex. During all this turmoil, the men of Richmond had simply carried on with business, keeping the canals open, buying and selling goods. Every scrap of lumber, every nail and hammer used to build the Free City had passed through these docks.
Vulpine had considered Albekizan’s plan to wipe out humanity sheer madness. As a slavecatcher, he was keenly aware that dragon society was built upon the labor of humans. None of the three dragon races could ever replace them.
Earth-dragons were fit only for lives as soldiers; blacksmiths were the closest thing to artisans that their race had ever produced. There was no earth-dragon sculpture or literature, and earth-dragon music was barely distinguishable from noise. Earth-dragon cuisine was even more abominable—all pickled sausages and salted meat, spiced to eye-watering heat. Earth-dragons could never replace the skills of human farmers, carpenters, and craftsmen.
Of course, his own species was a poor substitute for human labor as well. Most sky-dragon males were averse to actual work. The majority devoted their lives to scholarship. Over the centuries they had produced poems, statues, operas, and lengthy treatises on every topic under the sun. They’d filled libraries and museums with their creations; but every one of those libraries had been built by the labors of men. The diet of sky-dragons was more sophisticated than earth-dragons—fish, fresh fruit, crusty bread, and vegetables in a rainbow of colors—and all of this was grown by human farmers and cooked by human slaves.
Vulpine had become a slavecatcher because it was one of the few professions available to his race that truly mattered. Slavecatchers were the invisible glue that held the world together. They were greatly feared among men. Their reputation for brutality was well deserved, but it did not spring from any innate cruelty. The poets, artists, and musicians of the world would starve if not for the work of slavecatchers. Men benefited from the system as well, as strict discipline allowed the war-prone humans to live in relative peace. Without the valiant efforts of slavecatchers, the world would spin into anarchy.
Who else kept order? The sun-dragons? Albekizan and his incompetent heir Shandrazel had done the world far more harm than good. Albekizan had triggered the human uprising with his inept attempt at genocide. Shandrazel had allowed the problem to explode by showing weakness, allowing a ragtag band of humans to defeat his army at Dragon Forge. Albekizan had lit a fire; Shandrazel had poured oil upon it. It was left to Vulpine to squelch the flames.
Fortunately, he would not be without allies. Aside from the slavecatchers, there was one more small subset of sky-dragon males willing to dirty their talons: the aerial guard, a hundred or so sky-dragons who served as protectors of the Dragon Palace.
It was these guards who now rose into the sky. A dozen of them quickly assumed an arrow formation and shot in his direction, ready to defend the palace. The living wall of sky-dragon guards that closed quickly in on Vulpine made his heart glad. It was such a waste that his brethren devoted themselves to studies and art—a martial sky-dragon was a glorious thing, a hundred pounds of muscle, bones, and scale that commanded the air like no other creature on earth. The members of the aerial guard were especially impressive. Red and yellow ribbons trailed from the mane of blue scales that ran down their necks and backs, coloration that matched the banners of Albekizan that still adorned the palace. In their hind-talons, the aerial guard carried long-spears, their razor-sharp tips dazzling in the morning sun.
The eyes of the aerial guard were hard as they neared. One by one, their gazes softened as they recognized Vulpine. Seventy years old, Vulpine was well known to all sky-dragons. He’d been Slavecatcher General for nearly thirty years, and he’d been present for the initiation of every last one of these dragons. All carried a two-inch long, talon-shaped scar below their right eye—a scar made by a branding iron that Vulpine himself had wielded, marking them forever as warriors.
“Greetings, warrior,” Vulpine called out to Sagen, the lead guard. Sagen was a fine specimen, his muscles moving beneath his azure scales like precisely-tuned machinery. Sagen was the product of one of the most respected bloodlines of the sky-dragons—his own. Breeding was strictly controlled among the sky-dragons, with all pairings guided by the Matriarch to capture the most worthy traits of the sky-dragon race. The upbringing of sky-dragons was strictly communitarian; they didn’t form family units like humans or sun-dragons. While most sky-dragons knew their lineage, their loyalty was to their race, not their relatives. Still, Vulpine had always had an interest in each of his many offspring, and Sagen had made him especially proud when he’d embraced the warrior’s path and begun his meteoric rise in the ranks of the aerial guard.
Vulpine and Sagen began to gyre in a tight orbit, looking across a circle little wider than their combined wingspans as the other guards spread out into a wider circle.
“Sir,” said Sagen, with a respectful nod of his head. “What is the purpose of this visit?”
“I’ve come to see the High Biologian,” Vulpine said.
“Androkom is . . . unavailable at the moment,” said Sagen.
“You can speak the truth,” said Vulpine. “I know that Androkom is either dead or in a dungeon. Chapelion should have arrived days ago with a squadron of valkyries from the Nest to overthrow him. The Matriarch opposed the appointment of Androkom as High Biologian due to his flawed bloodline. Chapelion was her choice; I assume you now serve him, though I understand that he may not yet be ready to announce this news.”
Sagen looked thoughtful as he continued to fly in his counter orbit, contemplating his answer. Vulpine assumed his son was under orders not to admit that Chapelion had accomplished his coup. At last, Sagen said, “I cannot confirm your speculations, sir. I can acknowledge that Chapelion is currently a guest of the palace. I can personally provide you with safe escort to see him.”
“Of course,” said Vulpine, and the two broke from their gyre. Sagen barked out orders to his fellow guards and flew ahead, leading them toward the great open amphitheatre that served as the throne room of the sun-dragon king.
Vulpine opened his wings and tilted backward to slow himself, skidding ungracefully as he landed on the polished marble floor. He was tired from his flight through the night; the weapon he’d taken from Shay was slung over his shoulder and its weight threw him off balance. The amphitheatre was a half dome open to the west, which meant its interior was still in shadows in early morning. Torches lined the walls, flickering in the breeze stirred up by their landing.
At the head of the hall, seated atop a mound of golden cushions large enough for a sun-dragon, was a familiar blue form: Chapelion, master of the College of Spires. He was flanked on each side by a score of valkyries, female sky-dragons dedicated to the military arts.
Chapelion was younger than Vulpine by seven years, though a casual observer might not have guessed this. Vulpine had spent much of his life outdoors. Fresh air and exercise had left Vulpine stronger than many sky-dragons half his age, and a life on the hunt had left him with his senses sharpened. Chapelion, having lived a more sedentary life indoors, was pot-bellied with spindly limbs. His hide sagged on his frame. A lifetime of reading by lantern light had dulled Chapelion’s eyes. He compensated with a pair of specially designed spectacles that sat atop his broad snout.
Chapelion’s head was lowered as he scanned across several large rolls of parchment laid out on the floor before him. A trio of younger sky-dragons surrounded the elder biologian, quills in hand, jotting notes as he mumbled. Vulpine was so used to seeing tall, red-headed Shay in this role that his absence felt odd.
“Chapelion!” Vulpine shouted out in greeting. His voice echoed in the vast room; Chapelion was becoming hard of hearing in his old age, so Vulpine was used to adjusting his tone.
The dragon looked up, peering over the rim of his spectacles. He lifted his neck, looking more alert as he recognized Vulpine. “Old friend,” said Chapelion. “I’m happy to see you! I assume you’ve recovered my books?”
“No,” Vulpine said, drawing closer to the throne. He could see now that the pages spread before Chapelion were copies of maps, the ink still fresh. “Unfortunately, I bring you neither books, nor slaves. Hemming and Turpin are dead. Shay survives; I encountered him last night, but made the tactical decision to retreat.”
“What?” Chapelion said. At first, Vulpine thought he hadn’t spoken loudly enough; then he realized that Chapelion didn’t believe what he’d heard. “You fled from Shay? You let my books remain with him? In all the years I’ve known you, this is the first time you’ve ever reported such failure.”
Vulpine grimaced. “I said that I retreated, not that I fled. In truth, my encounter with Shay was pure accident. He didn’t have the books with him; if he had, I’d have secured them. However, I feel confident we shall catch him soon. He was in the company of Jandra.”
A deep furrow appeared in Chapelion’s brow. “Jandra? Should I know this name?”
“You should,” said Vulpine. “Jandra was the human child that Vendevorex raised from infancy. I’ve heard she isn’t his equal as a wizard, but she’s still in command of formidable forces. I was traveling with Balikan and he was killed by Jandra. I had defeated Shay and was about to slay Jandra when a third combatant ambushed me from behind. I knocked him away but never saw him; he must have been invisible, a power attributed to the wizard.”
“Yes,” said Chapelion. “I’ve seen Vendevorex turn invisible.” He paused, raising his fore-talon to stroke beneath his chin. “That sentence doesn’t sound accurate,” he said, softly, speaking to himself. “I watched him turn invisible? Does that sound better?” Chapelion’s voice trailed off as he mulled over the question in his head.
Vulpine waited patiently. Conversations with Chapelion were like this; a lifetime of dictating manuscripts had left him constantly editing his thoughts, especially if he was tired or distracted. Catch Chapelion in the wrong state of mind, and a conversation that should take but a moment could turn into an hour long ordeal.
“I understand your meaning,” Vulpine said, hoping to regain control of the conversation. “It’s early; you’ll find the correct word after breakfast.”
“Is it early?” asked Chapelion. He looked beyond Vulpine, his eyes taking on a dreamy cast as he saw the brightening sky. “Once more we’ve worked through the night, it seems. Events continue to build faster than we can respond to them.”
“Events?”
“Word of the massacre of Shandrazel’s armies at Dragon Forge has now reached all the sun-dragons.” Chapelion motioned toward the maps. “In the absence of a king, all sun-dragons who control the various provinces are renouncing the shared defense treaties that had been signed during Albekizan’s reign. The kingdom is now full of sun-dragons who imagine they alone are worthy to sit upon the Dragon Throne. Full civil war awaits, I fear, unless we preemptively place a sun-dragon on the throne who is strong enough to dissuade challenges. Unfortunately, no worthy candidate has emerged. Albekizan’s eldest son, Hexilizan, made a brief return to the palace several weeks past, but hasn’t been seen since. If we could locate him, perhaps he would accept the crown.”
“Why bother?” asked Vulpine. “We both know that the High Biologian is the true power behind the throne—though Metron in his dotage certainly lost control of Albekizan, and Androkom was a disaster with Shandrazel. I assume your presence on the throne indicates Androkom has been dealt with?”
“Yes. Androkom is currently . . . hmm . . . shall we say, on sabbatical? Yes, that sounds acceptably diplomatic. In his absence, the Matriarch has appointed me acting High Biologian. In addition to the support of the valkyries, I have the loyalty of the aerial guard and the remaining earth-dragon contingents here in the palace.”
“Why bother appointing a puppet? Declare yourself king and be done with it.”
Chapelion shook his head. “We sky-dragons operate best as the power behind the throne. Sun-dragons aren’t to be trifled with. Whatever their intellectual deficiencies, they’re still the largest winged predator the earth has ever seen, and they . . .” Again his voice trailed off. He seemed to be looking inside himself, as if searching for the right word, but when he spoke again, it was to correct something he’d already said. “Perhaps the phrase ‘intellectual deficiencies’ reveals my own prejudice. In truth, by any objective standards, sun-dragons may be our intellectual superiors. Their brains are much larger, after all. It’s an overly comforting fiction that we sky-dragons embrace to think that sun-dragons aren’t our equals. It’s led to our underestimating them in the past.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” said Vulpine. “You’ve educated the sons of many prominent sun-dragons; I’m certain in the university they show promise. But I deal with sun-dragons in the real world; they call on me when they’ve failed to keep their slaves under control. Most strike me as self-centered and slothful.”
“Many are self-centered,” agreed Chapelion. “But slothful? One sun-dragon alone disproved that notion. Did you know that, when I was but a young lecturer, one of my students was Blasphet himself?”
“The Murder God?” said Vulpine.
“The same. Though, back then, he hadn’t yet turned to his murderous path. I remember him well. Blasphet possessed a genius that surpassed any dragon I’ve since met, of any species. He could read the thickest of tomes in the span of a few hours and recall the most minute details. What’s more, he was quick to make connections between the things he learned; as a student he possessed an understanding of anatomy and chemistry that was unrivaled. The world lost a great mind when he was killed.”
Vulpine swayed backwards on his hind-talons. Praise for the hated Murder God was like a slap across his snout. “Blasphet died invading the Nest! He was attempting genocide against our race! How can you proclaim him a great mind?”
“By choosing my words carefully,” said Chapelion. “I didn’t claim that Blasphet had a kind heart. I’m aware, in retrospect, that his intellectual pursuits were driven by his darker urges. He became an expert botanist to identify the various poisons produced by plants; he excelled in chemistry because it gave him the tools to extract and refine these poisons. He understood the detailed workings of the anatomy of dragons and humans primarily because it gave him insight into the most effective tortures. Most impressively, he was a keen student of the mind—his insights into psychology allowed him to manipulate humans to such a degree that they worshipped him as the Murder God. Yes, in his passing, the world was rid of a monster. Still, I mourn the loss of the knowledge he possessed. If he’d ever wearied himself of murder and turned his attention to writing down all that he knew, he could have advanced many disciplines by decades.”
“Hmph,” said Vulpine. “I’ll leave you to ponder timelines that involve ‘if’ and ‘could.’ I’m more focused on here and now.” He glanced down at the map. He unslung the metal tube he’d captured from Jandra, and thrust the end of it to a piece of parchment on which a small city by a river was circled in thick red lines. “Dragon Forge is the most urgent threat we face, Chapelion. I’ll leave you to deal with politics. You can send diplomats to the abodes of the various sun-dragons and flatter, bribe, or deceive them into obeying you. But if the human rebellion spreads beyond Dragon Forge in any meaningful way, the entire fabric of the kingdom will be rent.”
“Agreed,” said Chapelion. “This adds urgency to my desire to select a new king. A strong army can . . .”
“Respectfully, sir,” interrupted Vulpine, “you make a grave mistake if you wait for a new king to deal with this problem.”
Chapelion shook his head. “You overestimate the threat these rebels pose. They only command one city; it is far from the abode of any sun-dragons. They can’t spread their power far.”
“It’s not power I fear they will spread, but chaos,” said Vulpine. “As I journeyed here, I saw many human towns abandoned. I see that the Free City is occupied, I assume by human refugees. If this unrest lasts into the spring, it will threaten the food supplies of the dragons. If no planting is done by humans, famine will spread through the land.”
“What would you have me do? The rebels at Dragon Forge are said to possess a new type of bow that repelled an army of sun-dragons and earth-dragons.”
“Give me command of half the aerial guard and a contingent of valkyries. Allow me to access the king’s treasuries and buy back the loyalties of the earth-dragon soldiers that currently roam the kingdom as bandits. We need to establish a complete blockade of Dragon Forge.”
Chapelion nodded thoughtfully. “You’ve always possessed a better strategic mind than I have, Vulpine. I’ve been so occupied with politics I’ve paid little attention to the human uprising.”
“Right now humans around the kingdom are learning of the humans' little victory. Instead of allowing this news to spread hope of rebellion among the humans, it’s important that humans shiver with horror when they hear the words Dragon Forge. Humans are creatures of habit; they fear change. As long as they are kept relatively content, we control them because they have a difficult time imagining life any other way. Let Dragon Forge remain in human hands for long, however, and soon every last man in this kingdom will be embracing the romantic notion that he’s a heroic rebel. It’s a vision that infected Shay, after all, and you were certain he’d never betray you.”
Chapelion sighed as he stared down at the map. He nudged his glasses further up his long face. His brow wrinkled as his eyes focused on the iron rod in Vulpine’s fore-talon.
“What is this device you carry?”
“That’s an excellent question,” said Vulpine, lifting the instrument. “I took this from Shay. Jandra killed Balikan with an identical weapon. The device produced a loud, focused explosion that propelled lead pellets at an unimaginable speed. Balikan’s head simply vanished. You are more the historian than I am, but I suspect this may be something that hasn’t existed in this world for centuries: a gun.”
“By the bones,” Chapelion said reverently, reaching out to take the weapon. “The secret of manufacturing gunpowder vanished ages ago.”
Vulpine held up the belt he’d taken. “This contains cotton pouches filled with black powder. I can identify some of the components by smell; I imagine Bazanel at the College of Spires can make short work of the recipe.”
Chapelion turned the gun over and over in his claws, studying the firing mechanism, sniffing at the barrel. “The scale pattern in the steel is curious. Could it be evidence that it was manufactured by a dragon?”
Vulpine shook his head. “Since the steel is of recent origin, and since Shay’s trail took him to Dragon Forge, I can only deduce the rebels at the foundry produced these.”
“This is horrible,” said Chapelion. “It was reported that they possessed a new type of bow. I didn’t expect that they’d manufactured something like this.”
“And they didn’t expect us to capture one so quickly,” said Vulpine. “If Bazanel can reproduce the chemistry of the powder, I’m certain that valkyrie engineers can duplicate the mechanics, or even improve them. We can negate their advantage in short order. If there’s anyone left to kill at Dragon Forge when we’ve armed ourselves, I suspect we’ll have the advantage.”
Chapelion looked up from the gun. “What do you mean, ‘if there’s anyone left to kill?’”
“As Slavecatcher General, I receive reports on the conditions of slaves throughout the kingdom. There’s always some new outbreak of disease: malaria, leprosy, yellow-mouth, or cholera. I have the authority to impose quarantines on slave trading with infected abodes until these outbreaks run their course. I propose that we harness one of these diseases as a weapon. We need something with a high mortality rate, something easily spread, and something that doesn’t immediately produce symptoms. Our carrier will need to be healthy enough to get inside Dragon Forge, after all. There is currently an outbreak of yellow-mouth in the abode of Rorg. It doesn’t have quite the mortality rate I’d like . . . more than half its victims survive. But it’s active now, and spreads easily. A single infected human within the walls of Dragon Forge will cripple the place.”
“You’ve given this some thought,” said Chapelion.
“It’s the nature of my job,” said Vulpine. “I’ve spent years imagining responses to mass uprisings such as the one we face.”
“Such imagination! Turning plague into a weapon of war,” Chapelion said, shaking his head. “Not even Blasphet ever latched upon such a plan.”
“Do you object to it?”
“No. I’ll dispatch a messenger to the valkyries at once. Sagen, here can serve as head of a squadron you select from among the aerial guard. The full treasury is at your disposal as well. Your plan is sound. Make it happen.”
Vulpine lowered his head respectfully. “I’m honored by your trust.”
“I recognize a great mind when I see one,” said Chapelion.
CHAPTER EIGHT
* * *
CONSORT OF DEMONS
JANDRA HELD THE SILVER BRACELET in her fist as she knelt on the cobblestone road. She gave the metal ring a powerful whack against a stone. Anza raised an eyebrow as a shower of sparks erupted from the metal. She swiveled her head, as if trying to pinpoint some distant sound.
Shay couldn’t hear anything out of the ordinary. They were well beyond the bustling activity of Richmond now, no more than a mile from the palace. They’d left the fresh horses from Burke’s Tavern in a stable in town to make a stealthier approach.
It was still a few hours before dawn; Shay’s breath was coming out in great clouds. The world was perfectly still, quiet enough that the rustle of Shay’s coat as moved sounded loud.
The sparks from Jandra’s magic bracelet swirled around them. The air began to smell as if a storm had recently passed through the area.
“We’re invisible now,” said Jandra.
“No we’re not,” said Shay, staring down at his hands.
“The mirrors have a radius of about fifteen feet. Anyone inside can see clearly. If you’re outside the circle, the mirrors edit the scene and show only a background image.”
Shay looked around. “I don’t see any mirrors.”
“These aren’t the sort of mirrors you shave with. Magnetically Integrated Rapidly Rotating Optical Reversers are no bigger than a fleck of dust, all kept dancing on magnetic waves generated by the bracelet.” She slid the bracelet back on to her arm.
Shay nodded, understanding at least part of her sentence. “You’ve made us invisible with magic dust?”
Jandra rolled her eyes. “Shay, you’re going to have to trust me. I don’t have time to explain everything I . . .” Her face paled as she gazed off into the distance. Anza drew her sword and turned to follow Jandra’s gaze.
“What?” whispered Shay, clicking the safety off his shotgun.
“Put down your weapons,” Jandra said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Why did you fall silent? Did you see something?” Shay asked, looking toward Anza. He wasn’t going to put the safety back on until she relaxed. Anza stared into the dark, crouched as if ready to strike. Finally, she stood, the tension flowing from her body, and she silently slipped the sword back into its sheath.
Jandra ran her fingers through her hair. “It . . . it’s hard to explain.”
“Try us,” said Shay.
Jandra didn’t look directly at his face as she spoke. “Fine. I stopped talking because I suddenly had the urge to rewire your brain.”
“I don’t understand.”
“When I said I didn’t have time to explain everything, I found myself with the urge to reach out and physically rewire your brain. I wanted to give you some of my knowledge, until you were someone I could carry on a less frustrating conversation with.”
Shay frowned. “I wasn’t aware I was such a difficult person to talk to.”
“You’re not,” said Jandra. She brought her fingers to her lips and started to bite her fingernails. Lizard watched her hands carefully. She caught herself and lowered her hands to her sides. “The urge to alter your brain came from the goddess. She manipulated my memories so that I’d be a better companion for her. Now I’m thinking the same way she did. Maybe Hex was right. Maybe Jazz has tainted me so badly I can’t be trusted with power anymore.”
As Jandra spoke, Anza wandered further up the road, about twenty feet away. She turned around and broke into a grin. She gave a thumbs-up sign.
“That one I understand,” said Shay. “Apparently, we really are invisible. What I don’t understand is why you won’t admit to being a wizard. You use magic dust. You once possessed a genie. Why be coy about what’s so plainly the truth?”
Jandra gave him a stern, serious look. “Jazz had the same powers I once had. It corrupted her. She allowed people to worship her, to think she was something more than human. I don’t want anyone’s worship. I think honesty is my best hope of avoiding corruption when I get my powers back.”
“If you’re afraid of getting your powers back, why have we come all this way?” asked Shay.
“I don’t see any other option. So much in this world is broken, and I need my powers back if I want to fix it. I could heal Burke’s leg, and restore Vance’s sight.” They’d left Vance in Thorny’s care; his sight had never returned after his fall from the roof. “I might even figure out why Anza can’t talk.”
Anza tapped her foot on the cobblestones and looked toward the night sky.
“Let’s move on,” said Jandra. “But not too fast. The magnetic field of the bracelet isn’t all that powerful. If we took off running, or encountered a strong wind, it would disrupt the pattern and we’d be visible again. It’s a good thing it’s a calm night.”
Anza watched as the others walked toward her. Shay could tell the moment when they became visible to Anza by the way her eyes shifted their focus. He found himself increasingly comfortable with staring at Anza’s face. There was a lot she could communicate with only subtle motions of her eyes and mouth. Anza didn’t seem to mind being stared at. She projected a calm confidence when people were watching her. When Shay thought someone was watching him, he became self-conscious and awkward.
While he was comfortable staring at Anza, he still felt uncomfortable if Jandra caught him looking at her. Anza was beautiful, feminine in her grace and balance, yet somehow the multitude of weapons she boasted removed all temptation to think of her in a romantic fashion. Jandra was different. At first, he’d been put off by the idea that she was a dragon’s pet. He’d assumed she’d be snooty and shallow, like other pets he’d encountered. Despite Jandra’s impatience with his questions, he found her to be anything but snooty. She seemed, instead, to be driven by a need to help and protect others. Perhaps it was arrogant of her to assume that she could fix the world’s problems, but Shay didn’t judge her harshly for this. He found himself attracted to her nobility. Of course, he also found himself attracted to her in other ways. Even dressed in her ill-fitting, borrowed clothes, Jandra had a simple beauty about her that he found enticing.
The Dragon Palace loomed before them like a mountain. The night felt colder in its shadow. Jandra pointed toward a tower. “I used to live there. See those high windows? My bed was just underneath them.”
“It’s dark,” said Shay. “Do you think it’s empty?”
“I’m keeping my fingers crossed,” she said. “I’m hoping Blasphet’s reputation kept visitors away.”
Anza turned her head at the mention of the name.
“Blasphet?” asked Shay. “The Murder God?”
Jandra nodded. “He took over the tower after we fled. He’s dead now. I left my old genie by my bed; if someone has taken it, this mission is going to have a disappointing end.”
“Is the genie in a lamp?” Shay asked.
“No,” said Jandra. “Whoever named the device had a sense of humor. A genie is a Global Encephalous Nanite Interaction Engine. It was the source of my powers, not magic.”
Shay thought that this was splitting hairs but decided not to argue, as by now they were less than a hundred yards from the palace gate. Four earth-dragon guards stood at attention. Unlike the rugged, battle-scarred warriors they’d faced in Burke’s Tavern, these guards were dressed in bright crimson uniforms.
“We can’t sneak past them the way they’re spaced,” Jandra whispered.
“Should we find another entrance?” asked Shay. “If we fight, the noise will bring other guards.”
Anza looked at him and smirked. She unsheathed her sword silently as she pressed her fingers to her lips. She crouched, slipping off toward some decorative bushes near the road side. She quickly vanished from view.
“I don’t think we’re going to have to worry about noise,” whispered Jandra, as she waited for Anza to work her own brand of magic.
AS THEY SLIPPED through the gates into the palace, Jandra felt a sense of disorientation. Having spent her recent weeks living among men, she’d gotten used to moving through landscapes built on a human scale. Stepping back into the home of sun-dragons made her feel tiny once more. Sun-dragons stood more than twice as tall as any human, even in a relaxed state. From snout to tail, adult sun-dragons averaged forty feet. Burke’s loft at the central foundry would barely serve as a closet in the palace. The glazed ceramic bowls that sun-dragons used as drinking dishes could serve as a wash basin for her.
Anza had hidden the bodies of the four guards she’d slain, but it was only a matter of time before the breach in security was noticed and an alarm went out. Their invisibility would lose its strategic value if ox-dogs were brought in to search for intruders.
Perhaps sensing her worries, Lizard grew still. He was perched on her shoulder, one arm wrapped around her neck for balance. He had his head pressed against her cheek. Lizard’s breath was somewhat worse than dog-breath—his diet consisted mainly of bugs, worms, and small rodents he caught himself. She lifted her hand and stroked the side of his head to soothe him, and also to gently nudge his beak a little further from her nose. His scales were dry and warm.
Jandra led Anza and Shay through a maze of hallways, arriving at last at the stone stairs that led up into the tower she’d once called home. A lone earth-dragon stood guard, but the stairway was broad enough that they could slip past him unseen. The earth-dragon cocked his head slightly as they neared. Shay’s coat made a noise as he walked, a faint swish swish. Jandra’s heavy boots also proved a poor choice of footwear for a stealth mission.
They slowed their pace to a crawl. The guard turned his head away, looking incurious. They tiptoed past, holding their breath. Anza, in her leather moccasins, never made even the faintest sound no matter how swiftly she moved.
They reached the top of the tower without any difficulty. Jandra had imagined a variety of worst case scenarios on their journey but so far their path through the palace was easier than she could have hoped. If her genie was still in the room, leaving the palace unseen would be no problem at all.
She pushed the heavy oak door of her former home open. The room was much as she’d left it only a month ago. The chamber was the shape of a vast star, with high windows overhead through which moonlight filtered, painting the flagstone floor with patches of pale white. Blasphet had emptied the chamber of Vendevorex’s possessions. The room had once been filled with shelves stocked with books and curiosities. Jars of preserved snails and serpents, and skeletons of rabbits and turtles had all been learning aids in her study of anatomy. From a tender age she’d been led through dissections of sundry creatures, from the simplest slugs to the elaborate architecture of a bat’s wing. Looking at the bare walls she was astonished that an absence of pickled worms could make her feel lonely.
After Shandrazel took the throne, the few meager items that Jandra could call her own had been brought back into the room. Her possessions were few: a small iron bed, its mattress stuffed with goose-feathers; a full length mirror in an oval wooden frame; a dresser upon which sat a collection of combs; a tall wardrobe; and a large oak trunk at the foot of her bed.
Her spirits lifted when she saw the lid of the trunk open, and various books and papers scattered randomly around it. This was how she’d left it after she’d searched through the trunk for Vendevorex’s skullcap. She’d removed her tiara, donned his skullcap, and instantly discovered that his genie was more powerful than her own. Unfortunately, she’d donned the helmet on the same night that the Sisters of the Serpent had gone on a murderous rampage through the palace. This had launched Jandra into an adventure that had kept her from returning to the room. Her old tiara had been left sitting unprotected on her dresser.
In the moonlight, it was impossible to see from across the room if the tiara still sat on the dresser. She held her breath as she led walked toward it. A low, ragged groan escaped her as she neared. The tiara was gone.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “I’ve put you both in danger for nothing.”
“It’s not here?” asked Shay. “Who could have taken it?”
Jandra bit her nails as she thought. She said, “Hex was the only one who knew about the tiara’s power. Maybe some palace guard took it. It looked like silver. It could have been sold easily enough.”
“You’ve mentioned Hex a time or two,” said Shay. “Why would he take this genie if he already had your other one?”
“Hex would want to destroy both genies. He had an innate distrust of power.”
“That’s an odd quality for a sun-dragon,” said Shay. “They’re the most powerful creatures of all.”
“Hex didn’t believe that might made right. In fact, he thought that might always eventually turned into wrong. He thought that all kings were inherently immoral.”
“In other words,” said Shay, “he was an anarchist.”
“To the bone,” said Jandra. “Fortunately, this made him the perfect companion to stand by my side and face up to the goddess. She was the embodiment of a power that had corrupted absolutely.” She glanced into the mirror by the dresser, and then quickly looked away. With her baggy second-hand clothes and unwashed, tangled hair, she found herself frightening to look at. She sat down on the edge of her bed. Lizard hopped down from her shoulder. She stared down at the floor. “Until Hex betrayed me, I thought he was my best friend. I’m such an idiot.”
Anza sat on the edge of the bed beside Jandra. Her eyes widened at how soft it was. She grinned and fell backwards onto the bed, her arms spread as she sunk into the silk-covered down.
Shay picked up one of the bone combs on the dresser, turning it over in his hands. Vendevorex had carved it from the femur of a bull, using the nanites at his command to carve Jandra’s name in the surface of the comb hundreds of times in tiny decorative letters. Vendevorex had possessed the power to give her anything he could have imagined, but his gifts over the years had tended to be simple ones—object of bone and stone and wood rather than gold or ivory. He hadn’t wanted her to become enamored with wealth.
After a long, silent moment, Shay asked the question ringing loudly in Jandra’s mind. “So, now what?”
Anza rolled over to her side, her head propped on her fist as she stared at Jandra. She obviously wanted to hear the answer to this as well.
Lizard didn’t care about the question at all, assuming he even understood it. Instead, he hopped down to the floor and stared into the mirror. The row of bristly scales along his neck stood up as he spotted the small earth-dragon on the other side of the glass. He stretched out his claw, then snatched it back as the other dragon reached to touch him at the same time.
Jandra got up and paced as she thought. If a guard had taken the tiara, it might be in the palace barracks, or it could be in Richmond at some pawn shop. Where could she begin the search for it? And what if it wasn’t a guard who took it, but Hex? The genies were too advanced to be destroyed outright, but Hex could hide them, maybe dropping them into the sea, or burying them like they’d buried the goddess’s genie.
Jandra snapped her fingers. Lizard startled at the sound, jumping away from the mirror and leaping back onto Jandra’s shoulder.
“We need to go to the mountains,” she said. “We’ll probably never find my old genie. But I know the location of a third one. It’s my best hope at regaining my powers.”
Even as she said the words, she questioned their wisdom. They’d buried the goddess’s heart—her genie—to ensure that no unseen remnant of her could somehow be revived. Was she really so hungry for power that she was willing to go back and risk the return of the goddess? Was this her idea, or the idea of the unwelcome second passenger in her brain? For an instant, she started to tell the others it was a dumb idea, that they should just return to Dragon Forge and help Burke build guns. But thinking of Burke’s broken leg let her remember all the good she could do if she had her powers once more. She had to take the chance. What was there to fear? The goddess was dead. Her body had been burned. Genies responded to a person’s thoughts, and thoughts were the product of a brain, and Jazz’s brain had been reduced to cinders that had blown off in the breeze. The chances of recovering from that were somewhat remote, thought Jandra.
Anza got up from the bed. She looked toward the door, cocking her head as she held up her hand, motioning the others to stop talking.
“What is—?” Shay began to ask.
Anza gave him a dirty look and drew a finger across her throat. Jandra heard noises in the hall, the sound of armor-clad guards climbing up stone stairs.
“Hurry,” she whispered. “The invisibility circle is still active. Get to the center of the room. The more open space we keep around us, the easier it will be to evade them.”
A hushed voice murmured beyond the door: “It’s as you said. The door’s open.”
A louder voice replied: “Vulpine’s understanding of human motivations is unsurpassed. It’s . . . perhaps motivations isn’t the correct word. It implies a higher order of thought for which there is only the faintest evidence in humans. Urges? Desires?”
“Oh no,” said Shay, grabbing Jandra’s arm, speaking as softly as he could. “It’s Chapelion!”
“He’s not very good at stealth,” whispered Jandra.
“He’s half deaf. He probably thinks he’s whispering.”
An earth-dragon poked his head into the open doorway, his dull eyes scanning the darkness. Jandra recognized this dragon—it was Ledax. She’d saved his life during the attack of the Sisters of the Serpent, neutralizing a poison in his blood. Of course, he’d been unconscious and she hadn’t stuck around to take credit. She couldn’t count on his gratitude. Lizard’s hind claws sank more firmly into her shoulders as he stared at the adult earth-dragon.
Anza silently drew her sword from its scabbard. With her left hand, she freed a tomahawk from her belt. Jandra reached out and touched her shoulder; Anza looked back. Jandra shook her head. They were still invisible. It wasn’t yet time for violence.
“Nobody’s here, boss,” said Ledax, looking back into the hallway.
Chapelion said, “Make certain.”
Ledax entered the room, a battle axe clutched in both hands. Behind him, Jandra heard the shuffling of other guards. It sounded as if a small army was waiting on the steps. Anza crouched lower, ready to spring. Ledax didn’t approach the center of the room. Instead he followed the wall, eyeing a slender rope that lead high up into the darkness. It was one of the ropes that held the unlit lanterns. Only, when Jandra looked up into the gloom, she couldn’t see any of the lanterns. Instead she saw . . . what? It was like some sort of grid laid out on the ceiling, millions of small squares covering the entire space.
Suddenly, she knew what she was looking at. Throwing away all hope of stealth, she cried out, “Stop him!”
It was too late. Ledax swung his axe toward the rope. Sparks flew as it bit into the stone wall, severing the hemp. The frayed end shot upward. Anza leapt as Shay brought his shotgun to his shoulder. Jandra grabbed Lizard and held him to her breast as she curled down to absorb the impact on her back.
The net hit. It was heavy, woven from ropes a half inch thick, in a mesh of three inch squares. The impact caught Anza in mid-leap, and knocked the shotgun from Shay’s hands as he pulled the trigger. The gun barked out, spitting fire, sending chips of granite flying as the shot tore into the flagstones.
Jandra calmly stood up, pulling out the knife Burke had given her. The air was full of silver dust. The rush of wind that had accompanied the falling net had disrupted their invisibility, not that it mattered much now. She grabbed the mesh before her as earth-dragons marched into the room, encircling their prisoners. There were at least fifty guards plus another ten sky-dragons. She noted with some surprise that the sky-dragon group was of mixed sex—there were four males from the aerial guard, and five valkyries from the Nest. The sexes rarely mingled among sky-dragons. Stepping in front of all these was an older sky-dragon, a familiar face from many of the formal events at the palace, though she’d never personally met him.
“Chapelion!” Shay cried out, now down on his knees, growing more entangled in the net as he struggled. “How could you know I’d be here? How?”
“Don’t be so egotistical, Shay,” Chapelion said. “We didn’t lay this trap for you. Jandra is the true prize.”
Anza was perfectly still beneath her section of the net. Jandra wondered if the impact had knocked her out. Then, with a barely perceptible motion, Anza carefully cut another of the ropes that entwined her with a knife no longer than her thumb. Frayed ends lay down the entire mid-section of her body.
Jandra decided to make sure the dragons were focused on her instead of Anza.
“You know I’m Jandra, daughter of Vendevorex,” she said, mimicking the deep, theatrical voice that her master used to summon. “I command the same mystical forces he possessed. Leave if you value your life! This net cannot hold me.”
“Your claims would be more convincing if you weren’t still in the net,” said Chapelion. Sky-dragons couldn’t smile, but there was a gleam in his eyes that indicated he was pleased with himself. “If you do possess mystical powers, I invite you to demonstrate them. The slaves whisper that you gain your powers from consorting with demons. I have other, more rational theories. Vulpine delivered a device he took from you, a weapon that an uneducated observer might think of as magic wand. I know it was only a trick of chemistry and metalwork—I’ve sent it to Bazanel at the College of Spires for analysis. I do not fear your so-called magic.”
Chapelion glanced toward the guards. “Place manacles on Jandra and Shay. The girl in the buckskins is unimportant. Dispose of her.”
Before the guards could move, Anza leapt to her feet, the sliced ropes falling away from her body. She spun in a graceful circle, her sword extended full length, at throat level for the earth-dragons. She made a noise, the first Jandra had ever heard from Anza’s mouth, as she rapidly clicked her tongue against her teeth while sucking in air, “tk-tk-tk-tk!” The noise was as a chilling as a rattlesnake’s warning.
Jandra took inspiration from Anza’s dark skin and pitch black hair and the icy menace of her gaze.
“You should have listened to your slaves, Chapelion. I do consort with demons. This one sloughed off your net as if it were water. She can kill your guards before you can blink. Leave this place at once.”
Chapelion stared through his spectacles at Anza. His eyes narrowed as he analyzed the situation. Anza met his stare with an unblinking gaze.
“I see moisture upon her neck,” he said. “Would a demon sweat?”
“How would you know?” asked Jandra.
Chapelion furrowed his brow, contemplating the matter.
Before he could speak, Jandra heard distant shouts from below. Jandra wasn’t certain, but it sounded like someone was shouting, “Fire!”
Chapelion’s eyes flickered toward the door, as if he, too, heard the cries.
From outside the tower, there was a strange skittering sound. The noise resembled nothing so much as the scratching of a thousand large squirrels climbing the stone walls. A shadow passed across the high windows as something long and serpentine slithered across one, then another, then another, spreading darkness.
Jandra could sense the panic building among the earth-dragons. With no idea whatsoever what was climbing the walls outside, she decided to bluff: “Anza isn’t the only demon I’ve summoned tonight.”
Almost as if her words had made it happen, one of the high windows exploded inward, shards of glass flying through the room. Cold night air swirled into the chamber as a human figure appeared in the window. He was mostly in shadow, his body contours partially concealed by a cape. One thing that was easily visible, however, was the bow he held, and the arrow pointed straight at Chapelion’s heart.
With a voice a cold as the winter wind, the new arrival said, “I’ve set your library on fire, dragon.”
Chapelion chuckled and looked to Jandra. “I can’t help but notice that all your demons look human. This is a rather quaint bluff. I’m more entertained than intimidated, however. Hmm. 'Entertained' isn’t quite what I mean. Amused, I should say.”
The man in the high window released an arrow. It landed not in Chapelion, however, but in the valkyrie who stood beside him. She fell to her back, the green-fletched bolt jutting from the round disk of her right ear.
Before any of the dragons could react, loud voices echoed up the staircase leading to the tower. “Find Chapelion! He must know!” Chapelion turned his head upon hearing his name.
“Your love of books is legendary, Chapelion. I could place an arrow in your brain, but that would rob me of the satisfaction of imagining you standing in the remnants of the Grand Library with all its millions of books nothing more than ash and smoke.”
Chapelion shuddered as his eyes grew wide. An earth-dragon ran up the stairs, stumbling to a halt in the doorway. “The Grand Library!” he shouted. “Fire!”
Chapelion silenced him by raising his fore-talon.
“Take your guards,” said the archer. “Leave this place. Perhaps a book or two may still be saved. Jandra and the others will remain. They’re mine now.”
“Who are you?” Chapelion growled.
“You know who I am.”
Jandra knew as well: Bant Bitterwood, dragon-hunter, god-slayer, psychopath. His sense of timing, as always, was impeccable.
Chapelion looked as if he were in physical pain as he motioned to his guards. “We can waste no more time. Leave the humans. Go to the library.”
“Hurry,” said Bitterwood. “Old paper burns so quickly.”
Chapelion looked up as the dragons filed past him.
“You’ll never escape this castle!” he snarled, before turning and marching from the room, leaving the humans alone. The door to the tower slammed shut.
“Seal it!” Chapelion barked from the stairs. “Have every member of the aerial guard surround the tower! They must not escape!”
Anza danced across the net. Jandra flinched as Anza’s sword slashed out at her, again and again. Seconds later, the net fell away. Anza turned to free Shay.
Bitterwood dropped from the high window into the room. He looked at Jandra as Lizard climbed back onto her shoulder. “Is that an earth-dragon child? He can’t come with us.”
“He can and he will,” said Jandra.
Bitterwood opened his mouth, but Jandra cut him off. “You always lose these arguments, so let’s skip over the banter and get out of here.”
Bitterwood glowered at her and nodded.
Shay shook free of the cut ropes that draped him as Anza stepped back. His voice was trembling as he walked toward the man who’d just saved them. “Did . . . did you . . . did you really set fire to the Grand Library?”
“Of course,” Bitterwood answered in a matter-of-fact tone, as if Shay had asked something trivial.
“Monster!” Shay swung out his lanky right arm in a furious arc, planting his balled up fist directly into the teeth of the dragon-slayer.
Bitterwood’s head snapped sideways, but he wasn’t knocked off balance. He calmly wiped his lips with the back of his hand as he stared at Shay. Shay was trembling with rage, his fists clenched, raising his arms to strike again.
Bitterwood kneed Shay in the groin. Shay doubled over and Bitterwood brought both of his fists down onto the back of Shay’s skull. The former slave slammed down onto the net, completely still.
Bitterwood looked down and spit. His saliva was pink with blood as it splashed onto Shay’s neck. “He looks familiar,” he said. “Did I save his life somewhere?”
“You can ask him after he wakes up,” said Jandra, rushing over to her wardrobe and swinging its doors open. “Since you knocked him out, you’ll be carrying him.”
“Like hell I will,” said Bitterwood. Jandra gave him a stern glance. Bitterwood shook his head in disgust as he leaned down and grabbed Shay’s collar.
CHAPTER NINE
* * *
A TORCH TO VANQUISH THE NIGHT
SHAY COUGHED HIMSELF AWAKE; smoke scoured his lungs. At least, he felt like he was awake, though the evidence of his eyes argued that he was trapped within a nightmare. He was a hundred feet in the air on the exterior of a stone tower, slung over a white saddle on the back of a fifty foot long, copper-colored serpent. He should be falling—the beast he rode was moving along the vertical wall of the tower, racing across it as easily as if it were flat ground, gripping the walls with dozens of sharp-clawed legs. Fortunately, the saddle felt as if it were coated with glue—his stomach was held firmly against it in defiance of gravity.
Craning his neck and squinting to see through the haze of smoke, he found that the copper serpent was studded with riders both familiar and strange. Jandra sat on the saddle in front of him with Lizard standing on her shoulder, hissing loudly as he shook his small fist at the flock of sky-dragons wheeling toward them. Behind him Anza crouched upon a white saddle, her fingers bristling with throwing knives. He felt a sense of vertigo . . . given the angle at which she was perched, she should be falling. Behind her, near the tail of the beast, a black and white pig wore a silver visor that hid his eyes. It sat upon the saddle serenely, oblivious to the swaying, lurching gait of the serpent as it undulated across the tower. Beyond the pig sat a little blonde girl, perhaps ten years old, thin even by Shay’s scarecrowish standard. She, too, wore a metal visor that hid her eyes.
At the beast’s head Bitterwood stood in his saddle, his bow drawn, firing arrow after arrow into the swarm of dragons that dove toward them. Shay stared at the legendary dragon-slayer. He was a good deal shorter than Shay, and not particularly heroic in his stance or gestures. He looked like one of the field slaves at middle age, weathered, wizened, and worn out. The deep wrinkles around his eyes twitched as they flickered from target to target. His hands moved with inhuman speed back and forth from quiver to bow. The bowstring sang with a musical rhythm, humming for a few seconds until an arrow was placed against it once more, zuum, zuum, zuum, zuum. The arrows, he noted, had the same bright green leaves fletching them as the arrows that had killed the slavecatchers by the river.
Shay tried to rise, if “rise” had any true meaning in this strange sideways world he’d woke in. As he moved, his center of gravity began to spin. He felt the ground below calling to him. He grabbed at the beast’s scales, overlapping thin disks, metallic in their chill. He found himself slipping.
“Don’t struggle,” the blonde girl called out. “The saddle will hold you if you let it.”
Shay struggled. His legs were now dangling straight down.
He was looking toward Anza, who rolled her eyes. She hurled her throwing knives heavenward and a sky-dragon suddenly tilted and fell, its wings limp. Anza pulled her long sword from the scabbard over her back. She raised it over her head, and swung the flat of the blade at Shay.
Thunder cracked somewhere near the base of his skull and the world went dark once more.
SHAY WOKE to the slightly sweet stink of manure and hay. He was flat on his back on a large bale of straw, his head pounding with each heart beat. He raised his hand to discover a knot the size of walnut on the back of his scalp. He sat up, trying to remember where and why he’d gotten the injury. He was in a barn, with horses in stalls staring at him lazily. It was distantly familiar; he knew he’d been here before. This barn was attached to an inn on the edge of Richmond. It was where they had left their horses before going to the Dragon Palace.
He rose on trembling legs. There were voices outside, familiar ones. He stumbled toward the barn door. It hurt to walk. He remembered Bitterwood’s ungentlemanly assault. Kicking someone in the balls wasn’t behavior he would have expected from a legendary champion of humanity.
Shay pushed the barn door open and his eyes were instantly drawn toward the horizon. Flames shot into the air in a huge inferno that reached to the stars themselves. The Grand Library, housing a thousand years of history and literature, was now the world’s largest bonfire. He dropped to his knees in the barnyard muck, feeling ill. Not more than ten feet away, sitting on the edge of a rain barrel, Jandra watched the flames as well. Squatting on the ground before her was the old man, Bitterwood.
Jandra was now wearing a calf-length coat that fit as if it had been tailored for her. The fabric was pale blue, the same color as a sky-dragon’s wings. Shay had gotten used to seeing Jandra in the shapeless, drab, earth-dragon coat. She looked smaller now, yet at the same time more powerful, more like a sorceress than a refugee. She shook her head as she watched the flames. “Bant, it’s not that I don’t appreciate the rescue, but this was a pretty horrible thing to do.”
“It got you out of the palace with minimal danger,” said Bitterwood.
“Since when do you worry about danger? I’m amazed you let Chapelion live. You’re normally not so merciful.”
“Mercy had nothing to do with it,” said Bitterwood. “I came here to save you, not kill Chapelion.”
“You had him in your sights,” she said.
“He wasn’t the biggest threat. You were trapped by a net, surrounded by armed earth-dragons. I’m not positive I could have kept you alive if a battle had broken out.”
“The one thing I’m not clear on is how, exactly, you knew I needed saving?”
“You understand it better than I, no doubt. Zeeky still hears whispers from the crystal ball the goddess gave her. The ghosts inside can see the future. They told Zeeky to save you. I wasn’t in favor of dropping everything to chase you across the countryside, but I don’t fare any better arguing with her than I do with you.”
“Hmm,” said Jandra. “Jazz said that if you were trapped in underspace, you could see the past and future with equal clarity. I know Zeeky’s crystal ball contains a tiny sliver of underspace. Jazz said she kept her best secrets to herself . . . Underspace was one of those secrets. I have only a rough understanding of the science behind it. Apparently there are more dimensions to the world than the three we normally perceive. Alas, the practical science of traveling through these extra dimensions wasn’t shared with me.” In the distance, there was a horrible rumble. Sparks shot into the air like fireworks as a huge section of the upper tower crumbled and collapsed inward. “Shay’s going to have a fit when he hears about this,” Jandra said.
Shay realized they didn’t know he was there. He pulled himself up from the muck, his fists clenched. “Y-you. . . , ” he growled as he stalked toward Bitterwood. “You . . . you . . . you!”
“Unclench your fists, boy,” said Bitterwood, his eyes narrowing into slits. “I let you off easy. Swing at me and you’ll never eat solid food again.”
Shay couldn’t open his fists if he wanted to. He couldn’t move at all—rage paralyzed him. His voice came out in a low, hissing whisper: “How could you?”
Bitterwood shrugged. “I’m good at hitting things. If I can knock the teeth out of a sun-dragon, I reckon I can do the same to a skinny house-slave.”
Jandra smirked. “I think he meant how could you set the library on fire.”
“Oh,” said the dragon-slayer. “That was nothing. I just broke a lantern.”
“RRRaaah!” Shay snarled as he threw his arms up in the air in his frustration, shaking his fists at the stars. He hopped up and down, releasing guttural growls, his anger stripping him of all coherent thought. Within the barns, a horse whinnied.
“Calm down, Shay,” said Jandra. “You’re spooking the horses.”
Shay stopped moving. He concentrated on the breath flowing in ragged gushes across his lips. He opened and closed his trembling hands as he tried to gain control of his rage. He whispered, “Th-there . . . there were over a m-million books in that Library. Do you have any idea what an evil thing you have done?”
“Books have never done the world any good, boy,” said Bitterwood. “At least, no good for humans. Dragons have spent a thousand years writing books that justify why they rule the world. Good riddance, I say.”
Shay was certain that he was going to vomit in his anger. He dropped to his hands and knees, shuddering, feeling as if his heart was going to burst. “I’m cursed,” he moaned. “It’s the only explanation. Every book I’m near bursts into flame. I’ve nothing left to live for.”
Bitterwood shook his head in disgust. Jandra hopped off the barrel and crouched next to Shay. She put her hand on his shoulder. “There’s no such thing as a curse,” she said. “We’ve just had a run of bad luck. It’s a time of war. Things get burnt.”
“But—”
“Listen,” she said. “Burke was right. Books are more than paper and ink. The information inside them is essentially immortal. Not all the books in the library are lost. I have images of thousands of them inside my head, complete editions. If I can get my genie back, I can recreate them molecule by molecule, the paper, the ink, everything.”
“I don’t understand,” Shay said.
“I’m not following you either,” Bitterwood said.
“I mean when I had my genie, I possessed total recall. Any book I’d ever read was still stored in my brain. They’re still there, I just don’t know how to access them.”
“No,” said Bitterwood. “I mean, you said you needed to get your genie back. I know you had changed it so that it no longer looked like a helmet, and were wearing it beneath your clothes. Are you saying you’ve lost it?”
“I guess quite a bit’s happened since we last saw each other. Hex and I went from the Nest to Dragon Forge to learn more about the rebellion and see if there was anything we could do to help.”
“But . . . Hex was a sun-dragon,” said Shay. “Why would he help the rebels?”
Jandra stood up and turned away. She had her back to them as she said, “I mean we came to help Shandrazel put down the rebellion.” She tensed as she said this, as if expecting Bitterwood to pounce on her. Bitterwood didn’t appear to be surprised by this revelation, however.
“Why would you side with the dragons?” asked Shay.
“I was raised by a dragon. I’m afraid my loyalties have always been divided. I don’t think that humans have gotten a fair shake in this world, but I also know from personal experience that most dragons are good, reasonable beings.”
“Dragons hold slaves and hunt men for sport. We have different definitions of what comprises good and reasonable,” said Shay.
Jandra’s shoulders sagged at these words.
“I’m surprised Hex would side with his brother,” said Bitterwood. “His philosophies leaned toward anarchy.”
“I’m afraid you’re a better judge of his character than I was,” said Jandra. “I visited Dragon Forge as Shandrazel’s ambassador. Pet accompanied me back to see Shandrazel, saying he was the one human who had a chance of peacefully negotiating a settlement between the warring sides. Unfortunately, he had a poisoned dagger hidden in his cloak. He murdered Shandrazel. Before I could neutralize the poison, Hex pounced on me and ripped my genie away, robbing me of my powers. I was left to watch both Shandrazel and Pet die, while Hex flew off with the most powerful weapon in the world.”
“Hex is only alive because you made me promise not to kill him.”
“I know,” said Jandra.
“Hex is the only blood kin left of Albekizan,” said Bitterwood.
“I know,” Jandra said, biting her nails once more.
“Will you free me from my vow?”
Jandra wrung her hands. “Do what you have to do,” she said. “But he may not have the genie. He’s probably hidden it somewhere. If you find him . . . it . . . it’s possible that . . .”
“I know how to bleed a dragon of his secrets,” said Bitterwood.
“I . . . I don’t think Hex is evil,” she said, her voice trembling. “He . . . he thinks he’s doing the right thing. He thinks he’s making the world a better place.”
Bitterwood looked toward the burning tower. “You’ll sleep better after you give up that hope.”
Shay rose up onto his knees. “Jandra, if you have books inside you, I’ll do everything in my power to bring you back your genie.”
“You have no power, boy,” said Bitterwood. “Hex would eat you for supper.”
Shay wished his shotgun were nearby. It hadn’t been by his side when he woke up. He would gladly demonstrate this power for Bitterwood.
“I think we should go back to Jazz’s underground kingdom,” said Jandra.
“Why?” asked Bitterwood.
“Hex and I left in a hurry, since we wanted to get back to the Nest to help in the aftermath of Blasphet’s atrocities. We didn’t search her island. I might find another genie there.”
“You wouldn’t survive the journey,” said Bitterwood. “That kingdom was held together by her will. Now that the goddess is dead, many of the beasts she cared for will be hungry.”
“I can’t believe they’d still be alive,” said Jandra. “That whole ecosystem had to collapse once the artificial sunlight went out.”
“I won’t go with you,” said Bitterwood. “I rescued you as a favor for Zeeky; I don’t plan to make a career of it.”
“So what will you do?”
Bitterwood pulled an arrow from his quiver. “The goddess gave me this bow and quiver. The quiver constantly refreshes itself, growing new arrows. The arrows are living things, twigs straight and true, with leaves for fletching and a thorn for a head. This bow, which is strung with a braid of the goddess’s own hair, is the most perfectly balanced weapon I’ve ever used. It, too, constantly renews itself. When the bowstring frays in the heat of usage, it reweaves moments later. I’ve scuffed the bark of the bow and watched it heal itself. I don’t know how long this magic will last, now that she’s dead.”
“It could last a long time,” said Jandra. “Bio-nano is resilient stuff. As long as your quiver gets sunlight, it should function for years.”
“How do plants grow with no water?” Shay asked. “Or no soil, for that matter.”
“Orchids and other epiphytes don’t need soil,” said Jandra, “Bitterwood is probably supplying the quiver with all that it needs. The human body sheds moisture and nutrients, like dead skin cells. The quiver grabs those for fuel, I’m guessing. After you work for a while on the nano-scale, you get used to thinking of dust as a resource.”
“Perhaps,” said Bitterwood. “But I’m used to thinking of dust as the fate of all men. My days on this earth are numbered. Watching this endlessly renewing quiver has brought many things to mind. I think I died in that cave above Big Lick. You brought me back, Jandra.”
“Oh,” she said. “That. Your heart was only stopped for a minute or two. You were in a state of cardiac arrest, but you still had brain activity.”
“If I were in a similar state now, you couldn’t save me,” said Bitterwood.
“Not without my powers, no,” said Jandra.
“You asked me why I didn’t kill Chapelion. Why I didn’t simply leap into the fray and take on fifty dragons at once. The truth is, despite the fact that you’ve restored me to full health, I’m growing old, Jandra. Zeeky has no relatives, save for her missing brother, Jeremiah. If I die, who will care for her?”
“What are you saying, Bant?” asked Jandra.
“I’m saying that I’m giving up my life as a dragon hunter.” Bitterwood looked up toward the sky, at the few stray stars visible through the smoke that veiled the night. “If I stumble across Hex, I’ll kill him, but I’m not hunting him. I’m going back to the mountains to search for Jeremiah. Once I’ve found him, I want to return to the life I once lived as a farmer. I’d like to raise Zeeky and the boy in an environment as close to peace and stability as an old fool like myself can provide.”
Jandra’s jaw slackened. “You’re retiring?”
“I’ve killed more dragons than I can count. I’ve rid the world of Albekizan’s family, save for Hex. There are no sun-dragons who legitimately claim the bloodline of the ancient kings. The sun-dragons are fracturing politically. They can fight among themselves for a while. Let Kanati and his rebels at Dragon Forge deal with the survivors.”
Shay felt his anger rise again. “I can’t believe you won’t go to help the rebels. You’re famous throughout the kingdom as the greatest hope of humanity. Why turn your back on us now?”
Bitterwood walked toward Shay, who was still on his knees. Shay turned his face as Bitterwood bowed down to his level. The old man’s hot breath washed over him as he whispered, “Hope has never caused a single arrow to fly from my bowstring. Hate is the only cause I’ve fought for. Hate is like a fire in a man’s belly, feeding him when all the food in the world cannot abate his hunger. I’ve lived with this hate for twenty years, boy. If a man’s soul burns long enough, eventually nothing is left but ash. The fire fades once all the fuel is spent.”
Bitterwood had two voices. There were times when he was relaxed and spoke like any other man. But other times, in more poetic language, he spoke with a low tone cold as a winter wind. If the damned in hell could speak, they must surely possess voices like this.
Shay blurted out, against his better judgment, “I don’t know who these children are that you speak of raising, but I have pity for them.”
Bitterwood chuckled. “I’m not a fit father for a normal child,” he admitted, sounding human once more. “Luckily, Zeeky doesn’t require a father so much as a taller person to get things for her off shelves. She really doesn’t even need that now that she has the long-wyrm.”
“Long-wyrm?” asked Shay. “I had a dream after you knocked me out. We were on the side of tower, riding on a copper-colored serpent with a hundred limbs as sky-dragons darted all around.”
“That wasn’t a dream,” said Jandra. “Long-wyrms only have twenty-eight legs, by the way. It just looks like more.”
“There weren’t that many sky-dragons either,” said Bitterwood. “I think my reputation may have kept the full aerial guard from turning out . . . or perhaps they were busy with the fire. I couldn’t have shot more than twenty-three before the sky was empty.”
“But . . . were we sideways on the tower? Why didn’t we fall?”
“Hyperfriction,” said Jandra.
“What?”
“Gravity isn’t that hard a force to overcome. The Atlanteans know how to craft material with exotic properties, and the saddles are made of a type of plastic that exhibits something called hyperfriction. You could sit upside down on one and not fall off unless you struggled. It doesn’t take much energy to break the hyperfriction’s grip, but it’s more than strong enough to resist gravity.”
“I don’t understand anything you just said to me,” said Shay.
Jandra shrugged. “Sorry. Working with nanites, I’m used to dealing with surface tension and static. A sticky saddle is useful for a mount that can cling to a ceiling. I can see why Jazz invented it.”
“Then . . . if I didn’t dream the long-wyrm, where is it? And where’s Anza? And Lizard, for that matter?”
“Skitter spooks the horses,” said Bitterwood, “Zeeky took him down to the river. Anza went with her, and so did Lizard.”
Shay was surprised. “Lizard never lets himself get more than a few yards away from Jandra.”
“Zeeky has a way of winning over the loyalties of beasts,” said Bitterwood.
“Lizard isn’t a beast,” said Jandra. “He’s a child. A dragon child, perhaps, but he’s not an animal. Young dragons aren’t that much different than young people.”
“You know nothing about earth-dragons,” said Bitterwood. “They’re far more animalistic than men. They’re instinctually tuned to both respect and fear older, bigger dragons. They respond to being bossed around. Once they get bigger than the dragons who boss them, however, they’re quick to test their position in the pecking order. You see a lot of earth-dragons with scars, missing claws, or tails bitten off at the end. They aren’t earning these injuries in battle with humans. They inflict these wounds on each other in their constant need to test their position in the hierarchy. Once Lizard puts on another fifty pounds, don’t be surprised if he tries to test his strength against you, probably when you least expect it. Even little, his beak is sharp enough to take off a finger if you’re careless. Give him a year, and it might be your hand that winds up missing.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way,” said Jandra. “Lizard has a sweet nature. He’s responding to my nurturing.”
“Believe what you want,” said Bitterwood.
Shay agreed with Bitterwood, but there was no way he was going to admit it. He leaned back against the barn wall and looked off toward the distant fire. Another large section of the tower crumbled. Long tongues of flame leapt up and licked the smoke above. Sparks swirled until they vanished in the darkness. In truth, there was something mystically beautiful about the sight. When Shay talked with other humans, he’d never been able to fully explain the magic of books, the sheer illumination and heat that came from crisp, lyrical prose revealing some hidden aspect of the world. Now, at last, here it was, revealed for all to see: the hidden energy of books released, a torch to vanquish the night.
CHAPTER TEN
* * *
SCARECROWS
ZEEKY SAT ON A BOULDER on the river bank as Anza slipped out of her buckskins. Anza’s breath hung before her in clouds as she contemplated the deep, slow-moving water before her. Skitter had already slipped into those waters and was slithering about unseen beneath the surface, no doubt feasting on fat and drowsy catfish in the predawn stillness. Skitter was always a little nervous; the smell of smoke from the burning library, combined with the attack of the aerial guard, had left him especially high strung. A swim in the dark, ice-cold water was just the thing to calm him, Zeeky knew. No doubt, Anza had similar motivations. But where Skitter had slid right into the river without hesitation, Anza stood with her arms crossed over her breasts, looking as if she might be on the verge of changing her mind.
“It’s best just to jump right in,” said Zeeky. “It won’t be so bad once you’ve taken the plunge.”
Anza cocked her head and looked at her with challenging eyes, as if she was daring Zeeky to prove her assertion.
“I’m not the one who wanted to swim,” said Zeeky. “And I’m not the one who’s standing here buck naked. Go on and get in the water before you corrupt my pig.”
Anza and Zeeky both looked at Poocher. Poocher was staring at Anza with something akin to a leer. Poocher was almost six months old, on the verge of pig puberty. His front teeth had recently begun to push from his mouth as tusks, giving him a somewhat threatening appearance even when he was perfectly content. Poocher was also starting to get really big; the sweet little runt that Zeeky could cradle in her arms was long gone. As a piglet, Poocher had been sweet, completely open to Zeeky’s mothering. Now, Poocher was more standoffish. He was pushy and grabby with food, and could become sulky and sullen if denied something he wanted. Poocher had become more assertive around the time that he’d helped kill the goddess, charging her from behind and knocking her from her feet at a pivotal moment of the battle. Something had changed in the pig’s self-image. He was no longer Zeeky’s cuddly friend. He was now a young warrior boar with an attitude.
Anza stepped to the edge of the flat stone and started to stick a toe in the water. She stopped, balanced above the dark surface. Her face hardened as if some voice in her head had suddenly won an internal argument. She crouched and sprang, shooting out over the water, her long black hair trailing behind her in a perfect arc. With her hands held like an arrow before her, she sliced into the river with barely a splash.
For a moment, there was only the faint outline of her body moving beneath the surface. Her head burst back into the air as she sucked in a deep gasp. She bobbed in the water as her teeth chattered.
“I’m curious,” said Zeeky. “Why don’t you ever talk?”
Anza raised an eyebrow, as if she found this to be an absurd question.
“When the goddess kidnapped me, she said she’d changed my brain before I was born. She said I was the harbinger of a new kind of human, able to communicate with almost all animals. Most people aren’t aware of all the things around them that are talking. Dogs talk, pigs talk, birds talk. And people especially talk even when they aren’t using words, even when they don’t know they’re talking.”
Anza sank lower in the water, hiding her lips beneath the surface. “I know more things than I tell Bitterwood,” said Zeeky. “I’m the only one who can hear the whispers that come from my magic ball. The villagers inside tell me things; they don’t always make sense. And half the time, they get stuff wrong. But knowing the future half the time ain’t bad.”
Anza continued to stare. Beneath the surface, her arms traced serpentine paths as she gracefully held her balance.
Zeeky looked around the riverbank, making certain they were alone. She reached into her bag and pulled out the heavy cotton towel she’d taken from the goddess’s abode. She unwrapped it, revealing a sphere of flawless crystal, about the size of a large orange, with a faint rainbow flickering in its center. Gazing into its surface here in the darkness, she once again caught a glimpse of the tiny tornadoes that bubbled into existence around the rainbow then just as quickly vanished. Wormholes, Gabriel had called them. They were shaped like trumpets, tinier than gnats. The angel had explained it was through these trumpets that her relatives trapped in underspace could speak to her. She listened closely, tilting her head as she tried to pull words out of the constant ghostly murmuring.
There was a soft splashing sound as Anza rose from the river and walked up the rocky shore. Zeeky tossed her a white cotton towel. Anza’s skin had looked almost snowy beneath the water, but against the white of the towel it was brown as a pecan shell. Her lips were tinted blue as she drew closer to Zeeky. She stooped to study the crystal ball while she used the towel to dry her hair.
“Listen,” said Zeeky. “Do you hear them?”
Anza leaned closer, holding her breath. A long moment passed before she let the air slide between her lips. She looked disappointed.
“I thought you might hear them,” said Zeeky. “Even though the goddess didn’t change your brain, you’ve changed your brain yourself.”
Anza cast a quizzical gaze at Zeeky.
“The villagers told me I would meet a girl with a stone in her throat. You can’t make the same sounds most people can; you can whistle, make tongue clicks, and some other sounds, right? If you’d wanted to communicate by sound, you could.”
Anza pursed her lips, as if she wasn’t ready to reveal her secrets.
“You also found out at an early age that by not talking, you were better at listening. You hear and see things other people don’t; you can smell and taste and feel things better too. I’m right, aren’t I?”
A hint of a smile flickered across Anza’s lips. She lifted a finger and made a shushing motion.
“Your secret’s safe with me,” said Zeeky. “But I was told something by the villagers before we left the cave. The stone is going to be taken out of your throat. You’ll be able to talk normally if you want. Would you like that?”
Anza narrowed her eyes and curled her lips downward, a look somewhere between disgust and skepticism.
“‘We shall all be healed,’ they whispered,” said Zeeky.
Anza tilted her head.
“I don’t know exactly what it means either,” said Zeeky. “I wanted to tell you before you leave us tonight.”
Anza’s eyebrows rose again.
“How did I know? According to my crystal ball, you’re going to leave us to go recover the shotgun Vulpine stole.”
Anza nodded, looking impressed.
“I wish I could tell you more,” said Zeeky. “But the villagers say that talking about the future runs the risk of changing it.”
Before they could discuss the matter further, there was a rustling sound in the nearby forest. Anza leapt like a doe back to her clothes on the rock, the white towel fluttering in the air where she’d released it mid-leap. She had her buckskins up over her shoulders in the span of seconds, though they gaped in the front, unlaced all the way down to below her belly button. She grabbed her sword and spun to face the rustling leaves.
Lizard scampered out from the woods. He skipped toward Zeeky, his fists full of fat white grubs. More grubs—or at least grub parts—spilled from his turtle-like beak as he chewed on his newly discovered treat.
He squatted before Zeeky and held out his treasure. “Good eat, wise boss,” he said.
Zeeky shook her head and pointed toward Poocher. “I’m vegetarian. Fat boss would enjoy them, though.”
Poocher grunted happily at the offering. He gave a snort as he rose and waddled over. Lizard looked at Poocher with an expression that conveyed awe—and also hunger. As Poocher’s skillful lips and tongue snatched the grubs one by one, Lizard chewed his own grubs more slowly. Zeeky knew what Lizard was thinking. It was almost cute that the little green turtle-monkey was seriously weighing his odds of making a meal out of Poocher. Almost.
“Don’t even think about it,” said Zeeky. “Poocher knocked a goddess onto her butt in the last fight he was in. You wouldn’t stand a chance.”
Poocher sneered at the little dragon.
“And don’t you go getting too cocky, Poocher,” said Zeeky. “Bitterwood says we’re retiring after we find Jeremiah. Your fighting days are almost over.”
Poocher narrowed his eyes and snorted.
“Yeah, you’re scary,” said Zeeky, scratching the pig’s bristly neck.
THEY FLEW THROUGH THE NIGHT. Vulpine led the way, with Sagen and a squadron of fifty Aerial Guards at his back. Vulpine kept a pace that no doubt tested many of the guards, though most were a third his age. He wished he could fly even faster. A blockade should have been in place within hours after the rebels took the fort. Come the dawn, this strategic error would be rectified.
They were roughly forty miles from Dragon Forge. They’d veered south slightly to follow the river that flowed past the town. Sagen increased his speed and drew beside Vulpine. Vulpine admired Sagen’s power as his son’s finely chiseled muscles pumped in his breasts and shoulders to overtake him. Truly, the Matriarch had chosen well in pairing him with a valkyrie a quarter century earlier. Sagen was a fine specimen; if his intelligence was equal to his physique, the future success of the sky-dragon race was assured.
“I wonder what those fires are,” Sagen asked.
Vulpine scanned the horizon in the general direction of Sagen’s gaze. Multiple fires flickered in the distance. Vulpine was mildly disturbed he hadn’t spotted them on his own. Perhaps his eyes weren’t what they once were.
“Let’s find out.” Vulpine veered toward the lights. Perhaps these were campfires of humans journeying toward the forge. If so, it would be a satisfying warm-up to have the Aerial Guard deal with them. After they’d flown another mile, however, his eyes began to untangle the glowing riddle. It was the remains of a human farm. What had once been a large farmhouse, a barn, and various outbuildings were now little more than mounds of cinders where the occasional fire still burned.
Beyond the house was a five-acre field full of humanoid figures. He squinted. No, earth-dragons. They were too broad and squat to be humans, plus they had tails. They were not the only figures in the field.
“Your keen eyes may have earned us valuable allies,” Vulpine said to Sagen.
Vulpine soared over the burning buildings, the smoke stinging his eyes. He tilted his wings to slow his flight, drifting downward. Their descent was nearly silent as they landed a few dozen yards behind the mob of earth-dragons and were almost instantly spotted. A flurry of shouts ran among the assemblage as they all turned to face the sky-dragons.
“Greetings,” he called out. “I’m Vulpine, Slavecatcher General. I’ve been given authority to take command of Albekizan’s troops to establish a blockade of Dragon Forge. Who’s in charge here?”
Ninety-nine earth-dragon heads instantly swiveled to stare at a single beast. Beast was exactly the right term; this was the largest earth-dragon Vulpine had ever seen, over six feet tall and almost that broad across the shoulders. Unlike many soldiers, this earth-dragon wore no armor, and was naked save for a necklace of human teeth that draped round and round his shoulders. He carried a weapon in both hands that looked like a fence post topped with an anvil. His most arresting feature, aside from his overall mass, was his beak. Unlike the normal smooth lines resembling a turtle’s beak, this dragon’s bony jaws had been carved and chiseled into ragged, jagged edges that reminded Vulpine of the blade of a saw.
The beast stomped forward, drawing ever closer, as if his intent wasn’t to march to Vulpine, but to march over him. The squadron of Aerial Guards readied their weapons. Vulpine raised a fore-claw, motioning for them to remain still.
The beast stopped inches from Vulpine.
“I’m Sawface!” he yelled, at a volume appropriate only if Vulpine had been standing on the other side of the field. “These are my Wasters! I’m the top boss!” His breath smelled heavily of goom, the booze of choice among earth-dragons, fermented from cabbages and hot chilies.
Vulpine nodded respectfully, looking over Sawface’s shoulder. “I admire your artistry,” he said.
Beyond Sawface, fourteen human bodies were lashed to upright poles, like scarecrows in the field. They ranged in age from an elderly man to an infant. Not all were dead. Several were missing limbs. Two were missing heads. As frightening a scene as this presented, Vulpine was certain they would fail as scarecrows. No doubt by the following evening, crows would be devouring the eyes.
Sawface shouted, forcefully enough that Vulpine’s feather scales were stirred by the wind of his voice. “We slaughter men! All must die!”
“Yes,” said Vulpine. “Quite. However, if you rid the world of humans, who will grow the cabbages and chilies to make goom? Is a world without goom a world worth living in?”
Sawface opened his jaws to shout a response, but then some dim light flickered in his eyes.
Vulpine said, “I would like to engage your services in establishing a blockade around Dragon Forge. I can pay more gold than you can imagine. More importantly, I can supply you with all the goom you can possibly drink. I have full command of the kitchen barracks at the Dragon Palace. Join me, and I’ll have fifty wagons of the stuff rolling toward us before sunset.”
Sawface ground his lower jaw against his upper one, a grating noise like un-oiled, rusty gears grinding together inside the beast’s head. Finally, Sawface held up his weapon. “I want a chest of gold that weighs more than the head of my hammer!”
“Done,” said Vulpine. “I’ll double it, in fact, once you’ve performed a service for me.”
“Name it,” said Sawface.
“I want the four main roads leading to Dragon Forge decorated with these scarecrows of yours,” he said. “Two miles on each road should suffice. I understand it may take you some time to find enough bodies—”
“Do they need to be fresh?” asked Sawface, rubbing the underside of his jagged beak with his blood-encrusted hammer. His voice was quieter now. He almost sounded like he was thinking.
“I can’t see why.”
“Have your gold ready in a week,” said Sawface, gruffly, before turning and stomping back to the rest of his mob.
Vulpine looked back at Sagen. “That went well.”
“Shall I send one of the guards back to requisition the goom?”
“Of course not,” said Vulpine. “I gave the order for the wagons to roll before we left. I anticipated we would find remnants of Shandrazel’s army. In fact, it’s time we divide our forces. There are four main roads leading into Dragon Forge. Send ten guards to each to establish the blockades. Have your remaining guards spread throughout the area seeking out earth-dragons. Make them similar offers of gold and goom.”
Sagen nodded. “At once, sir. On which road will you be establishing your command post?”
“I won’t be establishing the command post. You will. Pick whichever road you think is most vital. I have other business I must attend to.”
“Other business, sir?”
“I need to pay a visit to the sun-dragon Rorg,” Vulpine said. He grimaced. “A most unpleasant task. Rorg tends to divide all of life’s problems into two categories: those he can solve by killing something, and those he can ignore. Dealing with him is always tedious.”
“How many guards will you need as an escort?”
“None,” said Vulpine. “I said he was tedious, not dangerous. The day I can no longer handle negotiations with a sun-dragon is the day you may build my funeral pyre.” He looked toward the east. The scarecrows were black silhouettes against a brightening sky. “A new day approaches,” he said. “The humans have had their moment of glory. Today begins their time of terror. When we’re done, they’ll be begging for our merciful guidance once more.”
GETTING TO THE TOP of the city wall was more challenging than Burke anticipated, especially with his crutch in his left hand and the case that held the spy-owl strapped to his back. The spy-owl weighed close to fifty pounds, which had the effect of pressing his belly up against the ladder, preventing him from seeing his remaining foot as it searched for the rungs. His aching arms supported most of his weight as he slowly worked his way up, one frustrating rung at a time.
Of course, he could have called out and any of the sky-wall bowmen would have run to his aid. But after all that time feeling helpless in his wheeled chair as his right leg died, he was eager to return to independent mobility. Getting around on his crutch felt like sprinting after his confinement to the chair.
He reached the top of the ladder and tossed his crutch onto the walkway that ran along the battlements. He grunted as he tried to slip the straps that held the spy-owl off his shoulder. Unfortunately, this threw off his center of gravity as he leaned backward. The ladder swayed slowly back from the wall.
A large brown boot, filthy with muck, slammed down onto the rung by his fingers, stopping the motion of the ladder. Stonewall stood above him, frowning as he looked down. Stonewall muttered something Burke didn’t quite catch, then leaned down and grabbed Burke’s wrist. Before Burke could protest, the giant lifted him, moving him through the air with no more effort than lifting a house cat.
Stonewall brought Burke even with his eyes. Despite his great size, Stonewall possessed youthful, even boyish features. His cheeks and chin were smooth, with no hint of beard, and the skin around his eyes was free of wrinkles or blemishes. His eyes were a piercing gray, the color of freshly cooled pig iron. His ebony hair framed his face in curly locks.
“You should be more careful,” Stonewall said, his voice deep as a sun-dragons, yet also gentle.
Burke nodded. “You can put me down now.” Stonewall sat Burke down. Burke hopped over to the wall and balanced against it while Stonewall handed him his crutch.
“Should you be up yet?” asked Stonewall. “You’ve only had a few days to recover from your surgery.”
“I can’t rest anymore,” said Burke, wrestling the spy-owl case from his shoulder. “There’s too much to be done. I’m tired of running this fort from a bed.”
Stonewall crossed his massive arms. His chainmail shirt rattled as he moved. “I was unaware you were running anything,” he said. “Ragnar commands this fort by God’s grace. You merely advise him.”
Burke didn’t want to argue with this oversized farm boy. He’d known the moment he’d signed up for this revolution that he’d do all the work and Ragnar would get all the glory. To be honest, he wanted things this way. He’d been one of the leaders of the Southern Rebellion twenty years ago, and in his dreams he still heard the screams of the men he’d led as the sun-dragon army tore them to shreds. This new rebellion may have been following his plans, but Ragnar’s fire and brimstone speeches were what motivated the men. Plus, Burke was blameless if these men chose to die for Ragnar’s glory.
Ignoring Stonewall, Burke flipped the brass clasps of the heavy case. Three legs dropped down, creating a tripod that the case balanced on. The panels of the case folded away revealing a brass statue of an owl almost two feet high. The owl’s glass eyes reflected his image in the soft morning light. He leaned, as if wiping away a smudge from the eye-lenses, but in reality it was some faint trace of vanity that drew his eye. He’d bathed this morning for the first time in weeks. His hair was clean and shining, with three crimson feather-scales woven into the braid that draped over his shoulder. His spare spectacles made his brown eyes look oddly small, but for the first time in weeks the whites of his eyes were truly white, untainted by illness. Three parallel scars ran down his right cheek, testament to his first encounter with Charkon twenty years prior. Yet despite the scars and wrinkles, despite the gray that streaked his hair, he looked pretty good for a man who’d been at the gates of death only a few days before. He straightened up and spun the spy owl around to face the western road. It was two hours after sun-rise. Normally a stream of refugees, volunteers, and traders would gather around the city walls during the night. This morning, they were absent.
He leaned down and looked into the window in the back of the spy-owl’s head. An elaborate set of mirrors and lenses caught the light from two miles down the road and brought it crisply to his eyes.
It didn’t take him long to understand what he was looking at. A platoon of earth-dragons were lashing human corpses to poles set along the road-side. From the look of things, these weren’t fresh bodies. A trio of sky-dragons stood nearby, supervising. From their armor, Burke recognized them as members of the Aerial Guard .
“It took them long enough,” he said.
“It took who long enough for what?” asked Stonewall.
“A blockade. Earth-dragons and sky-dragons. We’ve had an easy couple of weeks since Shandrazel’s army collapsed. With two kings dying back to back, the second with no heir, there’s been no one to seize control of the earth-dragons and guide them into the rather obvious strategy of a blockade. They’ve been randomly running around the countryside killing people in an unfocused rage. They’ve made life miserable for people directly in their path, but as a strategy for retaking Dragon Forge, it has obvious shortcomings.”
“You shouldn’t speak so lightly of the people who’ve died due to the dragons’ rampage,” said Stonewall. “I’ve spoken to many of the refugees. They’ve seen horrible things.”
“I know,” said Burke, rising up from the spy-owl. “I told Ragnar what he was unleashing before we took this fort.”
“Can I look?” asked Stonewall, pointing to the owl.
“Be my guest,” said Burke, hopping backwards to make room, keeping his balance with a hand on the battlements.
Stonewall dropped down on one knee and brought his eyes tentatively to the window on the back of the owl’s head.
“You may need to adjust the focus,” said Burke. “There’s a dial—”
Before he finished speaking, Stonewall raised his beefy fingers to the dial on the back of the bird’s head and began to fiddle with it.
“Amazing,” he said softly. “It’s like I’m standing right next to them. I can count the fringes on the back of that sky-dragon’s head.” He turned and looked at Burke with something approaching awe. “You designed this?”
“Yes,” said Burke.
“How did you grind the lenses so precisely?”
Burke lifted an eyebrow. “I’m glad you know it’s done with lenses,” he said. “Ragnar thought it was magic.”
“I’m originally from the Drifting Islands,” said Stonewall. “Many of the sailors use spyglasses.”
“Back at the tavern, I had special instruments that would let me shape glass to almost any specification.”
Stonewall stood up. “You’re a man of many talents, Machinist.” He sounded almost respectful. “I should go tell Ragnar. He’ll know what to do to break this siege.”
“Respectfully, he won’t,” said Burke. “For the moment, we don’t need it broken.” Stonewall frowned. “We’ve had three weeks to load in coal and supplies. We’ve got more pig iron stacked in the foundries than I can use in a year. We have a good, deep well, and, if my orders have been carried out in regards to upgrading the sewers, our sanitation practices have beaten back the threat of disease. We’re in no immediate danger. If someone has taken control of the renegade earth-dragons, then things should calm down in the countryside. The fact the sky-dragons are involved is a good sign. They’re smart fighters. They’ll take as long as they need to build up their forces and establish order.”
“We should strike before they can consolidate power,” said Stonewall.
“No. I’ve not had enough time to explore the possibilities of gunpowder. You’ve seen the shotguns. I’ve got mortars and cannons coming out of the forge this week. We have a technological advantage they don’t know about. They’re building their blockade out of the range of the sky-wall bows. They have no idea of the hell we’re going to unleash if I have time to build half of the inventions that are in my mind.”
Stonewall looked out toward the western road, at the tiny figures in the distance. From here, it was almost impossible to tell these were dragons. Stonewall said, without looking directly at Burke, “They say you don’t believe in God.”
Burke shrugged. “I’ve never been a man of faith.”
Stonewall straightened his back, adding inches to his towering frame. “Yet you ask us to have faith in you. You keep these inventions in your head, keeping your master plans secret while workmen labor on the individual parts. You won’t even share the secret of the gunpowder you ask us all to trust our lives to. Have you no faith in your fellow men, Burke?”
Burke was surprised by the bluntness of the question. He was more surprised by the bluntness of his answer. “No.” He sighed. “I . . . as bad as I’ve seen dragons treat humans, I’ve seen men do worse to each other.”
“Do you feel no sense of responsibility at all?” asked Stonewall. “Whether or not you believe that Ragnar’s war is a holy cause, if you have the knowledge that can lead to human victory, shouldn’t you share it with as many people as possible? If you were to die—”
“I’ve made plans,” said Burke. “I write down everything. It’s coded, but Anza can read it, and so can . . . so can another person here. If I die, the technology isn’t going to die with me. But as long as I’m alive, I’m going to retain control as long as I can. I don’t want to see my weapons used against humans.”
“Anza’s not here, Machinist. You ask us to place our faith in an unknown confidant?”
Burke looked out over the rolling hillsides, at the scattered mounds of refuse that had once housed the gleaners, fellow humans loyal to the dragons of the forge, who had been the first to die at rebel hands. He’d killed more men than dragons that night. Anza had not shown a shred of remorse as she’d moved among the shadows, killing everyone she met. He closed his eyes, blocking out the memories. “For now, I’m the only one I trust,” he said.
“I hope your pride isn’t the death of us all, Machinist.” Stonewall turned and walked away without glancing back.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
* * *
BONE AGAINST STONE
VULPINE SOARED OVER the seemingly endless valley with its patchwork quilt of farms and villages. It was mid-day, though thick clouds muted the light and gave the land a gray pall. Snow covered the nearby mountain peaks, and the clouds hinted at more to come. Despite the ominous weather—or perhaps because of it—the dirt roads below were bustling with humans moving between villages, riding atop donkey carts packed with various goods. This valley was famous for being the breadbox of Albekizan’s kingdom. The human uprising at Dragonforge felt like a distant nightmare. Looking down, Vulpine couldn’t imagine how any human could truly despise the authority of dragons. Humans farmed, dug mines, engaged in commerce. Dragons guided them in these efforts, moving humans back and forth as the needs of the kingdom dictated. Dragons maintained order. It was a beneficial arrangement for both humans and dragons. A few malcontents couldn’t be allowed to ruin the Pax Draco.
The valley stretched for over two hundred miles. Due to its size, it was divided into two abodes, each ruled by sun-dragons who couldn’t have been further apart in their philosophies and manners. The southern end had been ruled by Chakthalla, Albekizan’s sister-in-law, a refined sun-dragon with courtly tastes. She’d lived in a palace respected for its elegant architecture, a dwelling that contained nearly as much stained glass as stone. She’d dressed her earth-dragon guards in elaborate, lacey uniforms, drilled them endlessly, and never used them for war. In truth, Vulpine had always liked Chakthalla. She’d appreciated poetry and drama, and was a fine patron of sky-dragon scholars and artists. She’d also treated her human slaves well, which meant she hadn’t created much work for Vulpine. Humans could be rendered passive through either fear or fairness, and she’d definitely taken the gentler path. She’d been one of the few sun-dragons to oppose Albekizan’s plan of genocide. Of course, she was now dead because of this, assassinated by the Black Silence. Her castle lay gutted and looted, a stark example of the fate of those who defied Albekizan.
In contrast to the high-mannered Chakthalla, a brutish bull sun-dragon named Rorg ruled the northern reaches of the valley. At birth he’d been named Zanatharorg, but Rorg had dumped most of his syllables, along with many other things, fifty years ago when he’d adopted the philosophy of beastialism. Beastialists were dragons who shunned the trappings of civilization. They lived in caves rather than castles. They wore no jewelry, kept no painting or sculptures, and shunned the weapons and armor that other dragons had adopted centuries ago. The oldest known poem written by a dragon, The Ballad of Belpantheron, told the stories of how dragons had once lived like beasts while the world had been ruled by angels, smaller, weaker beings who nonetheless kept power through their use of weapons. Sun-dragons were blessed with formidable natural weaponry, but a sword and a spear were longer, sharper, and harder than any tooth or claw. The dragons had won their long struggle against the angels when they, too, had learned to forge steel and create their own weapons of war.
Beastialists, however, believed that the dragons of ancient times simply hadn’t tried hard enough. They regarded the adoption of weapons as a shameful admission that angel culture was superior to dragon culture, and felt that any unhappiness in dragon society could be traced to the fact that dragons were trying to be something they weren’t. They weren’t angels, visiting this earth from some higher realm. They were the apex of evolution, the most finely honed predators the earth had produced. Embracing their natural role was the key to true happiness.
Of course, one aspect of civilization they hadn’t rejected was the use of human slaves. Vulpine had paid many a visit to Rorg’s abode, due to the high rate of runaways. Unlike the pristine, well-groomed villages of the southern valley, the villages in Rorg’s domain were squalid and bleak, often festering with disease. This, of course, was the reason for Vulpine’s visit. The latest outbreak of yellow-mouth was well timed. Yellow-mouth only affected humans, most often humans exposed to sun-dragon dung. Once infected, humans could pass the disease to other humans via exposure to nearly any bodily fluid. The disease manifested first as mild fevers and weakness, a modest sickness little more bothersome than a cold. The only hint that it might be something more serious was that the inside of the victim’s mouth would slowly change from pink to yellow. The early stage could last as little as a week, or as long as a month. Finally, the afflicted human would experience a twenty-four hour period best described as an eruption. He would cough, sneeze, vomit, shit, and piss uncontrollably, sweating until blood seeped from his pores. The disease killed nearly half its victims. The most sinister aspect of the disease was that it could spread not just in the final, violent stage, but in the earlier phases as well. A mother placing her hand on the forehead of her child to feel for a fever could contract the disease, and then spread it to her husband with a simple kiss on the cheek. Even handling the clothes or blankets of one of the victims could spread yellow-mouth.
The disease was now rare through most of the kingdom. Most sun-dragons lived in palaces with good plumbing, meaning that their human slaves didn’t deal with vast quantities of dung. Beastialists, however, let their droppings fall anywhere the urge struck. Since dwelling in a cave full of your own excrement was unpleasant even for beastialists, human slaves had the ongoing task of mucking out the cave.
Vulpine at last saw the bone field that marked the entrance to Rorg’s lair. For half a mile in every direction, white bones gleamed against the gray winter ground: cattle, deer, humans, pigs, and earth-dragons. Smoke rose from the ground in tendrils at a hundred scattered spots extending well beyond the bone field. Beastialists had clung to one technology, at least. Since they couldn’t see in the dark they still used fire to light their homes, though they eschewed metal and glass lamps in favor of torches and fire pits.
Vulpine swooped down into the black pit that was the entrance to an expansive underground kingdom, a network of caverns with ceilings hundreds of feet tall. Some individual chambers were several acres in size. It was dangerous to fly in a cavern. All sense of perspective was thrown askew by the absence of sky. However, Vulpine had grown familiar with the contours of the place over his many visits. He flitted like an oversized bat above the heads of human slaves carting out buckets of muck. A few fat and napping sun-dragons peeked up through half-open lids as the wind of Vulpine’s passage stirred their feathers. Beastialists kept their large families close at hand. At least thirty adult sun-dragons shared this cavern.
Vulpine wound his way to the central chamber. He was startled to hear music as he approached. Not singing, but notes from an actual musical instrument. The tones had a bell-like quality to them, but Vulpine sensed they weren’t bells. What was making this haunting sound?
Arriving at the central chamber, he found his answer. This room covered several acres, and around the edges of humans stood on ladders, striking the stalactites that hung from the ceiling with large thighbones. The blows caused the long, slender columns of stone to vibrate, emitting musical tones. The men followed an unseen conductor, timing their strikes to create a slow mournful, melody of low, long notes that called back and forth across the chamber.
In the center of the room an enormous fire pit glowed brightly. The sharp creosote stink of the pine smoke provided a welcome mask to the pervasive odor of raw sewage that hung in the dank air.
A dozen dragons lay around the fire pit. Due to their slightly smaller size and the finer mesh of their ruby scales, Vulpine judged them to be female. Rorg’s harem, no doubt. They all stared at Vulpine with sullen, bored eyes as he landed near the fire pit.
Just beyond the fire pit, on an enormous pillow of stone, slouched Rorg himself. The old bull dragon was hideously fat. No doubt it had been many years since he’d been able to get airborne. He was currently picking his teeth with his long, black, hook-like claws. The bloodied remnants of an ox lay before him.
“Greetings, Rorg,” Vulpine said, raising his voice over the music of the stalactites.
Rorg turned his eyes, large as saucers, toward the new arrival. They glowed green in the dim light. Even the folds of skin around his eyes looked fat and heavy. “Slavecatcher. What brings you to my abode?”
The music suddenly grew louder. Vulpine didn’t know the tune, but apparently the song was reaching some sort of dramatic climax. Vulpine had to shout as he said, “I’ve heard you had an outbreak of—” suddenly, the music stopped, the last few notes of the song drifting off gently as Vulpine screamed, “—yellow-mouth!”
Rorg narrowed his eyes. “I don’t find your tone respectful, slavecatcher. Have a care. Do you know that, with the death of Albekizan, I am the most senior ruler of any abode? Forty years I’ve ruled this valley. Forty years, the labor of my slaves has fed the rest of the world. Remember who you speak to, little dragon.”
Vulpine bowed his head. “My apologies. I was merely trying to be heard over your music. It was quite loud; though also quite lovely. It has an unearthly quality that I find—”
“Unearthly?” Rorg grumbled. “It is the precise opposite of unearthly. These are the tones of the earth itself! I had long noted that some of the stalactites in my cavern possessed a musical tone when struck. Last winter, during the coldest, most dreary part of the year, I began to hear music in my head. It occurred to me that if I positioned my slaves correctly and trained them to strike notes at the proper time, I could make the music in my head a reality.”
“How innovative,” said Vulpine. “You are not so uncivilized as you would like to pretend, Rorg.”
“Nor are you sky-dragons as civilized as you imagine,” Rorg said. “Your books, your paintings, your plays and poems and choirs . . . you’ve stolen all your so-called culture from the angels. I may be the first true artist the dragon races have ever produced. This is natural music, Vulpine, bone against stone, the product of a true dragon heart.”
Vulpine bowed his head once more. He knew from experience it was simplest just to flatter the old swine into doing what he wanted, then leave as quickly as possible. “I meant no offense. I am, in fact, awed by your invention. It is, no doubt, the harbinger of a greater dragon civilization to come. However, we can debate the artistic future of dragons another day. Today, I’ve come because I need one of your slaves.”
“No,” said Rorg.
“No?” asked Vulpine, bewildered. He hadn’t known he’d asked a question.
The sun-dragons he’d flown over in the entry chambers were now lumbering into the room. These were males, younger than Rorg, no doubt his many sons. There were at least ten in the room now. One of them, a strong young bull, approached Rorg’s stone pillow. This dragon had the bulk of a fully grown male, but still possessed the tight, balanced musculature of a younger dragon. He was a formidable specimen, a dragon in his prime. His red scales were so vibrant in their sheen they looked like wet rubies as the firelight danced across them.
“I may live in a cave, slavecatcher, but I’m not ignorant of the world outside,” Rorg said. “I know that Albekizan is dead, and his successor, Shandrazel, was killed by the human rebels at Dragon Forge. I know, further, that Chapelion currently sits on the dragon throne, intending to be king in practice if not in title. You sky-dragons believe yourselves clever. Your biologians train the sons of other sun-dragons. You serve as their advisors in adulthood. You believe yourselves to be the true power in this world. In my abode, I have no libraries or colleges. I have no biologians to whisper lies in my ear and call it wise counsel.”
“Your independence is admirable,” said Vulpine. “I don’t see how my request for a slave threatens it.”
“You slavecatchers tout your importance to maintaining order among the human rabble. Yet, we now see the failings of your methods. Humans have seized the most shameful and decadent icon of your so-called civilization, Dragon Forge, the foundries that supplied the kings’ armies with swords and spears and armor.”
Vulpine ground his teeth. It was grating to hear Shandrazel’s failures blamed on the slavecatchers, but perhaps there was some tiny grain of truth to it.
“Rorg, I concede all that you say. Events unfolded more rapidly than I anticipated after Albekizan’s death. In retrospect, stationing reinforcements at Dragon Forge would have been an obvious precaution. Despite his heritage, Shandrazel wasn’t well trained in the art of war. I should have personally advised him on security precautions. I didn’t. Now, however, I will rectify my error by taking charge of reclaiming the foundries. I know that you’ve had an outbreak of yellow-mouth. I need a freshly infected slave, one who can survive long enough to travel to Dragon Forge and have his disease progress to the final stages soon after his arrival. The human rebels sleep packed into tight barracks and dine elbow-to-elbow in communal halls. Currently, they enjoy the benefits of a well-built sewer system, but a dam will end this advantage. A single infected individual should spread the disease quickly. Within a month, the place will be a ghost town.”
“A sound plan,” said Rorg. “One I anticipated. This is why I deny your request. The shameful age when dragons used tools draws to a close. The future belongs to my kind. Look at my son, Thak.” Rorg gestured to the young bull-dragon who stood beside him. Thak stood on his hind-talons, his neck held high, towering above Vulpine. “He is the pinnacle of my bloodline. He and his brothers will journey to Albekizan’s palace and throw Chapelion from the throne. He will burn the angel-tainted contents of the grand library and knock down its walls. The tapestries will be shredded, the sculptures crushed to gravel. Once Thak has firmly established his claim to the throne, the dragon armies will spread throughout the kingdom and bring mankind to its knees.”
“This is rather short-sighted on your part, Rorg,” said Vulpine. “The present human rebellion—”
“There is no hint of rebellion among my slaves! I maintain them in a state of perpetual hunger and weakness, allowing them only the most meager scraps of their labors. Despite the hunger, they work harder than any ten slaves in any other abode in the kingdom. Do you know why, Vulpine?”
“The bone field at your door no doubt has certain motivational powers.”
“Indeed,” said Rorg. “I’ve built that bone field with my teeth and my claws. Thak will not reclaim Dragon Forge, Vulpine. He will raze it. No wall of the foundry will be left standing.”
Vulpine looked Thak over. Thak returned his gaze with an expression that suggested hunger, as if he were sizing up Vulpine as a snack. Turning back to Rorg, he said, “I admire a dragon of vision. Chapelion seeks a new sun-dragon to serve as king. Thak looks the part. If he wants the throne, we’ll give it to him—with the understanding that he will respect the counsel of the High Biologian. Consider my offer carefully. You’ll be the father of a new dragon dynasty.”
“You seek to give us what we can take with our superior power?” Rorg asked.
“Have a care, Rorg,” said Vulpine. “If you attempt to take the throne by force, the aerial guard will crush you.”
“Thak,” said Rorg in a low voice, “kill this fool.”
Thak’s jaws opened and his head shot toward Vulpine like a viper striking. Vulpine sighed as he flapped his wings and flew straight up. Thak’s teeth snapped onto empty air inches beneath him. Vulpine kicked down. The young sun-dragon’s jaws smacked into the stone floor, sliding in the gritty muck-film coating it.
The kick propelled Vulpine upward. The ceiling here was at least a hundred feet high, studded with countless stalactites that hung down like stone icicles. He swung his hind-talons up and grabbed one that looked especially sturdy, his claws biting into it so that he wound up in a perpendicular crouch. The other sun-dragons stared up at him, but none looked like they were going to interfere. Rorg had given his order specifically to Thak. Both Thak and Rorg would lose face if they called on the others to help.
Looking up, Vulpine’s snout was only inches away from a second stalagmite. As Thak rose to up on all-fours, shaking the muck from his snout, Vulpine reached out with his fore-talon, flicking his claw against the tip of the stone. It chimed like a bell, though the note was much softer than the ones the slaves had sounded, and this particular rock was out of tune. It pealed with something that was almost, but not quite, an e-flat. He winced at the off-key note.
Thak rose up to his hind-talons and roared up at the ceiling. It was an impressive noise, one that set the whole chamber ringing. The cavern as a whole was tuned to an almost perfect c. He had to admire Rorg’s inventiveness in creating such a wonderful instrument. It made it all the more puzzling that Thak was so blind to the obvious advantages of other inventions. What did it matter if a sword was the invention of angel, man, or dragon? It was, Vulpine felt, time to demonstrate why tool-users would retain control of the earth.
Below him, Thak leapt, his mighty wings beating a powerful downbeat that sent embers from the fire pit dancing around the room. He raced toward Vulpine, his jaws open once more, as Vulpine pulled his whip from his belt. He flicked the weapon in his fore-talon, aiming the leather through the forest of stalactites to a slender one ten feet distant that caught his eye. The leather wrapped around the tip of the stone. Vulpine gave a sharp tug. With a crack the stone snapped free about five feet up the shaft. He flicked his wrist again to free his whip as the stone spear began to plummet, right into the path of Thak’s approach. The stone tore through Thak’s outstretched left wing near his armpit.
Thak’s jaws clamped shut and he sucked in air through flared nostrils. His injured wing spasmed uncontrollably. His good wing vainly tried to keep him airborne, but it was of no use. He landed on his back in the middle of the fire pit, extinguishing most of the flames. He howled as he rolled from the pit, sending sparks and smoke in all directions. A new stink fouled the atmosphere, the stench of burning feather-scales.
Rorg dropped from his perch amid a cacophony of shouts. Shadows danced around the chamber as humans ran for safety, carrying torches. The air was thick with black smoke.
When the chaos cleared, Thak was flat on his back, his wings stretched to the side, his head pressed firmly against the stone floor. Standing on his throat, right at the junction of Thak’s jaw and neck, was Vulpine. He’d drawn his sword and buried it in the underside of Thak’s jaw, where he held it with both fore-talons as blood gushed from the intersection of flesh and steel with each heartbeat. Vulpine stared at Rorg calmly.
“This blade is three feet long,” he said, his voice dispassionate, as if he were merely explaining the attributes of the object. “You will notice that two feet of the weapon is still exposed. The tip of the sword is presently resting on the base of Thak’s skull. The bone there is relatively thin. With only modest pressure, I can drive this into Thak’s brain.”
“You won’t leave here alive,” growled Rorg. Vulpine heard the fear beneath the great beast’s anger.
“Regardless of the outcome of our encounter, I’d encourage you to reflect on the validity of your philosophy. I’ve bested the mightiest warrior among you with little more than braided leather and a pointy rock. Do you honestly think you stand a change going up against the aerial guard at the palace, with all their weapons and war-machines?”
“No one can stand against our teeth and claws!” Rorg bellowed, then grew still as his eyes fixed on the juncture of the sword and Thak’s throat. Thak was breathing in shallow, rapid breaths. Beneath Vulpine’s hind-talons, the blood in the sun-dragon’s jugular vein raced in strong, panicked pulses.
“I will repeat my request for a single slave,” said Vulpine. “And some blankets.”
“One slave is hardly worth this rudeness on your part. I don’t understand why you chose to provoke this fight. We purchased new slaves a few days ago to replace those lost to yellow-mouth. You can have your pick of the lot. There are fresh corpses piled above, with the blankets they died beneath still wrapped about them. Take as many as you wish.”
“Thank you, Rorg,” Vulpine said, pulling his sword free and stepping down from Thak’s throat. “This is most generous of you.”
Vulpine started to sheath his sword, then looked up at Rorg once more. “So we’re clear, none of your relatives are going anywhere near Chapelion now.”
“What use have we for a palace?” grumbled Rorg. “A cave surrounded by bones is the natural abode of the dragon.”
Vulpine nodded with a new appreciation of Rorg’s old fashioned wisdom. “So where are these new slaves?”
“Most are already out in the villages,” said Rorg. “We’ll use them in the fields come spring. But over in the corner is one of the new arrivals. He’s small, so we put him to work mucking out the tighter crevices.”
Rorg pointed toward a blond youth cowering in a narrow alcove. If Rorg hadn’t used the pronoun “he,” Vulpine wouldn’t have instantly recognized the human as male. His hair was shoulder length and his limbs were slender. Still, he looked old enough to be useful, perhaps twelve or thirteen. It was an age at which one might plausibly run off to join a rebellion. “He’ll do. What’s his name?”
“They have names?” Rorg asked.
Vulpine walked over to the trembling youth. “What are you called?” The boy looked away, as if praying that Vulpine was talking to someone else.
“I asked you a question,” said Vulpine, uncoiling his whip. He allowed the tip to rest on the cavern floor at a spot where the boy couldn’t help but see it.
“J-j-j-juh . . . Jeremiah,” the child whispered.
“Are you cold boy? This dank cave air too much for those rags you’re wearing?” Jeremiah looked up and nodded. “Let’s get you back into some fresh air. We’ll get you a blanket you can wrap up in. Maybe two. Would you like that?”
The boy looked confused by this offer. He didn’t shake his head yes or no. The wheels of his mind were locked with fear. Vulpine grew impatient. “Follow me, or I’ll thrash the skin off you,” he snapped and turned away, walking through the phalanx of sun-dragons who glared at him with a mixture of hate and awe. He didn’t look back. Behind him, he heard the patter of the boy’s feet as he scrambled to keep up, slipping on the slimy stone.
CHAPTER TWELVE
* * *
THE IMPORTANCE OF CLEAN WATER
THE LAST TIME BITTERWOOD had passed through Winding Rock it had been a ghost town. Its citizens had been among the first taken to the Free City, and the empty town had quickly been stripped of anything of value by the few humans who remained in the area. As Skitter carried them into Winding Rock, he saw that it was inhabited once more. Timid faces peeked out from behind torn curtains. Doors that had been kicked from their hinges were patched and repaired, once more keeping out the winter chill. Smoke drifted from the chimneys of at least half the homes. It was nearly dinnertime and the air was flavored by pans of cornbread baking in wood-fired stoves, atop which simmered pots of potatoes and beans, if Bitterwood’s nose could be trusted.
At the center of the town was a stone well with a shingled roof. A brick walkway surrounded the well, bordered by flower beds heaped with mulch, no doubt sheltering daffodil and iris bulbs. Bitterwood had help build a well similar to this one, years ago, in Christdale. He and the other men had dug the well during the second year of drought; there’s nothing quite like three months without rain to drive home the importance of clean water. When he’d dug that well he’d assumed he’d be drinking from it for the rest of his life. He could have grown soft and content in Christdale, tending his crops and raising his family. He could have spent his winter evenings by a fireplace, with a mug of hot cider to warm him. Instead, dragons had destroyed Christdale. He’d spent the last twenty years avenging this act.
What had it gained him? A legend. Dragons trembled at his name. Men spoke of him as a hero. He would gladly trade this fame—or infamy—for an anonymous life as farmer and father.
Skitter carried them up the well. He poked his snout down it and sniffed.
“I guess he’s thirsty,” said Shay. The young man sat on the saddle directly behind him and turned his face away. He never made eye contact with Bitterwood now, either due to fear, or, more likely, the grudge he carried over the burnt books. Behind Shay sat Jandra, looking worn and ragged. Once, Jandra had used her magic to keep her appearance immaculate; with the loss of her powers, she’d decayed somewhat. Her hair draped in oily tangles around her shoulders. Her blue coat, fresh only two days ago was covered in burrs; mud speckled her boots and pants. She sagged in her saddle. There were dark circles under her eyes.
Sitting on her shoulder, Lizard had changed color to match Jandra’s brown hair, save for his feet and tail, which were blue to match her coat. Bitterwood scowled at the little dragon. The beast turned its gaze, and slipped down behind Jandra’s back.
Behind Jandra sat Poocher. The pig was definitely going through a growth spurt. He looked bigger than he had even yesterday. Poocher’s barely sprouted tusks gave him a permanent a sneer. Unlike Lizard, Poocher didn’t turn his gaze away. The pig’s eyes were hidden by his silver visor, but Bitterwood could sense his judgmental stare. He’d never really gotten along with Poocher.
On the final saddle sat the reason Bitterwood hadn’t turned Poocher into bacon. Zeeky sat with her legs crossed atop the saddle, staring at the crystal ball that sat in her lap. She wasn’t dressed warmly enough, thought Bitterwood. She had only a thin blanket for a cloak, over a shirt and trousers that were little more than rags. Yet, she had a look approaching serenity as she stared into the glass orb. Whatever she was seeing or hearing within, it seemed to make her happy.
Zeeky didn’t look up as she said, “Get Skitter some water, please.” The long-wyrm was staring at the well with a look that was as close to desire as a reptile was ever likely to convey.
“We just crossed a stream. Why didn’t he drink then?”
“Because a lot of the outhouses around here empty into that creek. The well is drawing pure water. He’ll probably be able to drink a bucketful, maybe two.”
Bitterwood peeled himself off his saddle. The surface held onto his tan buckskin britches like glue, though once he started pulling himself free there was no residue. He picked up the heavy oak bucket on the edge of the well. The rope that held it was thicker than his thumb, woven from hemp. Poocher hopped down from Skitter and trotted up to Bitterwood. He snorted in a demanding tone.
“You’ll get your turn, Poocher,” said Zeeky.
“Do we get to drink before the pig?” Shay asked Jandra quietly. He was adapting to the idea that the rules of Zeeky’s world were somewhat different. Poocher squealed and shook his head in response.
“Stop being rude,” said Zeeky. “Skitter will go first. He’s had to do all the hard work carrying us. Then Jandra, because she’s a lady, and Lizard, since he’s still little. Then Shay, because if you’re going to be mean, Poocher, you’ll have to go last.” Poocher made a noise that was part grunt, part grumble, and trotted away, back toward the stream. Apparently, he wasn’t going to wait around for the well water.
“He’s been so bratty lately,” said Zeeky, shaking her head.
Bitterwood heard the bucket splash. He began to turn the wooden wheel to raise it back to the surface. He noticed he’d been left off Zeeky’s list of who would get a turn drinking. He also noticed that no one beside Poocher had challenged her list.
As he lugged the heavy bucket up over the rim and sat it down on the cobblestones for the long-wyrm to drink, he heard a noise behind him. The door of a nearby cottage had opened a crack. Hushed voices whispered back and forth within. The cottage was larger than most in the village; a few weeks ago, it had been stripped of its slate shingles. Now, the shingles had been replaced. Whoever resided there must be someone important among the locals.
A pot-bellied older man stepped out of the door. He was followed by four guards, wearing stolen earth-dragon chainmail and helmets and armed with spears. The armor might have fit a large man reasonably well, but it was laughable on these four—as near as he could tell, they were all teenagers, younger than Jandra. In fact, unless the dimming light was playing tricks on him, they were all girls, which made sense. Most able-bodied men who’d been at the Free City had run off to join Ragnar’s rebellion. Only women, children, and elderly men would have returned to Winding Rock.
“Strangers,” said the pot-bellied man, looking nervously at the long-wyrm. “You didn’t ask permission to use our well. I must inform you that there’s . . . there’s a user fee.”
“For water?” Bitterwood scoffed.
“Hello, Barnstack,” said Zeeky.
“You know him?” Jandra asked.
“Sure. Barnstack’s the mayor of Winding Rock.”
Barnstack eyed Zeeky astride the long-wyrm. He looked mildly befuddled, as if he didn’t know why she knew him.
“I’m Zeeky. From Big Lick.” Big Lick had been a collection of miner’s shacks not five miles from here. It wasn’t quite large enough or organized enough to truly be called a village.
Barnstack nodded slowly upon hearing the name. “You’re Jeremiah’s sister.”
“You know Jeremiah?” Bitterwood asked.
“No,” said Barnstack, shaking his head solemnly.
“No?” Bitterwood asked.
“Oh,” said Barnstack. “Um. I mean, yes, obviously, I knew him. I knew his name, didn’t I? Alas, he’s dead now. All of Big Lick was burned to the ground. There were no survivors.”
“Actually, everyone survived,” said Zeeky. “Sort of. It’s complicated. But, for Jeremiah, it’s simple. He ran away and escaped.”
“Have you seen him?” asked Bitterwood.
“Now listen here,” said Barnstack, trying to sound angry, but not quite achieving it. “You’re changing the subject. Our town has been through hard times. We were taken to the Free City, and when we returned, everything of value was gone. That’s why there’s a fee to drink from our well. But I’m a fair man. You didn’t know about the fee. So that first bucket is free. If you want to keep drinking, you’ll need to pay up.”
“What’s the matter, Barnstack?” asked Zeeky. “Have you already spent Albekizan’s gold?”
Barnstack turned pale. His lips twisted into an expression that bore little resemblance to a casual smile. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I was hiding in your kitchen when you took a bribe from an earth-dragon and agreed to tell the rest of your village to go to the Free City without fighting.”
Barnstack’s right eye twitched. He chuckled softly at Bitterwood. “Children have such imaginations.”
Skitter had finished drinking the water in the pail. The long-wyrm looked toward Barnstack with a lazy eye. Bitterwood assumed that Zeeky wasn’t angry at Barnstack; if she had been, Skitter would be showing signs of hostility. Bitterwood dropped the bucket back down the well.
“Go back inside, old man,” he said. “We’ll drink our fill and move on.”
“Actually, we won’t be moving on,” said Zeeky. “Jeremiah didn’t have that many places to run. He might turn up here. Right, Barnstack?”
“There’s no place for you to stay here,” said Barnstack.
Jandra interrupted. “We’re only a few miles from Dead Skunk Hole. That’s the entrance to the realm of the goddess. Perhaps we can return here after we go there?”
“You and Shay are going to have to go without us,” said Zeeky. “We’re not going to Dead Skunk Hole.”
Jandra looked surprised by these words. “You won’t take us the rest of the way?”
Zeeky shook her head. “Bitterwood and I don’t have much time to save Jeremiah.”
“Save him from what? How do you know he’s in danger?”
Zeeky gave an inscrutable half smile.
“Fine,” said Jandra, sliding down from the long-wyrm. Shay dismounted as well.
Zeeky reached into her saddle bag and pulled out a pair of silver visors like the ones she and Poocher wore. She tossed them to Jandra. “We took these from the guards Bitterwood killed in Dead Skunk Mine. They let you see in the dark.”
“What about Lizard?” she asked.
“He won’t need one,” said Zeeky. “He can see in the dark just fine.”
By now, Bitterwood had drawn up another bucket of water. Since the others were focused on Zeeky and Jandra, he paused to take a sip of the cold water.
Barnstack made a choked noise, glancing back at his quartet of guards. The girls looked sheepish, as if they were aware of their failings as intimidating muscle. Barnstack opened his mouth, looking as if he were about to yell, then snapped it shut again. He turned and stomped back into his cottage. The girls followed, slamming the door.
“What a pleasant man,” said Shay.
Bitterwood nodded. “I look forward to talking to him further.”
AS SHAY AND JANDRA walked away from the well, Lizard waved in a fashion that Shay found unnerving. It was slightly too human a gesture from a scaly green beast that currently had its foot long tail wrapped around Jandra’s neck. Shay wondered about the wisdom of choosing to follow Jandra on her quest into the underground kingdom. There were certainly less dangerous paths available to him to gather books.
Yet, he didn’t have to dig deep into his own thoughts to discover that he liked Jandra. It wasn’t simply that she was smart and driven; he found himself admiring her for her compassion toward Lizard. Despite her own history of mistreatment at the hands of dragons, she didn’t display the faintest sliver of hatred. This was a rare quality; it was difficult not to appreciate Jandra for it. Not that this changed his mind about Lizard. With luck, perhaps the little beast would run off as it got bigger and never bother them again.
They followed a well-trod path that wound near the creek up toward Big Lick. It was quite dark now, especially here in the shadow of the mountains. The sky above was gray with clouds.
“Once we get a little higher, there are caves everywhere. We can take shelter in one of them,” said Jandra.
Shay stumbled on a tree root in the dark and nearly lost his grip on the shotgun as he reached out and grabbed a tree trunk for balance. Visions of bright red horse bone jutting from a hide flashed into his mind. “I wouldn’t mind sleeping on the ground,” he said.
“Take this. It should make travel at night much easier.” She held out a circlet of silver metal identical to the ones Zeeky and Poocher wore. The visor was surprisingly light. For something that looked like solid metal, it weighed no more than a sheet of parchment. Curiously, despite the chill of the evening, the metal was warm to the touch.
Jandra slipped her visor over her own brow, letting it rest on her nose. The eyeless band looked more like a blindfold than an aid to sight. He slipped the band over his eyes. Instantly, the surrounding landscape was as bright as if it were noon. “Now this is magic!” .
Jandra put her hands on her hips. “You can’t go around calling everything you don’t understand magic,” she said sternly.
“Why can’t I?” Shay asked. “Why should you care how I organize my experiences?”
Jandra sighed and shook her head. Lizard shook his head slowly, as if he, too, were in the presence of a frustrating child. The little beast rolled his eyes, a gesture he’d seen Jandra perform; perhaps her visor spared him this outlet of her judgment, at least.
“It’s not fair arguing with you,” Shay said. “Lizard sits on your shoulder like he’s your second head. I feel outnumbered when I’m talking to you.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I know I must come across as short tempered and intolerant. I don’t think I used to be like this.” She sounded sad now, as she gazed up the rugged mountain pathway. “I don’t know if it’s stress that’s making me so mean to you, or if Jazz’s personality is bleeding into my own more and more. She wasn’t the most patient person. I’ll try not to bite your head off from now on.”
“You really haven’t been all that mean to me.” Shay felt bad that she felt bad. “I was a slave. I’m used to being lashed when I displease others. It really isn’t an unbearable burden to have you scold me from time to time.”
“The world has enough conflict without me adding to the total. If you want to think the visors are magic, I don’t see why that should bother me. It’s not your fault you don’t have the training to understand the science behind them.”
Her apology slipped in the realm of insult. Was she dismissing his ability to learn?
Jandra tapped her visor. “These things are more than just fancy glasses,” she said, sounding happy to change the conversation. “The long-wyrm riders could communicate with them over long distances. I wonder if I can figure out how to use them for that?”
“Actually,” said an unseen voice, “you’re already on an open channel. I can hear you fine.”
Jandra startled, looking around for the source of the ghostly voice. Shay spun in a circle, trying to spot the speaker, his shotgun at the ready.
“Adam?” Jandra asked.
“Who’s Adam?” whispered Shay.
“Adam Bitterwood. He’s Bant’s son. He was captain of the long-wyrm riders.”
“Yes, it’s Adam,” said the disembodied voice. “Is this Jandra? Who’s with you?”
“This is Lizard,” she said, raising a hand to stroke the earth-dragon’s paw. “Oh, do you mean the other voice you heard? That’s my new friend Shay. Where are you?”
“I’m in the temple in Winding Rock. Look to your left.”
Half a mile distant on the edge of Winding Rock sat a temple of the goddess. These places of worship were stone platforms ringed by trees planted closely together to form living walls.
Jandra motioned for Shay to follow. As they neared the temple, a tall, long-haired man appeared on the stone steps. He was dressed in a long robe woven from green thread. A braided honeysuckle vine sat upon his brow like a crown; even though it was mid-winter, the vine was fresh and green, studded with soft yellow flowers. Magic.
Shay caught himself. He needed to think critically about the wonders he encountered. The biologians at the College of Spires maintained greenhouses. It didn’t require magic to keep a plant green in winter.
“Adam,” said Jandra. “I wondered what had happened to you.”
Adam walked down the steps, holding his arms wide open. “It’s good to see you,” he said, embracing her. The hug lasted several seconds. Shay wondered if there was something more to Jandra’s and Adam’s relationship than he was aware of. Or was this hug only a greeting? And why should it matter to him?
Adam released Jandra. “Welcome, brother,” he said, and wrapped his arms around Shay. “You’re an honored guest here.”
The hug lasted for a few seconds longer than Shay felt it needed to. Within the temple, he could see a life-sized statue of a nude woman carved from mahogany. The goddess, he supposed. Chapelion had never educated him much in the various human faiths, but he’d picked up some knowledge from his fellow slaves.
Adam finally released Shay from his embrace. “What brings you back to these mountains?”
“I’m returning to Jazz’s kingdom,” said Jandra.
Adam frowned. “For what purpose?”
Jandra started to speak, then stopped. She finally said, “I think Hex might be going back underground to find the goddess heart. I have to stop him. I could use your help.”
Shay wondered why Jandra was lying. This wasn’t her true motivation. She was going because she wanted to reclaim her magic.
“I won’t go back into the underworld,” said Adam. “My days as a warrior are behind me. After seeing the scars my father bore upon his soul after a lifetime of fighting, I’ve taken a vow of non-violence. I intend to serve the goddess in more benign ways. It is a path, I pray, that will spare me my father’s fate.”
“The goddess is dead,” Jandra said. “You watched us bury what little remained of her. How can you serve a dead goddess?”
Adam waved toward the town of Winding Rock and the valley beyond. “Winter has gripped this valley. The fields are brown and barren. Yet is the earth dead? Spring will awaken the sleeping land. So, too, shall the goddess wake from her slumber.”
“Bitterwood stabbed her in the heart with Gabriel’s flaming sword,” said Jandra. “She was burned to ash. I don’t think she’s waking up, Adam.”
“My father slew only an aspect of the goddess. You’ll see. She’ll rise again.”
“Speaking of your father, he’s down in Winding Rock. Do you want me to let him know you’re here?”
“No,” said Adam. “My father and I have said all we need to say to one another. In the years we were apart, I dreamed of reuniting with him. I imagined him as a hero, and imbued his dream with all the best qualities of humanity. The man I met was a cruel monster who was only happy when he was fighting. Perhaps I’m to blame as well. No doubt our reunion was poisoned by my own idealism. No flesh and blood man could have ever lived up to my vision.”
“I understand,” said Jandra. “I always wanted to find my human family. I longed for relatives more than anything else in the world. Now, I’ve finally met my brother. His name is Ragnar. He’s a wild-eyed, naked, long-haired prophet of the Lord who wants to burn me at the stake. It’s really made me miss Vendevorex. I wish I’d understood how important he was to me while he was still alive.”
“The kindest thing my father ever did for me was spare my life after he’d slaughtered my companions and my mount,” Adam said. “Contrast this with the compassion of the goddess in taking me in as an orphan and giving me a life filled with wonders. It’s not mere blood that defines a family.”
Jandra's hand dipped into her coat pocket and pulled out a square of folded paper and a pencil. She circled something on the paper.
“What are you writing?” Shay asked.
“This is something I’ve started doing to organize my thoughts,” said Jandra. “I’m keeping lists of all the things I need to do. To be honest, I think this was one of Jazz’s habits—she called these ‘to do lists’. All this talk about Vendevorex reminded me that I still have to find his stolen body.”
She unfolded the paper. There were at least two dozen items on her list. “Find Ven’s body” was now circled. Two slots above it, “Get back genie!” was underlined several times. Near the bottom of the page was written “Find Atlantis.” This had three question marks off to the side. Lizard leaned down to study the paper. Of course, earth-dragons couldn’t read. Could they?
“The evening is growing cold,” said Adam.
“It looks like snow,” Shay said, glancing toward the clouds.
“It won’t snow,” said Adam, with a curious certainty. “Still, I have a small cabin not far from here. You can spend the night there. Tomorrow I’ll send you on your journey with fresh provisions and my best wishes.”
“Thank you,” said Jandra. “I appreciate your hospitality.” She smiled. “You really didn’t turn out a thing like your father.”
“That means a lot to me,” said Adam.
AS DAWN CAME to the village of Winding Rock, Zeeky waited patiently on the edge of the well. Skitter was curled around the stone structure. He snored as he slumbered, a sound like gravel pouring from a wheelbarrow. The poor thing needed his rest. They’d really put him through his paces over the last few days. Poocher was already awake. He was snuffling around in the flower beds, pushing away the mulch and dirt, digging up the bulbs he found and wolfing them down. He didn’t offer any to Zeeky.
“I don’t know why you’ve been acting so bratty lately,” she said. Poocher looked up. It was harder to read his expressions while he wore his visor. She couldn’t see his eyes. Still, his overall posture conveyed offense at being called a brat.
“You used to be sweet,” she said.
He snuffed, then thrust his face back into the dirt, declaring the conversation over.
She turned her gaze toward the cottage. The curtains in the window moved slightly for the tenth time since daybreak. The smoke rising from the chimney carried the scent of baking biscuits. Her stomach grumbled. Those would really taste good.
She waited patiently as the sun rose higher into the sky. Poocher finished digging up the last flower bed. Looking content, he climbed up onto his saddle. He did so with gentle, sure-footed movements. Even though he was now quite portly, Poocher still possessed a certain gracefulness. Skitter didn’t even stir.
Long after the smell of biscuits had faded, the curtains pushed aside for one more peek. When they fell, she heard muffled voices from inside.
Here and there around the village, there were signs of life as the other houses woke. A few heads poked from doorways from time to time to stare at the well and the snoring long-wyrm. From the backs of the houses, Zeeky could hear doors opening. She caught glimpses of old men and young children as they tiptoed to reach the outhouses by the creek. The doors were swiftly pulled shut behind them.
At last, the rear door to Barnstack’s cottage creaked open. From where she sat, she could see Barnstack’s outhouse if she leaned a bit to the left. She saw the old man skulking toward it. He glanced back over his shoulder. Seeing that she could see him, he broke into a jog. He yanked open the privy door.
A man’s arm reached out from the darkness of the outhouse and grabbed Barnstack by his collar, yanking him from his feet. The door slammed shut and Barnstack shrieked. His high-pitched cries lasted for several minutes. Around the village, dogs began to bay. Skitter lifted his head at the sound of the dogs. He let loose a low growl and bared his teeth. Instantly, all the village dogs fell silent.
Barnstack’s screams faded. They were followed by incoherent sobbing as a gruff voice shouted out questions. The occasional brief, sharp, shriek of pain caused Skitter to jerk nervously. He uncoiled from the well and looked at Zeeky with anxious eyes.
Poocher stood up in his saddle. The bristles on the back of his neck stood on end. He glanced at Zeeky with a look that said, “Say the word. I’m ready for action.”
“Patience,” she counseled.
Several long minutes passed where no sounds at all came from the outhouse. Finally, the door swung open and Bitterwood stepped out. He marched to the cottage, disappearing from sight. Skitter flinched as a loud WHAM erupted from behind the house.
“It’s okay,” said Zeeky, stroking his neck. “He just kicked in the door.”
Ten minutes went by without a sound coming from the cottage. At last, Bitterwood stepped out, raising his hand to shield his eyes from the morning sun. His knuckles were bloody. He carried a wicker basket with a bright yellow towel draped over it.
“Got some biscuits and boiled eggs,” he said. “Took a crock of jam and some flour. A block of salt. Couple of onions. Some dried beans we can fix up later. A big slab of salt pork, though I guess you and Poocher won’t want any of that.”
“Toss me one of them biscuits.”
Bitterwood pulled back the towel and tossed her a hard, brown, lumpy disk of bread. Zeeky snatched it from the air. It felt heavy as a rock. She bit into it; it was almost as hard as a rock as well. It sucked all moisture from her mouth as she chewed. After her first swallow, she took a long drink from the well bucket. “I’m going to need some of that jam,” she said.
“Eat as we ride,” Bitterwood said, tossing her the basket and hopping up onto his saddle. Skitter swayed to compensate for the sudden weight. Unlike Poocher, Bitterwood didn’t mount the long-wyrm with any hint of gentleness.
Zeeky climbed onto her own saddle. “Which way?”
“North,” said Bitterwood. “You were right. Jeremiah did come here. Barnstack found him hiding in one of the empty houses and sold him to a slave-trader nine days ago.”
Zeeky clenched her jaw. No wonder the voices in the crystal ball had hidden this from her. “Did you break any of his bones?” she asked.
“Probably,” Bitterwood said. “Four, maybe, not counting fingers.” The number brought her grim satisfaction.
“The slave-trader is a tatterwing called Nub-tail. He works the whole valley. Prices are high for healthy slaves at the moment. The south is half-empty due to Albekizan’s carting off folks to the Free City, and apparently there’s a big yellow-mouth outbreak up north. I’ve a hunch we’ll find Jeremiah in Rorg’s cavern. Beastialists go through a lot of slaves. Jeremiah is too small for field labor, and too skinny to be purchased as food. He’ll probably wind up as a mucker. Let’s get going.”
Zeeky gently nudged Skitter with her heels. The giant beast slithered forward on its many claws. As they crossed the stream, Zeeky looked toward Barnstack’s outhouse. The water beneath it was pink, and dark red drops plinked down from the wooden floor. It wasn’t something she wanted to think about any more, so she wouldn’t. She instead lifted up the yellow towel and found the crock of jam.
In the saddle bag by her left leg, from inside the clear orb, she could hear the distant murmurs coming from a place that was not a place. She couldn’t make out the words, but the mood of the voices struck her as angry. This too, she didn’t want to think about. She uncapped the crock of jam, filling the air with the scent of blackberries.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
* * *
DRAGONSEED
SWEAT POURED OFF Burke’s face as he shoveled coal through the iron door beneath the boiler. The glow of flames painted the confined space hellish red. Burke closed the furnace, darkening the interior, but he still felt like he was sitting in an oven. He was working in the belly of a low, squat wagon, with iron walls and an iron roof. He’d salvaged the wagon’s oak platform, the boiler, and the steel treads on which the whole device rolled from Big Chief, the war machine that had helped repel Shandrazel’s army. Big Chief had served its purpose, but had obvious shortcomings as a practical engine of war. It had been too tall to be armored properly and still roll without toppling. The consequence of skimping on armor came back to him as he reached down to scratch the itch on his right knee and found his fingers touching air.
Burke was a rational man; he’d never believed in ghosts. So what was the source of this phantom that haunted him? What was he to make of the fact that he could feel his absent toes? If he could still feel a missing leg, would the same be true if he lost his arm? Or even his head? How much of him could be cut away before he’d stop feeling everything? Or, was it true after all? If you destroyed a man’s body, was there still some spirit that lingered, invisible, intangible, yet capable of feeling the world, just as his missing leg was now feeling the heat?
Could Ragnar be right? Did he, in fact, have a soul that would one day be judged by an unseen God?
Burke shook his head and reached for the greasy towel he used to clean his tools. He found the cleanest swatch on it and mopped up the sweat stinging his eyes. He scooted across the oak platform on his butt, opening the gun slits to let in air, then slid onto the squat wooden stool that served as Big Chief’s new driver’s seat. Of course, Big Chief was no longer an apt name. The war machine was no longer humanoid in shape. The wagon was now twenty feet long from end to end, and five feet tall at its highest point. It looked more like a turtle than a man now. In fact, given that it was more oval shaped than round if seen from above, and was solid cast iron black, it looked more like a beetle than a turtle. An angry beetle, bristling with spikes to discourage any dragons from trying to land atop it, assuming they made it past the twin cannons, or the alcohol-based flame-thrower, or the small guns that could be aimed out the gun slits.
The Angry Beetle. Burke smiled. After he worked on a machine long enough, it would eventually tell him its name.
Feeling confident, Burked released the clutch to engage the low forward gear. He let it out carefully—he only had thirty feet to roll without crashing into the door of the warehouse he’d commandeered for the Angry Beetle’s construction. Alas, thirty inches would have been enough space. Burke winced as metal ground against metal. The machine lurched barely a foot before something in the underbelly popped. The steel walls of the structure rang as if they’d been struck with a hammer.
“Wonderful.” Clenching his teeth, he stepped back onto the clutch and pulled the lever to shift power to the reverse gears. He laughed, amazed, as the machine lurched again and rolled backward. He quickly knocked the machine back out of gear.
“If the dragons attack from behind, I’m golden.” The machine’s weight brought it to a halt after a few inches. Setting the brake, he flipped the release switch to vent the steam. He slid over to the hatch and pushed it open. The cooler air of the warehouse washed over him. He sat at the edge of the hatch, stretching both his good leg and his phantom one, and looked around the warehouse. Once, the earth-dragons of the foundry had filled this place with swords and shields and other armaments. He’d ordered them all melted down, turned into sky wall bows, shot guns, and cannons. Now teams of men were already at work building components for a fleet of Angry Beetles, even though no one but himself had any idea what the final project was.
Was Stonewall right? Was his distrust of Ragnar leading him to levels of secrecy that would damage the chances of not only holding onto Dragon Forge, but of projecting force outward, letting humanity win the ultimate war against the dragons?
He was confident the Angry Beetle was worth his time and energy. These mobile platforms of war wouldn’t roll far given the restraints on fuel storage, and they wouldn’t move fast given their weight, but they’d still cut down earth-dragon armies like a scythe through wheat. As a mobile platform for cannons, they’d also remove the aerial advantage of the dragons. The cannons could hurl steel balls over a mile nearly straight up; he was confident he’d soon solve the problem of how to make those balls explode at their apex, filling the sky with shrapnel that would devastate the winged beasts.
Yet, with Anza gone, was this too much of a project for him to tackle alone? He wasn’t daring to make eye-contact with Biscuit now, let alone consult with him. After admitting to Stonewall that he’d taught someone else to read his coded notes, he didn’t want to give Ragnar any reason to suspect Biscuit was his confidant.
He grabbed the steel crutch that leaned up against the armored vehicle and winced as he placed it beneath his raw and blistered armpit. His armpit was proving ill-designed to provide support for half his body weight. Once the wound of his amputated leg finally healed, he looked forward to fitting himself with prosthesis. He already had in mind a design that would incorporate a leaf spring to serve as his new foot, and a self-adjusting gear and ratchet device that would make a passable knee.
Burke limped around to the rear of the Angry Beetle, to the big sliding doors that closed off the warehouse. He slid one open a crack and raised a hand to shield his eyes. He’d come to work while it was still dark outside. He guessed it must be noon by the way the shadows hugged the buildings. As his eyes adjusted he saw a crowd gathering further down the avenue, in the big central square.
Three of Ragnar’s Mighty Men loped past the warehouse with Frost at their side. Frost cast a menacing glare toward Burke, but said nothing. As they passed, Stonewall stepped from a nearby doorway, raising a hand to greet Frost and the others.
Burke lingered in the shadows of the barn, straining to hear the conversation.
“What’s going on?” Stonewall asked.
“It’s Shanna,” Frost answered. “She’s back. And she’s . . . different.”
Stonewall looked confused. Burke wasn’t sure what Frost meant either. Shanna was one of Ragnar’s spies. She’d had the dangerous task of infiltrating the Sisters of the Serpent and stealing Blasphet’s secrets. Burke liked her for her daring and her intelligence, even if she was fiercely loyal to Ragnar. They owed their possession of Dragon Forge to the poisons Shanna had stolen perhaps even more than to the sky-wall bows. Shanna had left Dragon Forge shortly after the dragon armies fled to try to reconnect with the remnants of Blasphet’s cult. Blasphet was dead, slain by Bitterwood, but the worshippers of the Murder God still possessed knowledge of vast stocks of poisons that would be useful in the coming war. Burke leaned onto his crutch and swung out into the street, following the crowd.
Soon he could see the central square. A woman draped in a heavy white cloak stood on the thick stone rim of the town well. Burke assumed this was Shanna, though the sun reflecting off her pure white cloak made it difficult to look at her. Her face was hidden by a deep hood.
Hundreds of men gathered in the square. Who was watching the foundry if everyone was out here? He looked around and saw that the bowmen standing watch on the walls were facing inward, curious about the commotion, paying no attention to potential sneak attacks by dragons. What was Shanna doing making such a splashy entrance? She was a spy, after all. She should appreciate the value of subtlety.
“Stand aside.” The crowd parted as he hopped along on his crutch. Even half-crippled, he was still a respected figure in Dragon Forge. He’d proven his value with the sky-wall bows; dozens of these men had trained with the shotguns, or witnessed the blasts of the first cannons off the line. Still, perhaps it was his imagination, but he felt a sense of unease when the crowd looked at him. “They say you don’t believe in God,” Stonewall had said. It wasn’t a healthy rumor to have whispered in the midst of a holy war.
As he reached the well, the crowd on the far side parted. Ragnar, prophet of the lord, strode forth. Burke had been avoiding Ragnar since their confrontation over Jandra. The hairy prophet narrowed his eyes as he spotted Burke. By now, he’d seen the cannons in action. Burke felt confident that he was still too valuable for Ragnar to spare. After glowering at him for a moment, Ragnar’s expression changed to a smile.
The well was a yard high. Shanna, standing upon it, was a good deal taller than Ragnar, or even Stonewall, who loomed behind him.
“Shanna,” Ragnar said, his voice unexpectedly soft. “I’m pleased you’ve returned safely. I’m eager to learn how you slipped through the blockade. Let’s return to my house so that we can discuss what you’ve learned in private.”
Shanna pulled her hood back. Burke squinted as he pushed his spectacles back up his nose. Was this Shanna? The face was right, the same lips and eyes, the same overall structure of the face. But Shanna had possessed a stark black tattoo, a serpent that coiled along her neck and shoulders, and she’d kept her head shaved. Now jet black hair hung down past her shoulders. A wig, perhaps? All traces of the serpent tattoo were absent from her snow-white neck.
“I want everyone to hear my message,” Shanna said. “There’s no more need for war! Not long ago, I pretended to serve the Murder God. I tattooed and scarred my body to prove my loyalty. You all can see my tattoos are gone. My scars are gone as well, both physical and spiritual.”
She rolled up her sleeve and showed off her forearm. Ragnar furrowed his brow. Burke hadn’t known Shanna well enough to know if she should have a scar there, but judging from the confusion in Ragnar’s eyes, apparently, she used to.
“What witchcraft is this?” Ragnar grumbled.
Shanna ignored him, speaking to the crowd over Ragnar’s head. “I’ve met a healer. He intends to cure this world of all diseases, all hunger, all hate. Throw down your arms and follow me. I will lead you to the Free City.”
At the mention of the Free City, the mob began to whoop loudly. “Remember the Free City,” was a common rallying cry for the rebels, many of whom had been present when Albekizan had ordered the slaughter there. That battle had been mankind’s first victory against dragons in centuries. Just hearing the words “Free City” was enough to stir men to shouting. But had they listened to what Shanna was actually saying?
“Shanna, have a care,” Ragnar growled. “Healing is a gift of God alone.”
“The healer says he is not a god,” said Shanna. “But I’ve watched him work miracles! A man with no eyes was given the gift of sight once more. The lame cast off their crutches and walk. The healer is here to cure the pains of all men. Follow me to the Free City, and there will be no more hunger, no more fear, no more pain, and no more war.”
The crowd again began to whoop at the words “Free City,” though most of the cries came from the back, where they probably had difficulty following what she was saying. People closer to the well mumbled in confusion. Ragnar glared back over his shoulder, scowling. The crowd quickly fell silent.
Burke limped forward. “Shanna,” he said. “Did the Sisters of the Serpent give you anything odd to eat? We know that Blasphet had poisons that would enslave the minds of dragons. Is it possible you’ve been given some drug that is altering your perceptions?”
“Yes,” said Shanna. She knelt down on the edge of the well and extended her hand. She turned her palm up and revealed what looked like a handful of large, flat, black ticks. She said, “These are the dragonseed. They are plucked from the healer’s own body. Take them. Eat them. Your eyes will be opened to his truth, and you shall be restored. You will walk to the Free City on two legs.”
Burke’s curiosity compelled him to take one of the strange objects. Once he picked it up, he saw it was more like an oversized watermelon seed than a tick. It was jet black and warm. It smelled vaguely like cloves. Despite his curiosity, he had no intention of putting the seed in his mouth. He thought of Ragnar’s earlier cryptic smile. Was this some elaborate attempt to poison him? Or some unfathomable power play, a gambit to make him look foolish in front of the crowd?
If it was a ploy by Ragnar, it only made the prophet’s next move all the more shocking.
“Blasphemer!” Ragnar shouted, grabbing Shanna by the wrist. The seeds spilled from her hand and littered the packed red clay around the well. Ragnar yanked her down from the wall. She landed on her knees before him, a cry of pain escaping her lips. “Who has corrupted you? What evil force drives you to utter such foul lies?”
He raised his hand as if to strike her. Shanna looked up, her face somehow serene despite the violence being perpetrated upon her. “It’s never corruption to speak the truth,” she said.
Ragnar slammed his fist down, a blow that should have knocked all the teeth from Shanna’s mouth. Only, the blow never struck Shanna. Burke tossed aside his crutch and reached out, catching Ragnar’s hand. The force of the halted blow threw Burke off balance. Ragnar snarled and shoved Burke away. Burke landed in the dirt, flat on his back. He rolled to his belly, ready to push up on both hands.
Stonewall stepped forward and placed his foot into the small of his back, pinning him. Behind him, Shanna let out a gasp of pain. Burke turned his head and saw Ragnar lifting her to her feet by her long hair. So much for the assumption she was wearing a wig.
Ragnar apparently was confounded by Shanna’s tresses as well. “What witchcraft had restored your hair, woman?” he demanded.
“My shaved scalp was a symbol of the Murder God,” she said, crying out the words through her pain. “My new hair is a gift of the healer! It’s a symbol of his grace! Everyone who looks upon me knows the truth. The time of war is passed! The time of healing has begun!”
Ragnar let out a horrible, guttural scream of wordless rage. He slammed Shanna’s head down onto the lip of the well with a sickening crack.
“You bastard!” Burke screamed, struggling to free himself. “What are you—”
Before he could complete the thought, Ragnar held out an open hand. Frost stepped up and placed a long knife into his palm. Shanna's arms hung limp at her sides. Ragnar still held her by her hair. Her once white robes were now streaked with red. Her eyes were half open, but she looked stunned by Ragnar’s blow.
“Death is the fate of all blasphemers!” Ragnar shouted. “Let no man be led astray by the lies of a witch! These are not the days of healing! These are the days of wrath! We shall not rest until we’ve driven the last dragon into the sea! Remember the Free City!”
The crowd cheered at this battle cry.
“War!” Ragnar cried.
“War!” the crowd echoed.
“War!” he cried again.
“WAAAARR!” the crowd howled, their voices causing the earth beneath Burke to tremble.
Ragnar looked at the bloodied, half conscious woman dangling in his grasp, wrinkling his nose in disgust, as if he’d just discovered a dead skunk in his hand. With a grunt, he jerked her backward and up, until she sat atop the well. He sank the knife deep into her left breast. He yanked the knife free and released her. She toppled backward, her legs flipping into the air, and disappeared down the stone shaft.
The crowd continued to cheer. Burke pushed up with all his might, but Stonewall only pressed down harder.
Ragnar leaned down, staring into Burke’s face. He looked calm as he said, “If I discover you were behind this, you’ll join Shanna in her watery grave.”
Burke wanted to grab the prophet by his beard and yank the flesh off his skull. Alas, Ragnar crouched several inches beyond his reach. Despite his anger, there was a cool, mechanical voice inside him, counseling him on practical matters. “A corpse in the well will poison our water, idiot,” he hissed.
Ragnar’s calm expression changed to a frown. He turned and addressed Stonewall in a tone of voice that bordered on sanity. “Let him go,” he said. “Have your men fish Shanna’s body out at once.”
“Of course, sir,” said Stonewall, though he didn’t move his foot. Indeed, his shifted even more of his weight onto it. Burke felt certain his spine would snap.
Ragnar walked away. Only once he was gone did Stonewall release Burke. Burke rolled over and found the giant bodyguard gazing down at him.
“Burke, I understand your actions,” said Stonewall. “No man enjoys seeing a woman struck. However, I cannot allow you to hurt Ragnar.”
“Why didn’t you stop him?” Burke grumbled as he sat up. “Instead of standing on my back, you could have saved her life.”
“Ragnar is a holy man,” said Stonewall. “You heard the crowd cheer his words. The Lord has chosen him to lead us to war. It’s not our role to judge him. It’s our role to obey him.”
“Those may well be the most brainless words I’ve ever heard spoken,” said Burke.
“Ragnar won the battle of the Free City. He took Dragon Forge from the dragons, and repelled the immense army gathered to take it back. It’s hardly brainless to trust his judgment, or conclude that the hand of God guides his actions. If you would only accept this, and trust him with your secrets, think of the good he could do.”
“You have a body to fish out of our water,” said Burke. He leaned back against the well and looked down at the black seed still in his palm. Botany wasn’t his strong suit, but he was certain the seed was some sort of hallucinogen, whatever it came from. It was the simplest explanation for Shanna’s insanity. The missing tattoo was odd, but women were good with make-up, and he hadn’t gotten a really good look at her neck. He personally had never noticed a scar on her arm, no matter Ragnar’s reaction. As for the hair . . . a wig and glue? What else made sense?
“Maybe she had a twin?” he mumbled it out loud to test the words for plausibility. They instantly failed the test.
“Ragnar’s lucky Anza wasn’t here to see this,” said a well-known voice. “It wouldn’t be that woman’s body at the bottom of the well right now.” Burke looked up to find a grizzled old man before him. A familiar figure stood behind him, his hand on the older man’s shoulder. Despite the horrors of the last five minutes, Burke smiled broadly.
“Thorny!” he said. “You made it. And Vance! You’re back! How did you get through the blockade? Are the others with you?”
Vance shook his head. There was something disturbing about the way he wasn’t looking directly at Burke. Did he come bearing bad news?
“We thought we weren’t going to make it,” Thorny said. “The dragons have every road into town blocked off. Worse, they’ve lined the roads with corpses. Even if the roads weren’t guarded, I don’t think many people would be coming here. They took all the refugees from Burke’s Tavern captive. All the healthy people they’ve gathered into a holding pen, to be sold as slaves. The sickest of us, they let through the blockade. There was me, Vance, and old Dealon. Unfortunately, Dealon was weakened from the journey and worn down by the terror of walking past all those corpses. He’s dead, Burke. Fell to the ground not a half mile from the gate.”
Burke lowered his head. When Ragnar had started his little rebellion, Burke had refused to let anyone else from his village join his army, hoping to shield them from the worst of what was to come. Dealon had been the first man to welcome him to Burke’s Tavern. He’d been outgoing, kind, and didn’t have an enemy in the world. He didn’t deserve a death like this.
“I guess it makes a sort of cold strategic logic to let the old and infirm through the blockade. But Vance, you’re young and healthy. How’d you slip through?”
Vance shook his head. “I’m blind,” he said. “I took a bad blow to my head. The world’s been dark since. I’m useless now.”
“Don’t think that,” said Burke. “You’re a brave kid with a good head on his shoulders. I’ll find useful work for you.” He looked back to Thorny. “As for you, the dragons obviously don’t know what a treasure they’ve given us by letting a man with your know-how slip through.”
“I don’t hold a candle to you, Burke,” said Thorny. “And it’s not like I can handle a wrench anymore.”
“You know how to read a plan, though. More importantly, you know how to spot a flaw in a plan. I can’t wait for you to see the Angry Beetle.”
Vance sagged at these words. Burke bit his lip, realizing the word “see” might have been a poor choice. “I’m going to need some help standing up,” Burke said, lifting his hand.
Thorny placed his useless claws onto Vance’s wrist and guided the young man’s healthy hand to Burke’s outstretched fingers. “It looks like war has taken a bite out of you as well,” said Thorny.
“It was just a leg,” said Burke. “Not even my favorite one.”
As Vance helped him stand, he asked, “What happened to the girl? The one talking about how we’d all be healed? Did Ragnar kill her?”
Burke nodded. Then, catching himself, he said, “Yes.”
Vance shook his head slowly. “When I heard about Ragnar, me and Vinton left Stony Ford to join him, thinking he was a hero. Now I’m thinking he’s a monster.”
Burke looked around. Some of the Mighty Men were nearby, talking about who was going into the well. If they’d heard Vance’s words, they didn’t react.
“Sometimes, to fight monsters, you need an ally who’s a bigger monster,” said Burke. “For better or worse, there are men in this fort who are willing to die for Ragnar. I don’t like him and I don’t trust him. I know he feels the same about me. But we both know that we need each other if we’re going to reach our goals. Ragnar needs me to build weapons. I need him to build armies that will put those weapons to good use. As long as we have the dragons to fight, we’ll muddle through. It’s what happens after we defeat the dragons that’s going to be messy.”
Vance nodded. “Did I hear the girl offering you something to eat? ‘Cause I’m starving.”
“You don’t want what she was offering. Come on back to the shop,” he said, hopping around, his hand on the well for balance. He crouched down on his one leg to reach his crutch. “I’ve got some grub there. Nothing fancy, but you’ll sleep with full bellies tonight.”
“What was she offering?” asked Vance.
“A lot of nonsense, mostly,” said Burke. “Blasphet possessed an unparalleled knowledge of poisons. She must have ingested something that drove her crazy.”
“But what was she talking about? The dragonseed?”
He couldn’t fault the boy for his curiosity. Burke took the seed Shanna had given him and placed it in Vance’s palm for the boy to examine. “They’re like big watermelon seeds. I can’t even guess what plant they come from. But I’m not so desperate that I’m going to put something strange in my mouth because an obviously insane woman promises it will heal me.”
Vance rolled the large black seed between his fingers. “Yeah,” he said. “Only a fool would fall for something like that.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
* * *
MACHINE HEART
BAZANEL, THE MOST ACCLAIMED chemist among the sky-dragons, stood before the black slate wall in the Golden Tower of the College of Spires, writing out the recipe for gunpowder. He turned and faced his guest, nervously rolling the small rod of bone-white chalk in his left fore-talon. Suddenly self-conscious of his fidgeting, he put the chalk down. With the single remaining claw on his mangled right fore-talon, he scratched at the scaleless mass of scar-tissue where his ear used to be and cleared his throat.
“The key component is saltpeter . . . potassium nitrate. This contains three oxygen molecules, bound to one molecule of potassium and one of nitrogen. When mixed with the other compounds it’s stable until energy is introduced. The oxygen unbinds, then rebinds, producing explosive combustion.”
The sky-dragon seated upon a leather cushion looked at the board with a blank stare. Unlike the students he normally lectured, this guest probably had little training in chemistry. She was a valkyrie, a female sky-dragon, one of the warriors who guarded the Nest.
Ordinarily, sky-dragons lived with the complete segregation of the sexes. The extraordinary events of recent weeks had produced the current cooperation. The aerial guard had always been a small force, and it had suffered losses in the battle of the Free City. The valkyries had lost hundreds during Blasphet’s assault on the Nest. Only a combination of forces could now have a hope of restoring order to the fractured land.
Bazanel could count on his claws the number of times he’d been in the presence of a female of his species—even though he had fewer claws than most. Breeding was strictly controlled by the matriarch, the leader of the Nest who guided the genetic destiny of the sky-dragons. Male sky-dragons who excelled in scholarship were rewarded with the opportunity to breed so that their desirable traits might remain in the species.
At the age of fifty-four, Bazanel had never been invited to the Nest, though he was widely acclaimed as the most knowledgeable chemist the biologians had ever produced. No doubt his physical appearance had some bearing in this decision. He’d long had a special interest in the study of unstable chemicals. A side-effect of this interest meant that more than half of his body was marred by scar tissue. He was completely deaf in his right ear and plagued by incessant ringing in the left. Holes riddled both wings, rendering him flightless. His once fine tail was now only a stub. And yet, against all odds, his reproductive organs remained intact. Genetically, he was a whole being. The matriarch had to know this. Why was he snubbed?
The valkyrie’s name was Rachale; she had several burn wounds along her neck, still red and puffy. During the attack on the Nest, some of Blasphet’s forces had used a crude flame-thrower—no doubt she was a veteran of this battle.
She asked, “You’re certain saltpeter can be found in bat guano?”
“Oh yes,” said Bazanel. “Most abundantly. It’s in any number of other sources as well—almost any urine will have the necessary components. Caves merely provide a convenient, stable environment for the crystals to grow.”
“Given your knowledge of the ingredients, how much gunpowder do you think the rebels could have made in this short period?”
“Perhaps quite a bit,” said Bazanel. “Some of the ancient waterworks in that area have been the undisturbed home of bats for centuries.”
Rachale nodded slowly. “We’re placing a great deal of faith that you’ve gotten this right.”
“This requires no faith” said Bazanel. “This is chemistry. If you follow the formulas I’ve provided you, you will manufacture gunpowder by the barrelful. I stake my reputation as a scholar upon it.”
“It isn’t your reputation as a scholar that causes our concern,” said Rachale. “It’s your reputation for carelessness.”
“I see,” said Bazanel. Her use of the word “our” was of interest to him. Was this an opinion of the matriarch?
“Over the course of the last three decades, you’ve gutted four towers, caused structural damage to six others, killed two students, seventeen human slaves, and injured countless more. You’re lucky to be alive. Luckier still, I think, that Chapelion has allowed you to retain your position. At the Nest, such carelessness wouldn’t be tolerated.”
Bazanel drew his shoulders back and tilted his chin upward. Rachale’s words displayed such staggering ignorance that, if all females were this limited in their intellect, he was grateful he’d never been invited to breed.
“Chapelion understands that mine is the work of a pioneer. I’ve expanded the frontiers of knowledge. My scars are badges of honor, not marks of shame. I believe this meeting is over. Return to Chapelion with my report. He will have the intellect to appreciate the treasure I’m giving him.”
Without waiting for her reply, he turned and limped toward the staircase that spiraled down the outer rim of the tower. Rachale’s accusation festered in his mind. Carelessness? Carelessness? In his indignity, a previously unthinkable course of action formed in his mind.
The action he contemplated violated the most fundamental moral code of the sky-dragons, but they had pushed him to this. It was time for him to draft the most scathing letter any dragon had ever crafted, a letter that would make the matriarch weep with shame when confronted with the tremendous injustice she’d perpetrated.
His rage was still burning by the time he limped his way into his laboratory in the cellar. The cool, musty air calmed him somewhat. The familiar smell of his lab soothed him further. He did note, however that the atmosphere reeked of lamp-oil.
When he pushed open the door, he found his laboratory in complete darkness. Why had Festidian allowed the lanterns to burn out? The young biologian was normally much more diligent.
“Festidian?” he asked. No one answered.
Bazanel stepped into the room slowly, groping his way forward until he bumped into his lab table. He carefully swept his scarred claws across it until he found the beaker he was looking for. He had a nugget of phosphorous within, stored under a two-inch layer of oil to keep if from contact with the air. He found a glass dish and poured the contents of the beaker onto it. In the shallow dish, the phosphorous, now exposed to air, took on a faint green glow. Seconds later it began to spit sparks, setting the oil in the dish on fire. The nugget now blazed like a shard of the sun. Stark shadows were cast on the wall. The phosphorous hissed as it burned. The smell brought to mind toasted garlic.
“Festidian?” he called out, more forcefully. No answer.
Bazanel shrugged. Perhaps, Festidian had slipped back to his chambers to catch a nap. He’d worked the young dragon to the point of exhaustion. Ever since the shotgun and the ammo belt had been brought to the College of Spires, Bazanel had heard the ticking of a clock in the back of his mind. He instantly recognized the importance of the compound and knew it was vital to the survival of all dragons to match the humans' sudden advantage in power.
He walked to one of the wall lanterns to light it, so that he might have a softer, steadier light than the overly energetic phosphorous and the flickering oil. He slipped as he neared the wall. A sharp pain sliced into his left hind-talon.
Oil covered the floor. A shard of glass jutted from the outer pad of his talon. The lantern was broken—a polished steel tomahawk was buried into the tin well that held the oil. The glass globe was gone. The stark, flickering shadows had hid the damage from him until he was right on top of it.
“Oh no,” he whispered, understanding the full implications of what he saw.
He spun around, slipping again in the oil, reaching out to the table edge to steady himself.
“Festidian?” he whispered again, though now he knew there would be no answer.
He looked across the table, toward the locked cabinet where he kept the rarer substances he studied, including the recently delivered shotgun. The lock was gone, the wood where it had once hung was splintered.
His eyes searched the dancing shadows. “Sh-show yourself,” he said. “I know who you are.” His pounding heart drowned out the sizzle of the phosphorus.
“Y-your name is Andzanuto,” he said, addressing his unseen visitor. “It’s the Cherokee word for heart. Thor Nightingale tells me you father calls you Anza. He . . . your father . . . he’s now called Burke. Twenty years ago, he was better known as Kanati the Machinist. He was once my friend.”
Again, his words were met with silence. He edged his way around the table, his fore-talon gripping the thick oak to maintain his balance. Where was she?
“There’s no point in hiding,” he said. “Kanati wouldn’t have sent you to only recover the gun. The weapon was unmistakably of his design. Who else would have bothered with the decorative scale pattern? No doubt, he wants you to destroy all records of my research. You’re too late. I’ve given a scroll with the formula to a valkyrie who even now carries it back to Chapelion. The secret cannot be contained.”
He reached the cabinet. The padlock lay in the floor, still intact. She’d simply torn the metal braces that held it from the wood. That security flaw would have to be remedied, obviously. He opened the cabinet and peered inside. The shotgun was gone.
Bazanel took a deep breath. His heart rate slowed. She could have killed him by now. Did she know of his relationship with her father?
“Years ago, while I was still a student—five years before the failed rebellion at Conyers—I heard the legend of the Anudahdeesdee. I wasn’t blind to the fact that dragons thrived among the ruins of a once dominant human culture. It was said that your people were dedicated to preserving secrets from the Human Age. I traveled through the southern foothills to find them—only to be almost killed when I did so. I fled, grievously wounded, taking refuge in the City of Skeletons. Your father found me there. He nursed my wounds. He said he’d long wanted to talk to a biologian. Much of the knowledge his people preserved had been corrupted or lost. Kanati knew that biologians were dedicated to scholarship, and thought that by sharing our research, we might improve the knowledge of both species. We began a long correspondence. Of course, the rebellion at Conyers put an end to this.”
Bazanel sighed, shaking his head. “Such a waste. Humans accomplished so much in their time as the only intelligent species. With the rise of dragons, species equal, if not superior, to human intellects, the mind power available to solve the world’s problems doubled. The world should have entered a golden age. Instead, wars and plagues and hatred have reduced both men and dragons to shadows of their possible greatness.”
He shut the cabinet and leaned against it, weary. He hadn’t slept in two days.
“Several years after the fall of Conyers, I learned of a clever inventor named Burke. There was no mistaking that this was, in truth, Kanati. I sent Thorny to find him. Over the years, he’s served as my spy, sending me news of Burke’s inventions. I’ve paid him well for his efforts, though from what I’ve heard, he gives all his money to your father in exchange for alcohol.”
Bazanel paused, listening for a response. Still nothing. Was it possible he was talking only to his imagination?
“Thorny told me about you, Anza. He says you’re an unsurpassed warrior. You are your father’s ultimate invention . . . a killing machine, crafted from muscle and bone instead of cogs and springs.”
This time, when there was no reply, the last of the fear drained from Bazanel. She must have taken the shotgun and fled, thinking her mission was over. He was reminded of Kanati’s clockwork-driven beasts. They could give the impression of intelligence in a limited series of tasks, such as moving a chess piece, or playing an instrument. But beyond this narrow range of abilities they had no awareness at all, no capacity for independent thought. Perhaps this was true of Anza as well. In raising her with a single-minded focus on killing, no doubt other aspects of her intelligence had been allowed to wither.
Now that he no longer feared for his life, the pain in his talon took dominance in his mind. He snaked his long neck down to better examine the sliver of glass. As his head lowered below the lip of the table, he discovered most of Festidian's corpse beneath, his wings neatly folded. “Oh dear,” he said, rising.
Anza stood on the other side of the table. The tomahawk was gone from the ruined lantern behind her left shoulder. Sheaths filled with blades of various sizes ran along her arms and legs. Her hands hung down by her side, hidden by the edge of the table.
Bazanel whispered, in a dry, trembling voice: “What did you do with his head?”
Anza lifted up her grisly trophy, a scaly blue head with a pale gray tongue hanging loosely from the jaws. Festidian’s eyes were open slightly, gleaming like polished amber in the phosphor luminance.
Anza tossed the head toward Bazanel. Reflexively, he caught it. He looked down at the severed head, at the high crown of Festidian’s fine skull. Such a magnificent specimen. He hoped that the matriarch wouldn’t hold a prejudice against Festidian’s mating simply because of his association with Bazanel.
Not that it mattered, he realized.
When he looked back to Anza, she held a long, razor-edged sword. He instantly recognized the work as Kanati’s.
“Before you kill me, there’s one last thing I’d like to point out,” he said.
She cocked her head.
“You’re the one standing in lamp oil.” He hurled his former assistant’s head at the oil-filled plate sitting in the center of the table. The flaming oil splashed toward Anza. Rather than leaping away, however, she leapt up, springing onto the table as the blazing fluid splattered across her torso. She paid no heed to a fist-sized gob of fire that flickered at the top of her left breast as she somersaulted to land on the table before Bazanel.
With a motion smooth and certain as clockwork, she ran the blade across his throat in a precision that brought pressure but no pain. Bazanel raised his fore-talons and found blood gushing from his neck. He tried to speak, but all that came out was a bubbling wheeze. He fell to the floor, fighting to breathe.
Above him, Anza sucked in air as the gob of flaming oil burned through her buckskin. She placed her gloved fingers over the flame to squelch it.
On the far side of the table, the oil in the floor erupted. Anza strode toward it. Seconds later, a stack of Bazanel’s notes fell into the center of the flames. Spots danced before his eyes as she tore a second lantern from the wall and poured its oil over the fire, trailing away to lead the flames to bookcases and shelves full of chemicals.
She ended near the bench where he’d been testing the gunpowder he’d already made. He could no longer keep his eyes open. He drifted into darkness as his blood pumped away. He heard the soft pad of Anza’s moccasins walk through the blood that pooled before him.
Bazanel’s greatest regret was that he wasn’t going to be alive a moment from now. He was going to miss the grandest explosion ever to come from his laboratory.
ANZA WAS WELL into the woods when the third explosion shook the earth. Ahead in the darkness, her horse whinnied loudly. The Golden Tower was simply gone, with only a cloud of reddish smoke billowing into the evening sky to give evidence that it had ever been there. Seconds later, chunks of gravel began to rain down. She took shelter behind the trunk of a large pine.
She looked down at the red and blistered skin a few inches below her left collarbone. The oil had burned through her buckskin in an almost perfect circle, though the edges of the buckskin were curled up like little teeth.
The teeth and the circle combined in the dim light to look like one of the toothy wheels in her father’s clockwork animals. The burn would leave a scar in the shape of a cog right above her heart.
Her machine heart.
Were Bazanel’s word’s true? Had her father raised her only as a machine for killing? Growing up in the tavern, listening to the ceaseless, mindless chatter of the patrons, she’d realized that their heads must be full of words. While she understood words, she didn’t often think with them. Instead, her thoughts were formed by movements. She lived in a world of ceaseless motion, and understood intimately her relationship to that motion. She was swift and sure enough to pluck an arrow from the air. Other people moved as if their bodies were puppets being pulled by the strings of their graceless thoughts. Her body and mind functioned as a single mechanism.
As the rain of gravel ceased, she headed deeper into the woods. She wanted to return to Dragon Forge, to warn her father that Thorny was a spy. However, it sounded as if the secret of gunpowder was carried by a lone messenger. A single scroll carried the formula. Perhaps there was still hope of protecting the secret. Her next destination would be the Dragon Palace. She grimaced as she thought of the hard ride before her, back to the very place she’d just left. Her butt was already sore enough.
She smiled. No machine would ever complain of the work before it. There was a human heart within her after all.
JEREMIAH WAS TOO TERRIFIED to scream as the wind buffeted his body. He was wrapped up tightly inside a scratchy blanket that smelled like stale pee, tied securely with ropes. The sky-dragon who carried him, Vulpine, grunted from time to time as they flew. It sounded as if he were straining to remain in the air with Jeremiah’s weight. With his face covered by the blanket, Jeremiah had no way of knowing how high they were. Having been raised in the mountains, he was used to high places, and had no fear of standing at the edge of a cliff to stare out over a valley. This was something far different, though. He imagined they must be high enough to touch the moon.
All his life, Jeremiah had heard that winged dragons could snatch up children. He used to have nightmares about it. Now, his nightmare was coming true. The dragon’s long wings beat the air, carrying them ever higher. Despite being completely enwrapped, the cold air stabbed through the thin blanket, turning his skin to ice.
He had no way of measuring time, save for a slight brightening and darkening of the threadbare fabric before him as day passed into night, then brightened into day again. Three times, Vulpine stopped to rest for what felt like hours, but never once offered Jeremiah any food or water. Jeremiah remained still as a corpse the entire time, afraid that any movement might cause the dragon to attack him.
The fourth time they landed, something was different. Jeremiah was dropped to the ground roughly, but he paid little attention to the impact. He could hear voices. There was a delicious smell heavy in the air, like fish being cooked over coals.
“Sir,” someone said. “Welcome back. How was your journey?”
“As delightful as I thought it would be, Sagen.” Vulpine chuckled, a low sound that made Jeremiah shiver. “Rorg, as ever, is a font of invigorating conversation.”
“Did he give you what you wanted?”
The blanket that held him was lifted by the ropes around his shoulders. He was set to his feet. Vulpine’s claw snagged the rope for a second. With a grunt he jerked his claw free. The rope suddenly felt slack.
“He doesn’t look like much,” said Sagen.
“We’ll fatten him up,” said Vulpine. “He’ll make a fine meal.”
Jeremiah bit his lower lip to keep from crying out. Why would they want to eat him? He was nothing but bones!
Vulpine said, “Throw him in my tent for now. We’ll clean him up later and put him in the meat pens.”
Jeremiah thought he might faint.
“Sir?” said Sagen, sounding skeptical. “Your tent isn’t terribly secure. What if he slipped free of his ropes? He might crawl out the back.”
“Bah,” Vulpine said dismissively. “Those ropes have held so far. He won’t be going anywhere.”
“I hope not, sir. Dragon Forge is only a few miles away. It’s the stronghold of the human rebellion. If he reached it, we’d never get him back.”
Jeremiah caught his breath. What human rebellion? If he could wriggle free . . . but, almost the instant he felt hope flickering, it was squashed again by Vulpine’s voice.
“Even if this future meal did escape, how could he find the fortress? He doesn’t even know where he is.”
Jeremiah sagged as he contemplated this reality.
“But, sir,” protested Sagen. “At night the foundries glow like a beacon. And by day, anyone could follow the smoke from the smokestacks.”
Vulpine laughed. “You act like this is a dragon we’re talking about. This is a muck-slave, not clever enough to slip out of his ropes, crawl under the tent flaps in the back, then search the sky for clues as to which direction he should run. You worry too much.”
“Of course, sir,” said the other dragon.
Jeremiah was lifted up by the rope around his hips. He was carried a few dozen yards, then tossed unceremoniously into a place where the sounds of voices and the smell of cooking were more muted. The ropes around his shoulder snapped completely as he hit the ground. He wriggled, freeing his head. He was inside a tent. It was dark, with only a few faint rays of light seeping through the flap that covered the door. He wriggled more. He was suddenly grateful he was skinny. He started kicking, and was free of the blanket in no time.
He looked around. The place was sparsely furnished; only a few cushions piled in the corner to serve as a bed. A small crate sat next to the cushions, and atop it sat a long knife in a sheath. He grabbed it and pulled the weapon out. He stood quietly and listened to the dragons just outside the tent. He crouched as they passed, and grabbed the blanket. It was so cold he could see his breath in front of him; despite the stench, he draped the blanket over his shoulders like a cloak.
He dropped to his knees beside the back wall of the tent and peeked under a gap he found there. He could see no dragons in this direction, only bushes. Off in the distance, beyond some low hills, there was a red smear of smoke and clouds in the sky.
Clutching the knife tightly, he rolled beneath the tent flap and scurried for the bushes.
VULPINE WATCHED as the small, shadowy figure crept up the hill. Sagen shook his head in amazement.
“I can’t believe he fell for that,” said Sagen.
Vulpine chuckled. “I’m a bit surprised myself. You lack talent as an actor, I fear. Could you possibly have been any more wooden in the delivery of your lines?”
“I’m a soldier, not an actor,” said Sagen.
Vulpine placed his fore-talon on Sagen’s shoulder. “I cannot possibly express how happy I am this is so.”
Sagen looked away, embarrassed by the praise. He watched as the boy vanished over the hill. “You’re sure he’s infected?”
“He’d better be. I’d hate to think I carried him wrapped in that reeking corpse blanket all this way for nothing. But if we waited for him to develop symptoms, it would be too late. We need him to get inside while he still looks healthy. How goes the blockade?”
“It’s . . . solid,” said Sagen.
“I sense some doubt in your voice.”
Sagen shook his head. “There’s no need for concern. The blockade is perfect. We’re penning up the healthy humans we find on the road as you ordered. Whatever their lives once were, they’ll be sent to the slave markets. I did, however, deviate slightly from your orders.”
“Oh?”
“I’ve allowed some of the more pathetic refugees to pass through. Men who are too blind, lame, or old to be of any use. My calculation is that this gives the humans more mouths to feed without giving them any more warriors to stand against us.”
Vulpine nodded slowly, appreciating his son’s cleverness.
Sagen still seemed tense, however. “There is . . . one more thing.”
“Yes?”
“Some of the guard has gone missing.”
“Some?”
“Four.”
“Do you suspect humans killed them?”
Sagen clamped his jaw shut. He looked as if he were choosing his next words carefully. “I must also report that four valkyries have gone missing.”
“Ah,” said Vulpine. “I see why the math concerns you.”
“The members of my guard are unaccustomed to working so closely with females, sir. I’ve noticed . . . unprofessional behavior. I’ve established the highest standards of discipline possible, but . . . bluntly, sir, I don’t trust the valkyries. Their commander for this blockade is named Arifiel. She’s too young for her duties. I fear she can’t keep her soldiers in control.”
“I’ve never heard of her, I admit. Still, her youth is unsurprising. The Nest lost over 800 valkyries to the Murder God. I imagine this created gaps in their ranks that required many premature promotions. That said, the matriarch is committed to this cause and wouldn’t have chosen Arifiel lightly. I’ll talk to her.”
Sagen nodded, apparently satisfied that Vulpine would solve the problem. Vulpine wasn’t as confident. There was a reason the sexes had been separated for centuries. Military discipline was a powerful force; hormones and instinct, however, were just as powerful, and sometimes more so.
“Shall I continue the policy of allowing the more pathetic refugees access to the fort? Arifiel disagreed with the policy. She said that, should the rebels eventually turn to cannibalism to deal with food shortages, we’re simply helping stock their larder.”
“If it reaches that stage,” said Vulpine, staring at the blood-tinted clouds that hung over the fort like an omen of doom, “I think we can chalk this up as a victory.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
* * *
VIOLENCE AS AN ACCEPTABLE ARGUMENT
SKITTER RACED DOWN the winding hillside path at a speed that would have put the fastest horse to shame. The winter wind stung Bitterwood’s eyes. Whenever he blinked, dozens of yards had passed. At the bottom of the hill was a broad rocky stream crossed by a covered bridge. Skitter shot into the darkness of the bridge without hesitation. His claws raced through the wooden structure like a drum roll. A second later they were back in daylight, and Bitterwood squinted as the sun glinted on Skitter’s coppery scales.
When Bitterwood first laid eyes on a long-wyrm he hadn’t put any thought into whether or not he should kill it. It was big, it had scales, it would die. He had dispatched that first long-wyrm in a matter of seconds, despite being armed with nothing more than a fireplace poker. Twenty years of constant war with dragons had honed his reflexes to a razor’s edge, and his pure and total hatred of all dragons was quick to draw that edge across any serpentine throat.
So Bitterwood was a more than a little disturbed that he was starting to like Skitter. Over the course of his personal war on dragons, he’d traveled many thousand miles on horseback. He was, among his almost endless list of sins, a horse-thief many times over. He’d developed good judgment in sizing up any horse he met. Skitter surpassed them all. The big lizard could gallop along at twice the speed of the swiftest steed. His stamina was phenomenal as well. No horse could cover a hundred miles before resting the way Skitter could. And when Bitterwood had ridden horses at a full gallop for even a few miles, his body paid for it. Riding a horse at full speed was demanding work. Riding Skitter was like riding the wind. He moved with such smoothness it was easy to believe the beast was flying.
If it had only been Skitter’s advantages as a steed that Bitterwood admired, he wouldn’t have been uncomfortable. He was also starting to appreciate the aesthetics of the beast. The copper-colored scales caught the sun the way that goldfish had flashed in the fountains at Chakthalla’s palace. The sheen also reminded him of the metallic wings of the angel Gabriel. Bitterwood had slain Gabriel without remorse. When Zeeky had found Skitter on the shores of the goddess’s island, Bitterwood had assumed he’d eventually kill the beast. Now, he couldn’t imagine hurting Skitter. Riding the long-wyrm stirred unfamiliar emotions within him. As they crested the next hill and zoomed down into another gray-green valley he felt something he suspected might be joy. For two decades, he’d seldom felt a moment of peace, let alone happiness.
Something was changing within him. Instead of planning his next kill, his thoughts these days were more like dreams. He would rescue Jeremiah, then take the boy and Zeeky, Skitter and, yes, even Poocher, and ride far away from here, beyond the Cursed Mountains, to a land where there were no men or dragons. He’d build a small cabin, and hunt deer rather than winged serpents. He could once again have a family, or something not unlike a family.
The idea made him . . . hopeful? Could this actually be hope? He frowned, remembering his advice to Jandra in the shadow of the Free City.
Life is easier without hope.
NIGHT HAD FALLEN when they finally reached the caverns. The bones scattered around the big hole were stark white in the pale moonlight. Red light glowed deep inside the cavern, and smoke rose from dozens of holes around the forests. The ground beneath them vibrated and an unearthly howl rose from the mouth of the cave. It was the sound of dozens of dragons singing in unison.
Bitterwood watched from a grove of trees at the edge of the bone-field as a trio of sun-dragons spiraled down from the sky and crawled into the hole, summoned by the otherworldly song.
Bitterwood grunted at the new arrivals. “Beastialists,” he said.
“Beastialists?” asked Zeeky.
“You noticed none of them carried spears? Beastialists think it’s a show of weakness. They believe the only weapons a dragon needs are his teeth, his only armor his hide.”
“Their hide looks pretty tough to me,” she said, as yet another big bull dragon drifted down to land in the bone-field. It paused, sniffing the air. Bitterwood tensed. Could it smell Skitter? Finally, the dragon turned and skulked into the cavern.
“Trust me,” said Bitterwood. “Sun-dragon hide is tough enough. Hit a dragon on his breast scales with the edge of a sword and you’ll be lucky to scratch him. But I can put an arrow through two inches of oak—a dragon’s hide isn’t as tough as that. Once an arrow has punched through the hide, the veins of a dragon bleed as freely as any other animal.”
“You really know a lot about dragons,” said Zeeky. She was finally accepting the fact that Bitterwood was, in fact, Bitterwood. When they’d first met, she thought he was lying.
“I’ve taken enough apart to know how they’re put together. The breast scales are tough, but there are plenty of spots on a dragon where the hide is no thicker than your skin, some with big arteries right beneath them. I can kill a dragon without damaging the meat if I need to. I’d make a good butcher.”
Zeeky furrowed her brow. “You wouldn’t eat a dragon, would you?” She had strong opinions on what should and should not be food.
“Fighting dragons is hard work,” he said, apologetically. “I get hungry.”
He looked at Poocher, who he could swear was grinning. The pig appeared to be taking pleasure at Bitterwood’s discomfort. “I told you I was a dragon-slayer when I met you,” he said. “If I’m willing to kill them, I should be willing to eat them. It would be wasteful otherwise.”
“You killed Jazz also,” Zeeky said. “And all those long-wyrm riders. Would you have eaten them?”
“I’m not a cannibal.”
“Dragons talk,” Zeeky said. “Even you can understand them. I talk with dogs and owls and horses. I talk with long-wyrms and ravens and pigs. They’re all smart creatures who don’t deserve to be eaten.”
Poocher snorted, as if saying, “Amen!” Bitterwood didn’t plan on giving up bacon, but right now wasn’t the time to debate it.
“I don’t want you eating dragons any more,” she said.
“Do you mind if I go in now? I should warn you I might kill a dragon or two trying to save your brother.”
“There’s a difference between killing to eat and killing to save a life,” she said patiently.
Bitterwood grabbed a fist-sized chunk of half-inch rope from the saddle bags. The rope was lightweight; it was also a vibrant shade of pink that glowed faintly in the gloom. They’d found this fragment of rope in the kingdom of the goddess. It was, as near as he could determine, unbreakable. It was also sensitive to his thoughts, just as Gabriel’s sword had been. It would grow as long as he wanted it to grow and never get any heavier. With a thought, the rope would shrink back to this convenient size. He had no idea why it worked, but, like his new bow and arrow, he found it hard to remember how he’d ever gotten along without it.
“I scouted this area five years ago,” he said. “I wiggled down some of chimney holes into the main cavern. I came here to kill Rorg, but had to abandon the mission. Since he was always surrounded by his family, it was too risky a fight.”
“The way you throw yourself into a fight, I didn’t know you were worried about risk,” said Zeeky.
“I spent a lot of years tracking down dragons responsible for the atrocities at Conyers,” he said. “Albekizan, was, of course, the big target. Rorg was there too. He was a few hundred pounds lighter, and a good deal less insane. By the time I tracked him down, he’d gotten too heavy to fly. His beastialist philosophy made him more of a joke than a threat. I decided to focus my efforts on other targets. I always knew I’d be back.”
“If this dragon’s a joke, saving Jeremiah shouldn’t be so hard.”
“It’s not Rorg I’m worried about,” Bitterwood said as he tied one end of the rope to a tree. “It’s the few dozen other bulls who are part of the clan. Until now, I didn’t really have a good way of carrying in enough arrows to make sure the job got done.” He reached back and fingered one of the arrows in his quiver. “I’ll try to do this quietly. If you start hearing screams, don’t be alarmed.”
He walked to one of the smoke vents and dropped the rope down. “Stay in the shadows,” he said. “You’ve got six hours until daylight. If I’m not back, ride up the mountain and find a safe place to wait out the day. Meet me back here at sunset.”
Bitterwood slung the bow over his shoulder and backed into the hole, the smoke tickling his nose. He climbed down the twisting, natural chimney, his hands growing increasingly black with soot. He reached a junction where the shaft opened into another shaft. The hole was barely two feet across. He shoved his bow through, then his quiver, balancing them on narrow ledges. He shed his cloak and wiggled through, then reached back and grabbed the cloak. He willed the rope to lengthen, letting it dangle down the shaft to the next level spot fifty feet below. From there, he would have to crawl through a shaft only three feet tall for almost a quarter mile, until he reached the side cave where Rorg’s slaves slept.
He doubted that they would be sleeping much tonight. The deep bass rumble of the singing sun-dragons shook the stone. A haunting melody accompanied it, played on an instrument Bitterwood couldn’t identify. It sounded something like bells, only not as metallic in tone. He could make out various bits of the lyrics. Dragons are mighty, humans are weak, and other such puffery. As long as they were singing, their attention would be focused on Rorg.
He wriggled through the last narrow gap of the long tunnel and found himself in a cavity of a rock wall thirty feet up in a large, round chamber. Several small fires were scattered around the cave. Perhaps a hundred humans sat around the fires, staring sullenly into the flames. The singing from the nearby dragon rally echoed within the room.
“With our claws we rend their flesh!” the dragons sang. “With our jaws we crush them! Their blood slakes our thirst!” Beastialist lyrics weren’t famed for their subtlety.
Bitterwood dropped the rope into the room. Instantly, every eye turned toward the motion. Frightened humans tended to be hyper-alert. Fortunately, no one screamed.
Bitterwood held his fingers to his lips, signaling for silence, then rappelled down to the floor. The walls were slimy. Due to the condensation of breath, the whole cavern glistened as if it were coated with a fine layer of spit. Urine and shit fouled the air. The humans were boiling turnips in carved stone bowls sitting in the fire pits.
Everyone rose as he reached the ground. These humans were a wretched lot. They were clothed in thread-bare rags. Both men and women had their hair cropped close to the scalp in uneven clumps, no doubt to make it easier to pick off fleas and lice. All stood with slumped shoulders. They stared with sunken eyes set in faces that were little more than skulls covered with paper-thin, boil-covered skin.
“I’m looking for a new arrival,” said Bitterwood. “A blond boy, no older than twelve. His name is Jeremiah.” Not a voice was raised as the crowd watched him with unblinking gazes. “He would have arrived about a week ago.” He waited. Did they understand him?
“Our wings block the sun!” the dragons sang. “The earth trembles as we land!”
A woman took a tentative step forward. She was covered in brown smudges, thin as a sapling, and perhaps seven months pregnant. She cradled a small bundle wrapped in rags. The bundle wasn’t moving; if it was a baby, Bitterwood hoped it was asleep. She cast her gaze toward the floor as she spoke, in a voice so soft and hesitant he barely understood it: “He’s gone.”
“Gone?” Bitterwood asked. “Dead?”
The woman shook her head. “Vulpine took him.”
“Took him where?”
“Dragon Forge?” the woman said. She didn’t sound certain of this.
Bitterwood furrowed his brow. Why would the Slavecatcher General want Jeremiah? And why would he take him to Dragon Forge? His heart froze in his chest.
“Was the boy well?”
The woman shrugged.
“No sign of yellow-mouth?”
The woman raised her head when he mentioned the disease.
“We’ve lost hundreds to yellow-mouth since winter came. Most of us who’re left have survived it and are immune. The boy said he’d never been exposed.”
Nor, for that matter, had Bitterwood. The foul atmosphere suddenly felt especially heavy in his lungs.
“Who are you?” the woman asked.
“I’m nobody.” He turned away, taking the rope in hand. If Jeremiah was gone, there was no reason to linger.
“Your cloak . . . your bow . . . are you the hope of the slave? Are you Bitterwood?”
Bitterwood flinched at these words. He didn’t mind that his legend was widespread among dragons. The more dragons who feared him, the better. But he regretted that so many humans knew his name. To dragons he was death incarnate, a soulless, faceless force of nature stalking them in every shadow. There was a dark thing inside him that shivered with delight knowing he caused so much fear. This same darkness had no desire to be anyone’s hope.
He looked back at the sad, hungry, skeletal crowd. Any one of them, even the pregnant woman, could have climbed through the dragon-free tunnels he’d navigated. True, they didn’t have the advantage of a magical rope, but he’d explored these tunnels five years ago without one.
“Why do you stay here?” he asked, his voice low. “There’s an open path between this cavern and freedom. It’s a risky climb, but certainly better than remaining here.”
“Anyone who runs winds up as part of the bone-field,” the woman said.
The darkness inside Bitterwood rose up in a great angry wave. “You fear death more than you value your freedom,” he said. “Humans outnumber dragons. All that keeps the dragons in power is the cowardice of mankind.”
The crowd flinched at his words. Grown men fell to their knees, as if he’d kicked their feet out from under them. Tears welled in the pregnant woman’s eyes.
“You have no right to scold us,” she said, swallowing a sob. “Who are you to judge us?”
Bitterwood turned back to the rope. The dark thing that had once been his soul now clawed at his skull from the inside, shouting curses. In truth, as much as Bitterwood hated dragons, he held a special contempt for other humans. He’d once been this soft. He’d once been a slave to fear and doubt. Hatred had burned away these weaknesses. Why did other humans not share this hate?
“You’re just going to leave us?” the woman asked as he took the rope into his hand and began to climb the wall.
“What if your own wife or child was a slave?” she asked.
Bitterwood stopped climbing. Recanna and Ruth and Eve, his now dead wife and daughters, had been sold into slavery after the fall of Christdale. He’d thought them dead, when in truth they’d lived as the king’s property for almost twenty years. Did he hate them for not escaping? If they had been among this rabble, would he have held them in the same scorn?
The dark thing inside suddenly grew quiet. Bitterwood dropped back to the floor. In the chamber beyond, the dragons stopped singing.
“Anyone who has the courage can climb this rope,” he said, facing the crowd. “Follow it and you’ll be outside. From there, you can go wherever you wish.”
“What if Rorg’s sons catch us?” the woman asked in a trembling voice.
Bitterwood drew an arrow and placed it against his bowstring.
“No dragon will follow you.”
Without waiting to see what they would choose to do, he sprinted toward the tunnel that led to the main chamber. A faint glow lit the tunnel, the light from the fire pit that Rorg’s clan gathered around. He sprinted along, hugging the walls. With his soot-darkened cloak and skin, he would be almost invisible among the deep shadows thrown off by the bonfire.
As he reached the central chamber, he dropped to a crouch.
Rorg, pot bellied and elephant-limbed, stood before the crowd of sun-dragons. There were too many for Bitterwood to count. This was a welcome development in the confined space. Only one or two at a time would be able to squeeze into the tunnel he was currently in. His main worry was that he would block the tunnel with corpses too quickly. His eyes searched about the room, the forest of stalactites and stalagmites, the countless nooks and alcoves and tunnels, looking for the best spot to make his stand. He had the luxury of picking the proper moment to strike. The dragons remained focused on Rorg.
“Treachery!” Rorg shouted. “The foul villain Vulpine nearly crippled Thak with his unholy weapons, taking advantage of our honor and fairness. He challenged my son to single combat, then resorting to the trickery of a blade! Can this injustice be allowed to stand?”
“No!” the beastialists roared. Bitterwood’s teeth rattled in the wave of sound.
“Sons! Brothers! Honored friends! Join me in my cause of vengeance! We will march upon the Dragon Palace! We shall throw the interloper Chapelion from the throne! We will end the moral plague that has sickened our fellow dragons! The time has come to rule as nature intended. From shore to mountain, we must make this land one endless bone-field! We are predators! All others are prey! That is the only law!”
The dragons erupted into a frenzy of roaring and shouting, hungry for blood. Bitterwood pursed his lips in grim satisfaction. He no longer cared what Zeeky thought. He was having a dragon steak for breakfast.
He drew his arrow. Unfortunately, Rorg, who’d been standing on his hind legs, dropped back to all fours. Bitterwood no longer had a good shot at the big beast. Killing Rorg with a single arrow through his ear-disk would have sent panic through the room. He scanned the remaining targets, trying to decide whose death would have the most dramatic impact.
As the seconds unfolded, the bloodthirsty roar of the crowd fell off, replaced with a confused murmur. Long, serpentine necks began to sway as heads turned toward the back of the chamber. Bitterwood lowered his bow. What was going on?
“Rorg,” said a deep voice from behind the assembly, obviously that of another sun-dragon. “I hear you plan to make yourself king.”
With all eyes focused on the new arrival at the back of the room, Bitterwood scrambled for a ledge he saw on the western wall. It was about twenty feet up, with a good view of the whole room. Beyond was a hole deep enough that he could safely retreat from the jaws of anyone who tried to reach him. It was also high enough that the piling corpses wouldn’t keep him from seeing new targets.
As he scrambled up the slimy rock, the crowd of dragons grew deathly quiet. There was a clanking, clanging sound that reminded Bitterwood of the movements of the now-dead sun-dragon Kanst—the former commander of the king’s army had always covered himself in thick plates of iron armor. Bitterwood reached the ledge and turned around. The new arrival was indeed a sun-dragon wearing armor—it looked like it might actually be Kanst’s armor, given the high level of craftsmanship. A heavy helmet concealed the dragon’s face; chain mail covered his throat. His breast and back were protected by overlapping plates of steel. Even his tail was covered with bands of armor, ending at the tip with a heavy-looking ball studded with blades—a new accessory if this was, in fact, Kanst’s armor. A large square shield was slung over his back. Only the great sheets of the dragon’s wings were unprotected, but that was of little help. In the air, shooting a dragon in the wing could be fatal with a little assistance from gravity. On the ground, punching holes in a dragon’s wings would do little more than annoy him.
The armored dragon lugged what looked like a bulging cow’s stomach. Bitterwood thought this was an odd thing to be carrying; from the way the pale blue-white sack roiled with the dragon’s motion, it was obviously filled with something liquid. In the dragon’s other fore-talon he carried a formidable looking steel-handled axe. Bitterwood’s heart skipped a beat when he recognized the weapon—it was the axe of the prophet Hezekiah, an axe that had almost taken his life not long ago. Who was this?
“You have no business here, stranger,” Rorg said, eyeing the iron-clad dragon.
The new dragon came to a clanging halt a few feet from the fire-pit. “I’m no stranger, Rorg,” said the visitor. “My father knew you well. While he never adopted your foolish beastialism, he always admired your brutality. He thought that, of all the abodes in his kingdom, you had the best approach to handling the humans who lived on his land.”
“His kingdom?” asked Rorg. “The only king I’ve ever served is Albekizan. He’s dead, and has no sons.”
Bitterwood knew that Rorg’s statement wasn’t quite true. There was one surviving son.
“My name is Hexilizan,” said Hex, using his formal name. He drew up to his full height. The light from the fire pit gleamed on his polished breast plate. “You know me, Rorg.”
A light slowly flickered in the fat dragon’s dull eyes. “Ah,” he said. “The disgraced son. Castrated, shamed, sent to live as little more than a slave. Now you come here wrapped in your armor, showing you fear the natural weaponry of the true dragons! Bow before me, Hexilizan, and I may let you leave this cavern with your life.”
Hex shook his head, the chain mail on his neck jingling. “Your recitation of my history is correct. I’ve lived much of my life as another dragon’s servant. I found the experience distasteful. The age of kings has reached its end, Rorg, as has the age of slaves.”
“You sound like your spineless brother, Shandrazel.” Rorg pushed the name from his mouth as if it were a turd he’d found upon his tongue.
“My brother foolishly believed in the equality of all beings,” Hex said. “My belief is different: I stand for nothing more or less than freedom. I’m grateful you’ve called this gathering, Rorg. It makes it convenient for me to address you all. You must all free your slaves. This should be compatible with your philosophy, after all. You call yourselves beasts. Where in nature has slavery ever been found outside of dragonkind? No other creature on this world has ever adopted the practice of slavery.”
“Humans are useful parasites,” said Rorg. “Without them, who will muck our caves?”
“Even earth-dragons have embraced plumbing,” Hex said. “It’s time for you to evolve.”
“Who are you to come here issuing commands? You’re not king!”
“No,” said Hex. “I’m not a king. I collect no tax; no patch of the earth is my property. I’m merely a philosopher who sees the myriad injustices of this world. Unlike my pacifist brother, I’m also a warrior. I regard violence as an acceptable argument for convincing others to see things my way.”
Bitterwood had seen Hex in action. Bitterwood liked him better as a warrior than a philosopher. Not that he liked him overly much as either.
“You’re outnumbered sixty to one!” Rorg snarled as he rose once more to his hind legs. “You’re in no position to threaten violence!”
Rorg’s fellow beastialists formed a tight circle around the fire pit. Hex was surrounded.
Bitterwood took aim at Rorg. From here, he had a clear shot at the sun-dragon’s throat. It would be a simple matter to sever the main artery supplying his brain. The beastialist would be dead within seconds.
His eyes drifted from Rorg to Hex. In his armor, the only vulnerable spots were the narrow eye-slits in the helmet. It would be a more challenging shot. Given the angle of attack, there was also the risk he would merely blind Hex without a clean kill.
Bitterwood contemplated the matter for half a second. He’d been waiting to put an arrow into Hex since the moment he’d met him.
His breath crossed his lips in a slow, calm stream as he let his arrow fly.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
* * *
BLOOD-HUNGRY AVENGER
THE LIVING ARROW flew from Bitterwood’s bowstring with a loud zzzmmm. The note sang musically in the narrow stone alcove. Hex turned his head barely an inch in reaction to the noise. It saved his life. The arrow hit the edge of his helmet’s eye slit and bounced off. The ricocheting arrow sliced across the face of a sun-dragon beyond. That dragon howled in outrage as Bitterwood drew another arrow. The other dragons began to snarl. The awareness that they were under attack spread through the assembly like a wave. Yet, an arrow was a tiny thing, nearly invisible in the firelight. None of Rorg’s brethren turned their eyes toward Bitterwood. Instead, they focused upon Hex as their muscles coiled, ready to pounce.
Bitterwood suspected if he did nothing but sit and watch, Hex would be dead inside a minute, given the odds he faced. Still, the opportunity to put an arrow into the brain of Albekizan’s only surviving son was something he couldn’t pass up. Bitterwood placed the fresh arrow on his bowstring and searched for an opening.
Hex didn’t provide the opening. Instead, he tossed the cow stomach into the air above the fire and hacked at it with his steel axe. The bulging sack burst, spraying oil over the fire pit. Bitterwood felt the heat on his cheeks as the oil ignited in a violent conflagration. He turned his face, closing his eyes to protect them from the sudden burst of light.
When Bitterwood opened his eyes, he saw three of the beastialists pounce upon Hex. Bitterwood watched with grudging admiration as Hex made short work of them. The sun-dragon buried the axe into the breast of his first foe, a blow that was almost certainly fatal. With the blade affixed to his tail, Hex sliced across the throat of the attacker at his rear. From the spray of blood, Bitterwood concluded the attack had hit an artery. He wondered if it was only luck, or if Hex was a better fighter than he’d given him credit for. The final attacker was a young, aggressive sun-dragon who charged forward with no hint of caution. Hex opened his jaws wide and caught his foe’s smaller head between his teeth. There was a sickening crunch as the dragon’s skull split under the force of Hex’s crushing bite.
A thick blue smoke rose from the fire. Through the haze, Bitterwood saw a shot as Hex spat the young dragon’s head away. Despite his armor, Hex’s open mouth was a vulnerable spot. An arrow straight down his gullet would bury itself in the sun-dragon’s brain-stem. He let the arrow fly.
Hex snapped his jaw shut as the arrow reached his mouth, tilting his head so that the arrow was deflected by his armored snout. Bitterwood cursed the dragon’s luck. Or was it luck? Hex turned his gaze toward the ledge where Bitterwood stood. The other dragons might not be aware of him, but Hex plainly was.
Before Bitterwood could fire again, Thak, Rorg’s eldest son, plunged into battle. He blindsided Hex, knocking the armored dragon from his hind-talons. The two crashed against the stone floor. Hex’s armor clanged like an alarm meant to wake the gods. The two dragons rolled, necks and tails entwining, as Thak used his powerful claws to peel back part of the armored plate covering Hex’s belly.
Traces of the blue-tinged smoke reached Bitterwood. His nose twitched at the stench of burning peanuts. He recognized the odor, having smelled it when Blasphet attacked the Nest. The smoke was a paralyzing poison that affected all manner of dragons.
Around the cavern, sun-dragons were starting to sway drunkenly. They stared at random shadows, glassy-eyed, oblivious to Thak and Hex’s furious tussle. The two rolling dragons toppled the nearest beastialists as if they were huge, red bowling pins. A few tried to stagger from the cavern but none made it to the exit, as their eyes rolled back into their heads and they collapsed.
Bitterwood remained focused on Hex’s armored form. The excitement of combat was sparing Thak the soporific effects of the smoke so far, so the motions of the two dragons as they wrestled prevented Bitterwood from finding a good opening.
It was increasingly difficult to ignore the fact that there were nearly three score sun-dragons lying immobile, stupefied by the poison smoke. Here was an opportunity to rid the world of an entire clan of sun-dragons. His hatred of all dragons burned in his throat like thirst and he could no longer resist spilling blood. His bow sang out in the alcove in a steady rhythm as he targeted the immobile forms of dragon after dragon. He emptied his quiver faster than his living arrows could grow back. He studied his handiwork as his heart pounded in his ears. The floor was red and glistening. He’d killed more sun-dragons in a moment than he’d managed to kill in most years. It wasn’t enough.
It could never be enough.
Impatient with waiting for his quiver to replenish, he leapt from the alcove, skidding along the slimy stone, drawing his sword as he raced toward an old sun-dragon who was feebly crawling away, his breath ragged and labored. He turned toward Bitterwood’s footsteps. His left eye was murky with cataracts as he lifted his head.
Bitterwood buried his sword between the beast’s eyes, pausing for a moment of dark pleasure as death twitched all the way to the tail-tip of the once mighty beast. He pulled the blade free. A shiver ran along his spine as he watched dark red fluid running down the blood-grooves of his blade.
Nearby, a dragon rolled to his back, clutching at the arrow buried deep in his breast. Blood bubbled in the creature’s mouth. His remaining life could be measured in moments.
The dark thing that drove Bitterwood would not grant those moments. He hacked and hacked and hacked at the beast’s neck, as the ghosts of the uncountable, nameless, faceless men who’d suffered a thousand years of cruelties beneath the talons of dragons whispered for vengeance.
As the beast’s head came free from its body, Bitterwood straightened, scanning the room. He no longer felt like a creature of muscle and bone. He was crafted from lightning and stone. He wiped his red hands across his lips. Salty blood burned on his tongue like distilled fire.
He spun toward the sound of a dragon crying out in agony. It was Thak, flat on his back, with Hex crouched above him. Hex had his snout buried deep into Thak’s belly. He jerked his head from side to side, producing a slurping sound as he tore away strips of bloodied hide.
Bitterwood was beyond all caution or strategy. He raced toward Hex, screaming, more beast than man, his sword brandished above his head with both arms. Hex drew back, his emerald eyes widening, as Bitterwood leapt over the bodies of fallen dragons.
Hex swung his tail around, in the tripping attack hardwired into the nerves of all sun-dragons. Bitterwood instinctively leapt over the tail-blade. A shout of “DIE!” tore from his mouth. Using the full weight of his body and the pure power of the righteous rage of all humanity, Bitterwood drove the tip of his sword against Hex’s breast plate, right at the point where it would pierce his heart.
The armor dented.
The blade shattered.
Bitterwood’s attack ended abruptly as he slammed face-first into the iron wall that was the sun-dragon’s torso. He staggered backward, blood streaming from his nose, his lower lip split open. He was only barely aware of Hex’s tail swinging back. He jumped, but he was too slow. The armored tail caught him at the hip and threw him across the room like he was little more than a doll. He crashed into a stalagmite.
Sliding down the column, he stared up at the countless stone icicles above. The world spun in a sickening twirl. Some distant sliver of awareness waited for Hex’s jaws to snap onto his torso.
Instead, back near the fire pit, there was a cavern-shaking roar. Bitterwood turned his head toward the noise. The ground trembled as Rorg thumped down from his pedestal and charged Hex, two tons of reptilian fury. Hex spun to meet him, burying his mighty axe deep into the dragon’s fat neck. The sheer momentum and mass of the patriarch sun-dragon ripped the weapon from Hex’s grasp. Hex tumbled backwards and Rorg trampled over him. Rorg’s neck swayed; he was obviously drunk from the poison that had paralyzed the others. Still, just as a large man can hold his liquor better than a thin one, the corpulent beastialist proved slightly more resistant to the airborne toxin.
Rorg whipped his head back as Hex tried to rise. His jaws clamped down on the chainmail draping Hex’s neck. Hex’s eyes bulged as he let out an almost airless squeak. Even though Rorg’s teeth failed to pierce the mail, the power of his jaws was like a vise upon Hex’s windpipe.
Bitterwood rolled to his hands and knees, shaking his head. The bloodlust that had driven him began to ebb. He’d long been torn by the forces within him. There was the blood-hungry avenger who craved the death of dragons regardless of consequences, and there was the cool, rational hunter who carefully planned each move, following well practiced strategies to kill prey without endangering himself. The latter Bitterwood was back in control. Rising, he reached over his shoulder and found half a dozen fresh new arrows ripening in his quiver. He calmly walked to where his bow had landed. He lifted it and turned to the two dragons. Rorg’s back was to him. Hex, his neck still firmly clamped in Rorg’s jaws, was staring at Bitterwood. His eyes pleaded for mercy.
If Hex wanted to be put out of his misery, Bitterwood was happy to oblige. He drew a careful bead on Hex’s left eye. He’d never have a cleaner shot.
As the arrow flew, Hex jerked his head sharply, dragging Rorg with him. The arrow lodged several inches deep into the top of Rorg’s skull. With a groan, the beastialist’s jaws loosened. He sank to the ground before Hex. His head came to rest upon the bloodied belly of Thak, as if he’d chosen this for a pillow.
Bitterwood reached for another arrow. Hex opened his jaws wide, drawing in a gasp of air as deep as a bellows.
Bitterwood placed the arrow against his bowstring.
Hex lunged toward Bitterwood, jaws open wide, his neck coiling out like a whip.
Bitterwood aimed his arrow straight down Hex’s throat. He let the bowstring slide from his fingers. The arrow flashed straight toward its target.
Yet Hex once more anticipated Bitterwood’s attack. He snaked his head to the right as the arrow left the string. The arrow punched through the back of his cheek, the shaft jutting from the outer edge of his jaw rather than lodging in the base of his skull. Hex carried through with his strike. Bitterwood leapt backward, trying to get out of Hex’s path, but the sun-dragon compensated for that as well. His head shot toward the point in space where Bitterwood landed. His jaws closed in on Bitterwood’s bow hand.
Bitterwood released his bow and jerked his fingers away. The living wood of the bow splintered as Hex’s jaws crushed it. Bitterwood danced backwards, only to slip on the blood of a dead dragon behind him. His feet caught on the edge of the dragon’s wing and he fell, landing in the middle of the great sheet of feather-scales. An instant later, Hex’s hind-talon landed on his torso. The sun-dragon’s enormous weight bore down upon him, enough to pin him, but not crush him. Hex lowered his jaws to within inches of Bitterwood’s face. His hot breath carried a fine mist of gore. Beneath the scent of blood, the dragon’s breath carried the sweet aroma of flowers. The arrow hanging from his cheek looked like the world’s ugliest piece of jewelry.
Bitterwood grabbed the hind-talon that pinned him and pushed with all his strength. Hex didn’t budge.
Hex finally spoke, his words coming between gasps for air. “I . . . take it . . . you’ve spoken . . . to Jandra?”
Bitterwood gave up on trying to free himself. He grabbed the dangling arrow, pushing it back deep into Hex’s mouth, and twisted. Hex pulled back, air hissing through his teeth as he sucked in a pained breath.
With the sun-dragon’s weight shifted, Bitterwood pushed the talon away and rolled free. His eyes fixed on Hezekiah’s axe. He scrambled for it on his hands and knees. Hex’s armored tail whipped down inches before his eyes, the steel striking sparks as it chipped the stone floor. The weapon was still a full yard from his grasp.
“Would you shtop trying to kill me!” Hex shouted.
Bitterwood leapt to his feet. Hex kept his gaze locked on him.
Bitterwood suddenly deduced why Hex seemed so fast.
He said, “You’re wearing Jandra’s genie.”
“No,” said Hex.
“If you’re not wearing it, where is it?”
“Now you ashk questions,” said Hex. He was lisping from the injury to his mouth. “What would you have done if you’d killed me?”
“I don’t care whether Jandra recovers her toy or not. But, I know that she was faster when she wore it. Now, you’re faster.”
“I’m not fashter. I’m prepared. We’ve fought shide by shide. I’ve shtudied you. You’re more predictable than you might realize.” Hex reached up and grabbed the arrow in his jaw. He tore it out with a yank that caused him to wince without fully closing his eyes. He was watching Bitterwood with an almost unblinking gaze. “You’re waiting for me to let my guard down to go for the axe. It won’t happen.”
“Then we’re at a stalemate,” said Bitterwood.
“Are we?” Hex asked. “I’m pretty sure I won this fight. I could have killed you if I’d wanted.”
Bitterwood grimaced.
“Where’s Jandra?” Hex asked. “Did she remain at Dragon Forge?”
“She’s returned to the kingdom of the goddess to search for a new genie.”
“And you let her?”
“I have no say where she goes,” said Bitterwood.
Hex spat out a gob of blood. “Don’t you think it’s possible she’s going back because the goddess is driving her? I detected subtle changes in Jandra after Jazz gave her new memories. What if the goddess isn’t truly dead? What if she lives on inside Jandra?”
Bitterwood frowned. He hadn’t considered this possibility.
“We have to go after her,” said Hex. “We’ve stood together before against common foes. We can do so again.”
“Blasphet was one of those common foes,” said Bitterwood. “Yet you’ve come here wielding one of his weapons. I recognize the poison smoke, smoke that Blasphet himself was immune to. I find it suspicious you aren’t affected.”
“After I left Jandra near Dragon Forge, I returned to the Nest to see if any further progress had been made in locating Blasphet’s body. The valkyries had been interrogating some of the captured Sisters of the Serpent. They’d discovered three locations for his hidden temples. I worked with the valkyries to search these locations. Two proved to be false leads. At the final location we found barrels of the smoke-oil. We also discovered notes revealing that chewing the stems of the ephedra plant in advance negates the poison. There were pots of these flowers at the temple.”
“Ah,” said Bitterwood. “That’s the sweet scent I smelled on your breath.”
“It smells better than it tastes, I assure you.”
“Where did you get Kanst’s armor? And Hezekiah’s axe?”
“Hmm,” said Hex. “I didn’t know the axe’s previous owner. These items were among the treasures at the temple. It appears the Sisters of the Serpent did a fair amount of looting in the aftermath of the battle of the Free City.”
Bitterwood looked around the cavern. “Many of these dragons are still alive. I promised the slaves that no one would pursue them. Can I use the axe to keep my promise?”
“No,” said Hex. “When the beastialists who’ve survived your butchery awaken, they’ll be more inclined to see things my way. Killing sleeping foes is dishonorable.”
“I’ve never given a moment’s thought to honor,” said Bitterwood.
“I’ve given many decades of thought to honor,” said Hex.
“Was it honorable to strike Jandra when she least expected it? To betray a friend and steal her most valued possession?”
“I did what I judged necessary. I’ve answered your questions. Answer mine. Will you help me find Jandra?”
“No,” said Bitterwood. “I’m going back to Dragon Forge. My priority is to find Jeremiah.”
“Zeeky’s brother? What’s he doing there?”
“I think Vulpine is using him to spread yellow-mouth among the rebels.”
Hex looked stunned. He shook his head. For a second, he wasn’t focused on Bitterwood. Bitterwood glanced at the axe. He was certain he could reach it before Hex knew what was happening. Yet, he didn’t move. Perhaps Hex was more useful alive, for the moment.
“That’s simply monstrous. I’ve never liked Vulpine. Very well. I can’t deny the importance of your mission. You can find Jeremiah while I deal with Jandra.”
“I’m glad I have your approval,” Bitterwood said. “You never did tell me what you’ve done with Jandra’s genie. Or her old tiara from Vendevorex’s tower, which I assume you stole?”
Hex’s eyes widened. “By the bones. I’d forgotten that! She did say she had a second genie. In the rush of events, I never even thought to look for it. If she reclaims it—”
“It’s gone,” said Bitterwood. “Someone else stole it.”
“Let us hope this someone doesn’t know its true power.”
“And the genie you stole?”
Hex sighed. “You’ve asked me three times. Since I changed the subject twice before, you might deduce I have no intention of answering. Suffice it to say that I’ve hidden it in the last place any human would want to look.”
Bitterwood nodded. Had Hex purposefully told him the location of the genie? Or was it a careless slip?
“I’ll take my bow and be on my way,” said Bitterwood.
Hex glanced at the shattered remains. “If you wish. I doubt it will be of much use to you.”
“It’s a good bowstring, at least,” said Bitterwood, crouching down to gather up the pieces. The splintered ends were green, dripping sap.
“I’m not your enemy, Bitterwood,” said Hex. “In a better world, I’d like to think we would be friends after the adventures we’ve shared. There aren’t many warriors who’ve stood shoulder to shoulder against gods. We make a good team.”
“In a better world, I’d have aimed my first arrow an inch to the left,” said Bitterwood. “But my world isn’t a better world. It’s . . .” He paused, looking for the word that described the reality he lived in.
“A bitter world?” said Hex.
Bitterwood grimaced. He’d forgotten Hex’s penchant for word play. The big lizard confused this for humor. But then, how would Bitterwood know a genuine sense of humor if he ever encountered it? Whatever part of a normal man’s soul that possessed the capacity for mirth had long since withered to dust inside him. Pun or not, the sun-dragon was right. The flavor of his world was undeniably bitter.
SHORTLY AFTER BITTERWOOD had vanished down the chimney, Zeeky guided Skitter back toward the road. Bitterwood’s mission would take hours, she knew, and there was someone she needed to meet. She rode toward a human village they’d passed earlier. This village made Winding Rock look wealthy. The houses were nothing but shacks built from sticks and straw. The shallow ditch that ran through the center of town stank of human waste. Mounds of trash littered the landscape.
Zeeky waited at the edge of the village, her eyes fixed at the point where the road vanished over the rise of a hill. Poocher snorted softly.
“Whatever,” she said. “When don’t you think it’s a good time for a snack?”
Poocher hopped down and trotted toward a trash mound.
Zeeky normally trusted his instincts as to what should and should not be considered food. She’d eaten many a strange root or berry he’d brought to her. She hoped he wouldn’t be bringing her any gifts from the trash mound.
As he thrust his snout into the garbage, a small dark shadow peeled off and dashed away, charging right toward Skitter at first, then turning at a sharp angle. Everything happened so fast that Zeeky barely had time to recognize the shadow as a mangy gray cat. A half-second later, the cat vanished, as Skitter’s toothy jaws closed around it with a wet snap. The long-wyrm swallowed before Zeeky could react.
She waited in the cold dark night, alone with her thoughts. She was always alone with her thoughts. Even though she could understand any animal or person and communicate with them in their own fashion, she knew that no one could truly understand her. She’d been born different from other people; Gabriel had said the goddess had changed her in the womb. When Jazz had captured her, she’d told Zeeky things that made her understand how different she truly was. Gabriel had been correct in calling her a harbinger. She’d been created for a purpose. Jazz had told Zeeky that she wasn’t alone—there were other children who the goddess had also changed. She wondered if she would ever meet them.
From her saddle bag, the faint murmur of voices caught her attention. It was time.
A brown horse rose over the edge of the hill. Astride it was a woman in a long white cloak. She looked ghostly in the darkness. Her horse froze as it saw Skitter. The woman stroked its mane.
Zeeky called out, “Skitter won’t hurt you. My name is Zeeky. I need to talk to you.”
The woman nodded. She shook the reins of the horse and it nervously inched forward.
“I’m Filia,” the woman said. “I’ve come with a message of hope.”
Now that she was closer, Zeeky saw that Filia was only a few years older. She was thin, and her hair hung around her face in soft blonde curls.
“You’ve come to tell everyone about the healer,” said Zeeky.
“You’ve heard?”
“Bits and pieces. I know you’re telling people to go to the Free City. I know you want to help people. What I don’t know is if your healer is as nice as he pretends to be.”
The woman smiled. “He’s given us no reason to doubt him. He’s done nothing but good since he returned to us. He has broken the shackles of death and now brings the promise of life.”
Zeeky shrugged. “I’ll know the truth once I see him, which won’t be much longer. For now, it doesn’t matter. I’m going to have to trust him, and you. I need your help.”
“How?” asked Filia.
“Follow me back to the bone-field surrounding Rorg’s cavern. In a few minutes, slaves will be climbing up from the chimneys. They’re going to be frightened and hungry, and they’ll have no place to go. Take them to the Free City.”
Filia nodded. “How many?”
“A hundred or so,” said Zeeky.
Filia opened her saddle bag. She pulled out a white cloth and unwrapped it, revealing a crusty loaf of bread. The end was torn off.
“I can feed them,” she said.
“I know,” said Zeeky.
Poocher apparently knew as well. He materialized from the darkness to sit in front of Filia’s horse. He looked up expectantly.
“Don’t beg,” said Zeeky.
“It’s okay,” said Filia. “The healer has touched this loaf.” She tore off a palm-sized chunk and tossed it to the pig. “It will never go stale. No matter how many pieces I tear from it, I’ve yet to exhaust it.”
“You’ll have a chance to test its limits, I think,” said Zeeky. “Follow me.”
Zeeky shifted in her saddle and Skitter understood her intention. The long-wyrm turned and moved back toward the bone field, pacing itself so that the horse and Poocher could keep up. Zeeky could have had Skitter stop to let Poocher back onto his saddle, but she thought her friend could use a little exercise. Burning off a bit of his restless energy could only do the pig some good.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
* * *
UH-OH
BURKE SLID OPEN the warehouse door and lifted his lantern overhead, revealing the Angry Beetle. Lamplight glinted on its spiky shell; dust swirled in the winter draft. He ushered Thorny and Vance inside and pulled the door shut. The air inside was cool despite the cast iron stove near the entrance.
Thorny let out a whistle of appreciation as he looked over the new war machine. “You’ve outdone yourself,” he said.
“What?” Vance asked. His hand was on Burke’s shoulder for guidance. “What is it?”
“Remember Big Chief?” Burke asked.
“Of course,” said Vance. “All them earth-dragons turned tail and ran the second Big Chief rolled into the square.”
“Not all of them,” said Burke, limping forward on his crutch. “I’ve got proof of that every morning when I pull on my boot. The Angry Beetle is Big Chief’s successor. One day it’s going to be the most powerful war machine I’ve ever built.”
“One day?” asked Thorny, walking around the massive machine. “It looks ready for action now.”
“Appearances can be deceiving,” said Burke. He leaned down before the pot-bellied stove and opened the door. He shoveled in more coal. He touched the pot of chili he’d left cooking on the stove. He’d forgotten all about it during the commotion at the well. The pot still felt warm. The meal could probably be salvaged. “The Angry Beetle has some glitches that need to be worked out.”
“Glitches?”
“Outright failures,” Burke sighed. “The extra weight of the armor has made a joke of my gears. Currently, it can only roll backwards. I’ve also got space problems. I can’t carry enough coal on board to keep the boiler powered up for more than a couple of hours.”
“That’s not so bad,” said Thorny. “You could roll out a wall of these things a mile or so at a time. Wipe out anything in your way. Wagons could roll along afterward to refuel.”
“Maybe,” said Burke. “It’s not an elegant solution, but we need some way of pushing our force outward. Long term, the dragons can beat us with this blockade if we can’t develop a way to take the battle to them. They can treat our rebellion like a brush fire—clear the area around it, deny it fuel, and eventually it will burn itself out. That’s our fate, unless I can think of something clever and think of it fast.”
“I saw the shotgun in action,” said Thorny. “That’s pretty impressive.”
“It’s only a toy compared to the cannons. I’ve got small cannons on the Beetle that can hurl a lead ball a mile or two. I’ve got big cannons rolling off the lines that shoot even further. I’ve spent decades imagining what I could do to dragons if I could learn how to make gunpowder.” Burke reached out and placed a hand on the barrel of the rear facing cannon of the Angry Beetle. He shook his head. “Now I’m wondering if my dream isn’t going to become a nightmare.”
“How so?”
“You saw what Ragnar did to Shanna. When he built this army, he marched from town to town shouting, ‘join or die!’ I’ve heard what happened to some of the men who refused to cooperate. Right now, I’m able to temper his brute force approach by constantly dangling the promise of more powerful weapons in front of him. But there’s going to be a point where he thinks he’s got enough. I’m not so much worried about what he’ll do to the dragons as to what he’ll do to the men who don’t blindly obey him.”
Vance was moving around the perimeter of the Angry Beetle, feeling his way from spike to spike. Burke started to warn the boy to be careful but held his tongue. It was important to let Vance feel independent despite his blindness. For someone who said he couldn’t see anything, Vance certainly was moving around the edge of the machine quickly enough.
“What’s that weird smell?” said Vance from the other side of the Angry Beetle.
“It was supposed to be my dinner.” Burke lifted the lid of the iron pot on the stove and stirred the contents. The air filled with a pungent, spicy aroma, along with the scent of charred meat. The contents were sticking to the bottom of the pot.
“Oh lord,” said Thorny. “Not your chili!”
“Chili sounds good,” said Vance.
“Burke’s cooking isn’t for the faint of heart. His chili has killed more people than his guns ever will.”
Burke chuckled as he used a ladle to scoop out a large glop of stringy meat into a wooden bowl. He handed it to Vance, who reached out and took it in a confident manner that made Burke wonder again if perhaps the boy could see more than he let on. “Don’t listen to Thorny. I still say most of those deaths were just coincidence. Besides, this is a new recipe. I’m currently limited by the items in the earth-dragons larders. They had some hot sausages I’ve chopped up and added to this.”
The wooden spoon stopped inches from Vance’s lips. He said, “I’ve, um, heard there were human bodies in the larder. You didn’t . . . um . . .”
“Any human remains were turned over to Ragnar for proper burial. The man has his faults, but he’s not a cannibal. I hope.”
Vance started to put the spoon in his mouth, then pulled it away again. “I also heard there were jars of pickled earth-dragon babies.”
“Yeah. Some folks have been sampling them. I’ve not been that hungry yet.”
Vance looked relieved and popped the spoon in his mouth.
“Especially not with so much fresh meat from the adults lying around,” Burke continued. “We had to cremate most of the bodies as a hedge against disease. But, we cut off the tails and have been curing them in the smoke house. Earth-dragon tails taste like gator. We used to eat those all the time down south.”
Vance chewed slowly, looking as if he might spit the chili out. Suddenly, his eyes bulged. He swallowed quickly.
“Oh my gosh!” he said, waving his fingers in front of his mouth. “My mouth is on fire!”
Burke reached down beside the stove and picked up a clay jug. “Take a swig of this.”
Vance lifted the jug, swallowed, and then quickly pulled it away from his lips. His face was all puckered for about half a minute before he could speak again.
“Have I done something to make you angry?” Vance asked weakly.
“Nope. That’s goom,” said Burke. “We’ve got about 900 gallons of it. The earth-dragons distill it from cabbage and chilies. Fortunately, it’s so alcoholic that a few swigs numbs your mouth. Can you still feel your tongue?”
Vance’s tongue flickered across his lips. “Nothing. Guess it works.”
“Don’t burp around any open flames,” Burke said. “Goom ignites easily. It’s the fuel for the Angry Beetle’s flamethrower.”
Vance took another bite of chili. Sweat beaded his brow as he chewed the stringy meat.
“If you survive this meal, you’ll have a good story for your grandkids,” said Thorny with a chuckle. Thorny then turned his attention back to the Angry Beetle.
“How many people does it take to run this thing?” he asked.
“A perfect crew would be four,” said Burke, lifting the hatch. “But, it’s a tight fit with two people, and three people need to be real friendly. If there were more women around, I’d recruit them for crew.”
Thorny peeked inside the open hatch. “They’d need to be skinny.”
Burke shrugged. “At least I don’t need to worry about Ragnar’s Mighty Men commandeering this. I don’t think Stonewall could squeeze through the hatch.”
As he said this, a chill winter wind swept across the room. The sliding door to the warehouse shuddered on its tracks. Burke looked up and found Stonewall standing in the doorway, glaring at him. To his left stood Ragnar, with his twin scimitars held loosely in his hands; a half dozen armored Mighty Men lurked behind him. To Stonewall’s right stood Frost, grinning like it was his birthday.
“Burke,” said Ragnar, in a voice that was oddly calm and controlled. “We should discuss what happened at the well.”
Burke crossed his arms as he leaned back against the Angry Beetle.
“I agree,” said Burke. “That was quite a show. I’m still trying to make up my mind as to precisely what it was that happened. How did Shanna get through the blockade? How did she get to the well if your men didn’t let her in? Shanna’s been a spy for years. She’s a good actor. And, the more I think about it, if you faked her death, tossing her into the well was a good way of keeping anyone from seeing her get up and walk away once the performance was done. What I haven’t figured out yet is, what are you up to? What are you trying to prove?”
“You have lived a life of lies so long you cannot see the truth,” said Ragnar. “I would never deceive my followers with base theatrics.”
“If it wasn’t staged, that’s even worse. Shanna helped us win Dragon Forge. You killed her like she was a dog.”
“A mad dog,” said Ragnar, still calm. “It was clear from her words that she’d been corrupted by the worship of a false god.”
“Or hallucinating from those dragonseeds, whatever they are. You should have jailed her and let her sober up. We’ll never know what really happened to her now.”
“You’re quick to criticize my decisions,” said Ragnar. “Your open defiance in front of the crowd was intolerable.”
“You’ll have to tolerate my criticism a bit longer,” said Burke. “You need me if you’re ever going to break the blockade and spread this rebellion further.”
“Do I?” asked Ragnar. “The Lord has given me an army. We now have the sky-wall bows. We have shotguns and cannons. I believe your usefulness draws to an end.”
“Without gunpowder, all you have are a bunch of iron tubes,” said Burke, crossing his arms. “I’m the only one who knows the formula.”
Ragnar smiled, an expression that made Burke’s blood turn cold.
Frost said, “I noticed that Biscuit was capable of mixing up gunpowder while you were recovering from your surgery.”
Burke’s jaw tightened. “Biscuit’s a good man, but he’s no chemist,” he said, carefully controlling his tone.
Frost held up a scrap of paper that Burke instantly recognized. It was the formula for gunpowder. “I spoke to Biscuit earlier today. He found my arguments . . . persuasive. He has reaffirmed his loyalty to the cause.”
Burke clenched his jaw. He looked away from Ragnar and his Mighty Men, shoved his iron crutch back into his armpit, and hobbled to the stove. “So what now?”
“Now we assemble the men at dawn,” said Frost. “You repent your sins and swear your obedience to the Lord and his prophet. Or we behead you in front of the crowd as a reminder that no single man is greater than the cause.”
Stonewall furrowed his brow at the mention of the beheading.
Frost grinned like this was the happiest moment of his life.
Burke picked up a tin cup sitting at the edge of the stove. He poured himself a cup of goom.
Ragnar and his Mighty Men were ten feet away. The Angry Beetle was close enough to touch. He contemplated his choices. He could avoid violence just by standing in front of the crowd, saying a few words he didn’t believe, and then going back to work.
He shook his head. “If you’re planning to kill me, I’d rather not wait for dawn.”
It was Stonewall, not Frost, who stepped forward. His big beefy hands reached for Burke’s shoulders, as he said, “Sir, if you’ll come with us, I promise to—”
Burke flung the goom into Stonewall’s face.
The tall man staggered backwards, hissing in pain. Goom in the mouth was bad enough; Goom in the eyes was crippling. Frost tried to get out of the way of the stumbling giant, but crashed into the Mighty Man behind him. Stonewall tripped over Frost, and as he fell he toppled the rest of Ragnar’s thugs.
Ragnar, however, had been spared from the flailing of his henchmen. Burke was getting tired of the seemingly divine hand that spared the prophet from misfortune. Ragnar brandished his scimitars and leapt toward Burke with a growl, apparently agreeing that dawn was too long to wait for Burke’s beheading.
Burke grabbed the iron handle of the chili pot and swung it with a grunt. The cast iron connected solidly with the side of the prophet’s shaggy head. The force of the blow knocked the scimitars from Ragnar’s grasp. Hot, thick chili splashed down Ragnar’s bare body, matting his chest hair. The prophet’s eyes grew large. A very unholy word formed on his lips.
Burke didn’t wait to hear it. With the heavy pot still in his hands, he swung upward, catching the big man under his hairy chin, knocking him from his feet.
“Get in the Beetle!” Burke screamed.
Thorny was already two steps ahead of him. His scrawny legs disappeared into the shadowy interior of the war machine. Burke turned to grab Vance by the wrist, but Vance, too, was already moving, diving into the interior. For a third time since they’d come to the warehouse, Burke suspected the boy could see more than he let on. But, why would Vance lie about such a thing?
Burke threw his crutch in and rolled into the Beetle, hitting the catch that held the metal hatch open. He pulled his leg in as the hatch slammed shut. Seconds later, loud bangs shook the Beetle as the Mighty Men who’d regained their footing began to hack the war machine with their swords.
Burke sat up, grabbing Vance by the wrist. “You’re going to have to shovel coal,” he said. “Let me put your hand on the—”
“I can see,” said Vance.
“What?”
“I can see! My sight’s not fully back yet, but it’s getting there. I only see blurry colors out past a few yards, but up close I see pretty good.”
“So . . . you’ve been faking?” Burke asked.
“No! My sight’s just started coming back in the last little bit.”
Thorny scratched his scraggly beard. “I’ve heard of men going blind after they drink goom. Maybe it works the other way around, too.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s because of the dragonseed,” said Vance.
“What?” asked Burke.
“I swallowed it five minutes after you gave it to me. What did I have to lose?”
“Your life, if it had been poison. Your mind, if it had been a hallucinogen.” Burke frowned. “How do you know you can really see? Maybe you’re just imagining it.”
Vance reached out and put his finger on the tip of Burke’s nose.
“The dragonseed worked. My sight’s been getting a little better since I took it. First I could just detect light from dark, then shapes started coming back, then colors.”
Burke grimaced. He lived in a world that followed certain rules. Magic seeds were the stuff of fairy tale. They didn’t belong in a world of gears and guns. Vance had lost his sight due to a head injury. Sometimes these things got better on their own. The timing must be a coincidence.
The hull shuddered violently.
“I’m guessing they found the sledgehammer,” said Burke as the ringing in his ears abated. “Here’s the ten-second guide to running this thing. This is the boiler.” He opened the iron door next to Vance. A small red flame still flickered inside. “Shovel coal. There’s a foot operated bellows. Pump as if your life depends on it. We need a lot of heat to build up steam.”
Burke checked the gauges. There was still a little pressure left over from this morning, but nothing like what they’d need to escape.
The hull rang out again from another blow of a sledgehammer. He wondered how long it would be before one of the Mighty Men was clever enough to wheel a big cannon out of the foundry and use the Angry Beetle for target practice.
“Thorny, the Beetle can only roll backwards. I designed all the controls to sit up front. You need to look out that little hatch in the back and tell me what you see.”
“Got it,” said Thorny.
“Don’t open the hatch until we’re moving,” said Burke. “The Mighty Men might be smart enough to poke a shotgun inside.”
Burke looked around at the mention of a shotgun. He had one shotgun inside, which he’d been using to test the visual span of the various gun slots. He had plenty of shot, and two barrels of gunpowder. The Beetle also had fixed cannons at the front and back, and there was the goom-powered flamethrower, with maybe thirty gallons in the reserve. He also had a sky-wall bow and a quiver of arrows. He’d wanted to test if there was enough space to actually use a bow at one of the slots. There wasn’t.
Burke wiggled his way past Vance to reach the driver’s seat. Burke calculated the odds of escaping and frowned. Sometimes it was a curse to be good at math. He was certain he hadn’t killed Ragnar. Stonewall probably wasn’t permanently blinded. Was it too late to find some reasonable way out of this? Or was he going to have to kill a lot of people?
All this time, he’d been worried about what Ragnar might do to his fellow men once he had guns and cannons. Now he was in a situation where he was going to be turning his weapons against humans, and for what? So that they might die a mile away instead of here in the warehouse?
He realized that nothing had hit the hull for at least a minute. He cracked open the sighting hatch at the forward cannon. He was facing the open doors leading to the street. The Mighty Men were now milling about outside. Ragnar and Stonewall were nowhere to be seen. Burke watched through a slit only an inch high and six inches long. It was hard to say what he might be missing. Why had they stopped trying to get in? The Mighty Men stood back as a new group came onto the scene, straining as they pushed one of the newly forged wheeled cannons into place and turned it toward the warehouse.
Burke looked at the pressure gauge. They needed more time.
People were going to have to die.
“I’m going to fire the cannon,” he said, reaching into one of the many pouches on his leather tool belt. He pulled out a clump of cotton wads and leaned back in his seat, stretching out to Vance and Thorny.
“Stuff these in your ears and cover your ears with your hands. Keep them covered until I’ve taken my shot.”
“With cotton in our ears, how will we know?” asked Thorny, as Vance helped him jam cotton into his ears.
Burke smirked. “You’ll know.”
He stuffed cotton into his own ears as he looked back out into the street. They were still ramming gunpowder down the shaft of the cannon. A five pound keg of black powder sat on the street. He couldn’t have asked for a better target.
Burke spun the sighting wheels for the forward gun. The Angry Beetle’s cannons weren’t as big as the one in the street, but it would get the job done. Unlike the Mighty Men, he’d loaded his cannon in advance.
“Hands over your ears!” Burke shouted, as he pulled the flint trigger.
He squeezed his hands over his ears and closed his eyes, his jaw clenched as tightly as possible. The seconds passed with unbearable slowness.
The noise hit him in the chest like a hammer. The Angry Beetle lurched as the five pound charge in the street exploded.
Burke pulled his hands away, yanking out the cotton. His teeth felt loose.
“Everyone all right?” he asked. There was no answer. He could barely hear his own voice over the ringing. He tried again, shouting, “Vance? Thorny?”
“You’re right that we’d know,” said Thorny.
“I should’ve used more cotton,” said Vance.
“Keep pumping the bellows,” Burke said. “The pressure is almost in the zone.”
He slid the sighting hatch open once more. The front wall of the warehouse was gone. There was a crater where the cannon had been a moment before. Unidentifiable lumps of meat were scattered in all directions. He slid the hatch shut before he had a chance to identify any of the chunks.
“Gentlemen,” he said. “It’s safe to say we’ve worn out our welcome. I’m sorry you got swept up in this.”
“You apologize too much,” said Thorny. “Let’s roll.”
“What’s it look like behind us?”
Thorny pushed the rear sighting hatch open with the back of his twisted hands. He shook his head. “The doors are closed.”
“I don’t think that’s going to matter,” said Burke as he let out the clutch and engaged the gear. The Angry Beetle shuddered as it crept backward. It took a surprising length of time to cover the short distance to the rear door. Fortunately, when it finally reached the barrier, the war-machine pushed through the wood as if it were a paper curtain.
“Since we can only move in one direction, it’s important we don’t hit anything the Angry Beetle can’t push over. I’m going to follow the southern boulevard to the city gate. Let me know if I’m getting close to any buildings.”
Burke leaned over to watch out the sighting hatch as they rolled away from the warehouse. He knew the layout of Dragon Forge as well as anyone. He just might pull this off.
“We’re getting close to a big building on the left,” said Thorny.
Burke turned the wheel.
“No!” said Thorny. “My left!”
Burke hastily steered the other way.
“We should be coming up on a big broad avenue now,” he said. “See it?”
“Yeah,” said Thorny. “People are moving fast to get out of our way. A lot faster than they need to, honestly. Pokey Turtle might be a better name for this contraption.”
“Duly noted,” said Burke. “Keep shoveling, Vance. We need to build up more pressure if we want to get up any kind of speed.”
“We’re at the avenue,” said Thorny.
Burke turned the wheel sharply. The treads churned beneath the Angry Beetle with a satisfying rumble. The steering mechanism worked like a dream. If he had any real power getting to the treads, this might turn into an interesting ride. He disengaged the clutch.
“We’re slowing down,” said Thorny.
Burke was surprised that they were still rolling at all. But, the southern avenue did slope down slightly. He’d take whatever help from gravity he could get.
“We took off before the pressure was in the zone,” Burke said. “Let’s give the boiler another minute. I’m worried about the southern gate. You see it?”
“Yeah,” said Thorny. “We’re maybe two hundred feet away.”
“Can you see down the shaft of the rear cannon? Does it look like we’d hit the gate if we fired on it?”
Thorny was quiet for a moment. “I guess,” he said.
Vance said, “Burke, we worked hard to get that gate closed. Forget Ragnar. Do you really want to open that gate to the dragons?”
“It’s not the gate keeping the dragons out,” said Burke. “It’s the sky-wall bows. No winged dragon wants to fly within a mile of the walls. Thorny, I know you don’t have much grip, but triggering the flintlock fuse only takes a nudge. Think you can do it?”
“I’ll try,” said Thorny.
“Okay then. Cotton in ears, everyone. Thorny, on the count of ten, do it.”
Burke shoved cotton in his ears. Thorny’s countdown went by in silence.
The Angry Beetle trembled as the cannon fired. Burke’s brain felt like goom sloshing around in a jug.
He pulled the cotton from his ears. Thorny’s distant voice sounded panicked. “The gate’s still there!”
“Did we miss it?” Burke asked, incredulous.
“No. We punched a hole in it. The left half looks tilted back a little.”
“That’s the part we’ll ram, then.”
Burke looked back out his own sighting window. The street was mostly empty. It was good this was happening at night. Here and there, faces peeked around the corners of buildings to watch the progress of the Angry Beetle as it rolled at its leisurely pace toward the gate.
What now? The cannons could be loaded from the inside, but it was a pain. Thorny definitely couldn’t manage with his hands. He looked at the barrel of gunpowder beside him. He had a small spool of gunpowder-infused cotton to cut fuses from. Getting out of the Beetle to hop up to the gate and fashion a quick bomb didn’t seem wise, however.
Did the Beetle have the speed and mass necessary to push open the gate?
He peered at the gauge. The needle hovered at the bottom edge of the green zone.
“We only live once, gentlemen,” he said, and engaged the clutch.
The Angry Beetle’s treads rumbled beneath the floor. On the incline, they quickly reached a speed that surprised even Burke. They might well be rolling at almost fifteen miles per hour. With a horrible crunch, they crashed into the gate. The Beetle felt as if it were going to tip over as the damaged gate fell from its hinges and one tread rode up onto it while the other stayed on the ground. Seconds later, the Angry Beetle shook violently as it dropped back to level and rolled on. Stunned guards looked down from the walls as the Angry Beetle roared away from the fort. The road sloped sharply downward toward the river. Burke disengaged the gears, allowing gravity alone to propel them so that they could build up enough pressure to climb the hill on the other side of the river.
“There’s a bridge ahead,” said Thorny.
“I know,” said Burke. “It’s going to be like threading a needle to cross it.”
“Can the bridge even hold us?” Vance asked nervously.
“It’s stone,” said Burke. “The earth-dragons moved wagons loaded with armor and weapons across it. It’ll hold.”
He peeked back out the rear sighting hatch. His heart sank. There were a dozen men walking along behind the Angry Beetle, all bearing shotguns. They were spread out so that the rear cannon would never hit all of them. If they followed the war machine long enough, they’d be able to peel it open once it ran out of steam.
“Uh-oh,” said Thorny.
These were quite likely the worst two syllables anyone could have uttered, given the circumstance. “What?” Burke asked.
“Earth-dragons,” said Thorny. “They’re climbing up from under the bridge. I guess they’ve heard the racket we’re making. There might be fifty of them.”
Burke barely had time to contemplate this news before a shotgun blast rang out. Then another, then another. No balls clanged off the Angry Beetle’s armor. How could they possibly miss?
“That’s about five fewer earth-dragons,” said Thorny.
As the angry war-cries of earth-dragons at full charge filled the air, a faint hope suddenly sparked within Burke’s chest. Sometimes, two problems were better than one. In the best case scenario, the men and the dragons would fight one another and ignore the Angry Beetle.
In the worst case scenario, the dragons would kill the men, capture their guns and the Beetle, and suddenly have over a dozen shotguns, two cannons, and a barrel of gunpowder for the biologians to reverse engineer.
The Angry Beetle lurched as Burke contemplated their situation.
“We just ran over a fallen dragon,” said Thorny.
Shotgun blasts continued to ring out.
“The humans have to win this battle,” said Burke, grabbing the shotgun. “Even if Ragnar’s men kill us, we can’t let the dragons get their hands on the gunpowder.”
“Burke,” said Thorny. “You might want to concentrate on steering. We’re only fifty feet from that bridge.”
Burke handed the gun to Vance. “Open the rear gun slit. Fire at will.”
“I don’t know if my eyes are good enough for me to target anything,” said Vance.
“Let’s find out,” said Burke.
Vance nodded. He moved swiftly to slide the small hatches open. Burke craned his head over his shoulder, trying to see as much as possible through the tiny holes. He could see the edges of the bridge. It looked like he was on track. There were a half-dozen earth-dragons on the bridge. Vance fired the shotgun.
When the smoke cleared, most of the earth-dragons were running. There was now a huge shadow on the bridge. What was it? Burke squinted, trying to make sense. It was moving . . .
With a start, he realized that the biggest earth-dragon he’d ever seen was charging straight toward the Angry Beetle. He brandished a war-hammer that no human could ever lift. His jagged beak was open in a war cry louder than the rumbling treads on the stonework of the bridge.
With a horrifying grunt, the huge dragon swung his hammer. Burke’s end of the Angry Beetle suddenly shot into the air. Shrill whistles rang out as jets of steam shot from the seams of the boiler. With a gut-wrenching chewing sound, Burke heard the left tread seize up.
“Reload,” Burke shouted.
The Angry Beetle jumped as the war-hammer once more slammed into its leading edge. One of the exterior spikes suddenly punched down into the belly of the war machine, missing the back of Thorny’s head by a fraction of an inch. Vance was thrown against the boiler.
“Aaaah!” he cried out, pulling back. The chamber suddenly smelled like burning hair. Vance’s wispy beard was gone from the left side of his face, now a bright beet red.
The rear gun slot Burke had been looking through was crushed completely shut. He could barely see out one of the remaining holes. A wall of reptilian flesh rippled as the dragon lifted the hammer for another blow.
There was a rumble beneath the Angry Beetle. The dragon attacking them jumped backward. Dust shot into the air.
“Uh-oh,” Thorny said again.
In a symphony of pops and cracks and groans, the bridge beneath them crumbled and they dropped twenty feet, landing sideways. The entry hatch snapped open, showing the river water rushing past only inches below. The Angry Beetle was precariously perched on the rubble of the bridge. The air was hot with steam.
Vance had his hands pressed against the roof, straining to keep from falling against the boiler again. “Y’all okay?” he asked.
“I think so,” said Burke.
Thorny’s voice was feeble. “I don’t suppose you brought that jug of goom, did you? I could drink a gallon right about now.”
“There’s thirty gallons on board,” said Burke, looking down at the water. He glanced over at the spool of fuse. “We’re not drinking it though. It’s going to be part of the explosion.”
“Have we moved on to some part of the plan I was unaware of?” Thorny asked.
“There was a plan?” asked Vance.
“Get into the water,” said Burke. “We can’t let the dragons capture the Angry Beetle. I’m going to blow it up. Between the gunpowder and the goom, we might destroy the cannons.”
Vance nodded. “Works for me.” He let go of his handhold, grabbed the sky-wall bow and quiver, and dropped into the water. The boy really was fast with his hands. He popped back to the surface a second later. The water was up to his neck. He reached up. “Let me help you, Thorny.”
Thorny did his best to navigate the cramped space without hitting the boiler. He didn’t succeed. His face scrunched up in pain when his shin hit the hot metal, but he never made a sound of complaint. He slipped down into Vance’s hands and fell into the water.
“Take my crutch,” Burke said, handing it down to Vance. He pulled several feet of chord off the spool and shoved it into the top of the nearest barrel. “We’ll have less than a minute to get out of here. I don’t move fast these days, so I might not make it.”
Thorny’s head popped back into the hatch. He was shivering violently.
“T-that’s why y-you should get a head start. I’ll light the f-fuse.”
“I got us into this,” said Burke. “Both of you go on.”
“Burke,” said Thorny, sounding grave. “For the last f-fifteen years, I’ve been s-spying on you for Bazanel. If I die, I d-deserve it.”
“I knew,” said Burke. “It was too big a coincidence that you’d been the slave of the only dragon I’d ever thought of as a kindred spirit.”
“I’ll light the fuse,” said Vance.
“But . . .”
“I’m faster than both of you. I can hold my breath underwater a long time. Now get out of there and let me blow this thing up.”
Burke grabbed the fallen shotgun and slipped down into the icy water. He lost his footing almost instantly. He reached out and grabbed Thorny’s arm to steady himself.
“What’s h-he going to l-light it with?” Thorny asked through chattering teeth.
“There’s still fire under the boiler,” Vance grumbled. “Get out of here!”
It was the closest thing to anger Burke had ever heard in Vance’s voice. Grabbing his crutch, he took a deep breath and dropped beneath the water. The current pulled him away. He popped back to the surface several yards downstream. The water was unbelievably cold. Each winter his father used to throw him into the river and make him swim a mile. Supposedly, it was meant to make him tougher. In practice, it left him hating swimming. It was one aspect of his childhood training he’d never had the heart to inflict on Anza. He was suddenly grateful for it.
On the bank above him he saw a flash and heard thunder. A bloodied dragon toppled down the bank, limp and lifeless.
Thorny popped to the surface beside him. His lips were dark blue.
“Keep moving,” Burke said, grabbing his friend by the collar.
“If y-you knew,” Thorny asked, “why d-didn’t you k-kill me?”
“You were the only halfway decent chess player in town.”
“Anza’s b-better,” said Thorny.
“Anza beats me,” said Burke.
They hopped, floated, and scrambled downstream a hundred yards, seldom bringing anything more than their heads above water. In the darkness, the fallen bridge and the upended war machine were nothing but shadows. On the far bank, Burke saw movement. Vance?
The shadow he saw was too large and had a tail. The shadow brandished a large hammer and shouted incompressible words of rage at the fallen bridge. So much for the hope the brute had been crushed in the collapse.
“It’s been too long,” said Burke. “The fuse should have—”
The night went white. The shockwave knocked them beneath the water. Hot shards of metal rained down, sizzling as they punched into the river. Burke lost all sense of up and down as the water roughed him up. Finally, he surfaced. Thorny popped up too, gasping. Burke spun around, trying to get his bearings, until he spotted the pillar of bluish flame on the water where the Angry Beetle had once been. The burning goom, no doubt. Black smoke hung heavy in the air. All around, little plips sounded in the water as shrapnel continued to fall.
Burke wanted to call out Vance’s name, but didn’t dare. He didn’t know how many men or dragons had survived. No matter who was still up on the banks, it wouldn’t be long before sky-dragons swarmed the area. Their only chance was to stay quiet, stay low, and keep moving.
“Do you th-think he. . . ?” whispered Thorny.
“Shh,” said Burke. “Keep moving. He’ll find us.”
As the minutes dragged on, Vance didn’t find them. Burke helped Thorny crawl from the water after a mile had passed. They were both freezing, drenched to the bone. Their only hope was to keep moving. They raced not only against the sky-dragons who no doubt searched the area, but against hypothermia and frost-bite as well.
They limped along with Burke’s arm wrapped around Thorny’s shoulder for balance. Burke had the shotgun and his crutch pressed against his chest with his free arm. Any time Thorny slowed, Burke pushed him on, ever eastward. Stopping even a minute to catch their breath could prove fatal.
They’d traveled a few miles when Burke smelled smoke. At first, he thought it might be his imagination, until Thorny whispered hoarsely, “S-smells like a f-fire.”
They limped on, rounding a bend in the river. Like some dream, a windowless log cabin sat high up on the bank, with smoke curling from the stone chimney. Burke hobbled toward it, not caring who might be inside. The cabin was tiny, barely ten feet by five. He let his crutch drop from his numb hands as he fell against the door.
The door opened. Vance looked down on them. His hair was sopping wet. He was wrapped in a thick wool blanket. The redness of his burned cheek had faded. Behind him, a fire roared.
“This place used to belong to my uncle Jig,” Vance said. “He’s back at Dragon Forge. He won’t mind us passing the night.”
“How did you . . .”
Vance shrugged. “I must have passed y’all in the darkness. Get inside before you let the heat out. We need to put out the fire before dawn. Don’t want the dragons seeing the smoke.”
Thorny stumbled into the cabin. He fell before the fireplace, rolling toward it, until he was practically in it. Steam rose from his clothes.
“Don’t cook yourself,” said Burke, dropping to the floor next to him.
Vance shut the door.
Burke closed his eyes and instantly plunged into sleep.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
* * *
WE SHALL ALL BE HEALED
ANZA PRESSED HER BACK against a stone dragon atop the roof of the palace. The night sky was full of aerial guard and valkyries. Within the palace a dozen ox-dogs bayed. They were all searching for her. She’d spent most of the day skulking around the palace, trying to establish who’d seen the scroll containing the secret of gunpowder. Tonight, she’d acted. Two dozen sky-dragons were dead in her wake. The only important target she’d missed was Chapelion himself. She hoped he hadn’t committed the formula to memory. She’d recovered Bazanel’s original scroll and two copies and burned them.
Unfortunately, it had proven impossible to execute her plan in complete secrecy. The first bodies had been discovered long before she was finished with her targets. She’d been increasingly on the defensive as news spread through the palace that an assassin was present. With the ox-dogs now on her trail, she’d spent the last hour retreating to ever higher ground.
She pressed her cheek against the cold marble scales of the carved sun-dragon she hid beside. The wind whipped around the peaks of the palace. She looked toward the southwest. Somewhere in that direction lay Dragon Forge. She imagined how her father would stand when he heard the news of her death. She could feel the sag of his shoulders.
The wound on her chest throbbed with each heartbeat. It felt as hot now as the night the fire had actually touched it. Not a quarter mile distant was the river where she’d swum with Skitter little more than a week ago. It would feel good to dip back into that water.
The door to the rooftop terrace burst open and an ox-dog emerged, dragging an earth-dragon handler behind it, followed by a squad of nine earth-dragons and a second dog. Anza could handle the guards. The ox-dogs were another matter. Standing six feet tall at the shoulder, ox-dogs had a bite that even sun-dragons envied. Pound for pound, there were few creatures on the planet who matched them for sheer muscle. Like all dogs, they were fiercely protective of their pack, and would fight to the death once combat began. Worst of all, their sense of hearing and smell made them nearly impossible to elude.
If there was ever a moment in her life when it would have been useful to sprout wings, it was now. Given the improbability of that development, she improvised.
She pursed her lips and let out a long, loud whistle. As all heads turned toward her, she scrambled onto the stone dragon, climbed its long neck, and stood on its head. The statue looked out over the edge of the roof. Below her was a five-hundred-foot drop into darkness. To her right, in the distance, she could see the lights of Richmond, gleaming. If she could make it there, she could disappear among the crowds. To her left, there were other lights. She cocked her head, trying to make sense of what she saw. It looked like a second city, but her study of maps of the area hadn’t revealed a city there before. Was this the Free City? She’d heard that was abandoned.
The earth-dragons and ox-dogs surrounded the base of the statue. The ox-dogs were too bulky to climb up the statue’s neck to reach her. One of the bolder earth-dragons looked ready to make the attempt. She loosed a throwing knife. It shot like an arrow to the exact spot on the stone that the dragon’s thick claw was about to grasp, throwing up bright sparks. The earth-dragon pulled back and cast a wary eye toward her.
Anza looked up. Her true target wasn’t the earth-dragons or the ox-dogs. A sky-dragon dove at her, a valkyrie judging from the armor. In her hind-talons she carried a spear nearly twenty feet long, with the point on a path that would stab right into Anza’s heart.
Anza counted the seconds, her legs tensing until the last possible instant.
She leapt up, slapping the tip of the spear down and to the side. The shaft painlessly slid along her rib cage and hips. At the apex of her leap, she closed her fingers, clamping onto the sky-dragon’s leg.
Her feet jerked from the statue. The sudden weight sent the valkyrie into a spin. Anza held on with all her might as the world whirled around her. The dragon fell at a sharp angle, beating her wings furiously to regain control. Anza tucked her legs up as they dashed past the tips of the trees that lined the river. The dragon carried her out over the dark water and she let go. She tumbled through the air and smacked into the water with the full surface of her back, her arms and legs outstretched. It was the most painful landing possible, but it wasn’t fatal. She sank beneath the icy water, breathless from the impact.
She kicked, driving herself further downriver, struggling to stay below the surface. Her lungs were burning. White stars danced before her eyes. At last, she could take no more. She rose to the surface, turning to her back, floating gently upward so that only the tip of her face broke the water. She drew in a long silent breath as she scanned the sky. Dragons were everywhere. She plunged below the surface again, kicking hard to get as close to the bottom as possible. She wanted to leave no ripples that they might follow.
The current was strong, lending her speed, but she was swimming blind. She had no way of knowing how far she’d come. She swam until she couldn’t help herself. She had to surface again. This time, she rose with much less grace and control. She’d pressed too far. Her heart felt full of needles. She splashed to the surface, gasping loudly. She fumbled to free a knife from her belt, but it fell from her trembling fingers. She tried to catch it but the sudden motion plunged her face underwater.
She inhaled a chilling lungful of icy liquid. She grew still, trying to calm herself, letting the buoyancy of her body carry her upward. She lay immobile at the surface, drifting, her nose barely above water. She wanted to swim for shore, but anytime she tried to turn her head she sank back beneath the river.
She closed her eyes, feeling numb. Water washed into her throat. She coughed violently, her limbs flailing uselessly in an attempt to find something solid to grab.
She forgot where she was or why she was so cold and closed her eyes again.
A HAND WRAPPED around her wrist. Her eyes fluttered open as she was dragged through shallow water across smooth river rocks. Her rescuer was a woman about her own age, dressed in a long white robe that was wet from the knees down. Anza coughed again, so violently that she pulled her arm free of her rescuer. She rolled over onto her belly on the stony bank and coughed up water. Her coughing triggered something deeper inside her and she started to vomit, bringing up teaspoons of clear, pale, bitter fluid. In the aftermath, she lay on the uneven stones, completely empty. All her life her father had trained her to treat her body as a machine. She knew how to push it the limits of its engineering. Her muscles and bones composed a finely-tuned master clockwork. Now her gears were stripped. She couldn’t even lift a finger.
“Poor thing,” the girl who had pulled her from the river said as she squatted next to her. She placed a hand under Anza’s shoulder and rolled her to her back. “We have to get you back on your feet. If you don’t keep moving, you’ll freeze. You’ll go to sleep and never wake up.”
Anza found this thought acceptable. Her eyes closed. It would feel good to drift off peacefully, never to—
SLAP!
For a half-second, Anza wondered about the source of the sound. Her ice-cold skin was numb. She dimly felt the pressure of the blow on her cheek but no actual pain. Slowly, a tingling set in, as if her cheek were being stung by a thousand bees.
She lifted her hand to her cheek, rubbing it.
This small motion wore her out. She noticed fingers lingering near her face. The fingertips were pale white and puckered. Were they hers? She dropped her arm back to her side, and released a long, shuddering breath as her eyes closed once more.
SMACK!
Anza's eyes snapped open. The girl had her hand raised, preparing to strike a third blow. Instinctively, Anza caught the girl’s hand as it raced toward her face.
She sat up, giving the girl a stern glower.
“Sorry,” the girl said. “Can you stay awake now? Do you think you can stand?”
Anza shook her head. She was surprised she was even sitting. The white-robed woman moved behind her and wrapped her arms around her torso, lifting her. Anza found her footing and was soon standing on wobbling legs. The girl draped Anza’s arm across her shoulders to support her.
“My goodness,” her rescuer said, looking down at Anza’s buckskin clad body. “You certainly have a lot of knives.”
Anza shrugged.
“I’m Colobi,” the girl said. Anza looked more closely at her rescuer. She was shorter than Anza and a bit heavier, with large breasts and plump shoulders. Her hair hung loosely around her face, so blonde it was almost white. Colobi’s face was flawless as porcelain, without a scar or blemish. Her eyes were a bright, crisp blue.
“Let’s try walking,” said Colobi, taking a step forward.
Anza strained to move her feet. She had to look down to see if they moved. She really couldn’t feel much save for the two burning suns in her cheek where Colobi had slapped her.
“What’s your name?” Colobi asked.
Anza made no effort to answer. She focused on putting one leg in front of the other as they slowly walked away from the dark river.
ANZA REGAINED CONTROL of her legs by the time they reached the Free City. The town was surrounded by a palisade of logs. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of tents had been erected by the road leading to the gates. Anza sniffed the air. There were earth-dragons nearby, a lot of them, as well as humans. She tried to remember everything she knew about the Free City, but her head still felt stuffed with snow. She did remember, however, that the place had been abandoned in the aftermath of the attempted genocide within its walls. So who were all these people?
A tent flap lifted and a sky-dragon stepped out. The sky-dragon looked straight toward them and raised a fore-talon in a gesture of greeting. “Good evening, sister,” the sky-dragon said. “I see you’ve found an injured soul.”
“I pulled her from the river, brother,” said Colobi. “I think she’s the one the aerial guards were hunting.”
Anza pulled free of Colobi, stunned by this betrayal. She raised her hand to the scabbard on her back. Her fingers were still too numb to grasp the sword.
She shoved her fingers beneath her armpits to try to warm them.
“There’s no need for alarm,” the sky-dragon said, shifting half his body back into the tent. “No one will betray you. Everyone is welcome here, human or dragon, no matter your past. I was once a tatterwing, surviving as a bandit, until the healer found me. He repaired my body and then charged me with the duty to repair my soul.” The dragon pulled back from the tent carrying a heavy quilt. He approached Anza and draped it over her shoulders.
Anza frowned, her body tensing. Was this some trick? Through sheer will, she commanded her fingers to move again, opening and closing as blood flowed back into them. The bones of her fingers ached.
“I can see you’re skeptical,” said the sky-dragon. “You’ll see the truth once you meet the healer.”
“We shall all be healed, brother,” Colobi said.
“We shall all be healed, sister,” said the sky-dragon. He gave a respectful nod, then spread his wings and jumped into the sky, journeying toward whatever his original destination had been.
Anza lowered her hands from her armpits to the steel tomahawks on her belt. The handles had been machined to fit perfectly in her grasp. She felt a little stronger as she held them. Colobi looked toward her with a gentle smile.
“There’s no need for weapons here,” she said. Anza looked down. The quilt wasn’t fully closed around her. The tomahawk in her left hand was plainly visible. “The Free City is the safest place on earth. The healer sees to all our needs. He restores our bodies so that we may work on the more difficult task of restoring our hearts and minds.”
Anza ground her teeth. She didn’t have the energy to deal with crazy people. On the other hand, she also didn’t have the energy to flee. She was dead on her feet. And right now, following Colobi offered the greatest probability of survival. Anza hooked the tomahawks back onto her belt.
“Are you able to talk yet?” Colobi asked.
Anza shook her head.
“Once the healer feeds you, you’ll feel better,” said Colobi. “I imagine you have an interesting story given the commotion at the palace.”
Anza shrugged, attempting to convey the impression that she didn’t have a clue what Colobi was talking about.
“There’s nothing to be ashamed of,” said Colobi. “I once lived the most violent life imaginable. I was a Sister of the Serpent, a sworn devotee of the Murder God. I fell victim to his dark seductions due to painful events in my past. I grew up believing the only law was to kill or be killed. Until the healer opened my eyes, I was blind to the magic of simply being alive. You, too, will be freed from all your pains. Are you ready to be healed?”
Anza wasn’t sure how to respond. The Sisters of the Serpent were deranged. They killed because they thought it was an act of holiness. Anza had never taken a life in the name of a higher power, nor had she ever struck a blow in hatred, anger, or fear. Her father had taught her that it was only ethical to use violence when it was guided by the rational mind. Colobi was obviously not a rational mind.
Still, Anza was cold, her legs felt like rubber, and she couldn’t remember when she’d last eaten. Dawn brightened the eastern horizon. Off in the distance a cock crowed, joined quickly by another, and another. Within the Free City, she could see the smoke rising from hundreds of chimneys and could smell oats boiling as people rose to greet the day.
The most rational path was to stay near Colobi, at least until she could knock the chill from her bones and get some food in her stomach.
“Are you ready?” Colobi asked again.
Anza nodded.
Colobi smiled. “The healer may not be awake yet, but he will be soon. He’ll be happy to receive you.”
Colobi held out her open hand. Anza tentatively placed her palm against Colobi’s. The white-robed woman led Anza through the wide-open gate of the Free City, humming softly beneath her breath.
The most disturbing thing about the streets was their unnatural cleanliness. In Dragon Forge. grime fell constantly from the sky. Even Anza’s home town of Burke’s Tavern had shown the wear and tear of daily life, with cracked paint on the houses, fallen slats on fences, and windows forever dimmed with lamp soot. In contrast, the Free City looked as if it had been built only yesterday. Every wall was bright with fresh paint. Granite cobblestones paved the streets, speckled with crystals that glittered in the morning light. Every shingle on the houses that lined the boulevard was precisely parallel to its neighbor.
There was no hint of the savage battle that had covered these streets with blood. Anza wondered if reports of the Battle of the Free City had been exaggerated. Or perhaps the people who now lived here were simply working overtime to erase all traces of the unpleasant history.
They turned onto a boulevard where the houses were still half-finished. A crew of five human workmen stood near a stack of freshly cut lumber, mumbling words and laughing as they drank hot broth from tin cups. Their white canvas overalls looked newly tailored. There were no rips, patches, or stains. The men, all middle-aged adults, had a curiously pristine appearance as well. Anza couldn’t recall the last time she’d ever seen five men together where at least three of them didn’t show some obvious facial scar. Nor were these men sunburned or wind-chapped. Odd.
The hair on the Anza’s neck rose as a trio of green, scaly heads approached the workmen. Earth-dragons. The humans raised their hands and offered greetings as the dragons sauntered up to them. Additional cups of the broth were poured from a ceramic kettle and offered to the dragons, who took them gently in their massive claws.
Colobi must have noticed that Anza was staring.
“Here, there is no hatred between humans and dragons,” she said. “For centuries, we’ve struggled to distribute the resources of the land between four intelligent species with uneven talents and abilities. Now, the days of hunger and bitterness are at an end. We’ve reached the time of plenty. Dragon and men shall be part of a greater family. We’ve been sickened by poisonous philosophies. We shall all be healed.”
As if to prove her words, a pair of sky-dragons descended to the construction site to be greeted with open hands by the humans and the earth-dragons. The sky-dragons unrolled a large parchment sheet atop the boards and everyone gathered around to look at the plans.
Colobi walked on, heading toward a large red barn. As Anza followed, Colobi said, “You may be surprised to find that the healer resides in such humble surroundings. There are those among us who would prefer to build a temple for his comfort; he insists, however, that we use our labor for the good of the many rather than the good of the one. Priority must be given to building homes for the refugees.”
As they approached the broad double doors of the barn, faces peeked out through small windows. The doors opened slowly as they neared.
Within the barn, it was warm as springtime. The room was full of candles that lined the walls and sat along the rafters. They flickered from the breeze of the opening door.
Near the rear of the barn there was a large pedestal built of bales of hay covered with a bleached canvas that might have once served as the sail of a ship. The only people in the room were a score of young women Colobi’s age. All wore white robes and knelt around the canvas platform, their heads bowed, as if praying to some unseen deity.
Colobi came to a halt before the platform. She grasped Anza’s right hand and looked into her eyes.
“You haven’t said a word since I pulled you out of the river,” she said. “I know this is overwhelming. You’ll soon understand. You’ll be one of us.”
As Colobi spoke, the hairs on the back of Anza’s neck began to rise. She detected a hint of ozone in the air, the same odor that she’d smelled when Jandra had struck her bracelet against the stone to turn them invisible. Fixing her gaze upon the canvas platform, she couldn’t help but sense that there was some giant entity before her, despite the testimony of her own eyes that she was looking at empty air. Her pulse quickened and her fingers fell to the steel tomahawks at her hips.
“You’re nervous,” said Colobi, placing her fingers on her arm. “There’s no need for fear. Everything will be made apparent when the healer arrives.”
In response to these words, the air on the platform began to shimmer. Suddenly, a huge dome of sparks covered the canvas, a million small flares bursting into existence before fading almost instantly. In their wake, a sun-dragon was revealed sitting upon the platform.
Unlike most sun-dragons, this one possessed scales of pure black, as smooth and dark as the surface of a lake on a moonless, windless night. His eyes were green as jade as he peered at Anza. A silver halo hovered a few inches above his forehead, glowing faintly.
The sun-dragon looked toward Colobi and said, “Faithful one, you need not wait for my arrival. In truth, I am with you always.”
As one, the kneeling women help up their arms, with outstretched palms, and said in a single voice, “Welcome, oh merciful healer!”
Anza let the quilt that warmed her slip to the ground, revealing the tomahawks in her grasp. She only knew of one sun-dragon with a black hide. But . . . he was dead. Jandra said Bitterwood had killed him. This couldn’t possibly be the Murder God, could it?
As if in answer, the chorus of women spoke again. “Hail, oh beloved Blasphet!”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
* * *
BRAIN-DAMAGED FREAK WITH A VIOLENT STREAK
THREE HEARTBEATS.
Beat one: Anza inhaled deeply as she pushed all distractions from her mind. The ice in her bones, the weakness of her legs, and the pain of the burn mark on her breast were blocked out as she twirled the twin steel tomahawks around her fingers.
Beat two: Her eyes narrowed, turning the world into a tunnel. At the end of that tunnel was Blasphet’s throat. His trachea slid beneath the smooth onyx scales of his neck. His jugular vein, thick as a man’s thumb, would run directly beside this.
Beat three: Anza danced forward, swinging both tomahawks around in a graceful arc. Using the full momentum of her body, she released the left tomahawk, holding the right in reserve in case she needed a second shot. She wouldn’t. The small, finely balanced hatchet spun almost lazily through the air in her hyper-aware state. The axe edge hit Blasphet’s hide and sank into it.
His serpentine neck jerked as blood gushed from the wound.
Anza knew she’d just killed Blasphet. Unfortunately, it might take the giant beast a moment before he’d lost enough blood to realize it.
She stood before him, blinking off her tunnel vision, cataloging the gauntlet of potential dangers around her. The Sisters of the Serpent were numerous, but none were armed, and they looked stunned by Anza’s action.
Behind Blasphet, there was a sky-dragon who glowered at her. This dragon, too, was unarmed but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a threat. The dragon spread its wings, revealing diamond studs within the folds of skin there. As he moved, silvery dust fell from his fore-talons. Anza blinked. In the span of that blink, the sky-dragon vanished.
She’d spared as much time as she could surveying the room. She was ready to make her retreat, once she dodged Blasphet’s counter attack. She focused on the Murder God, anticipating that his huge jaws would be shooting toward her any second.
Instead, Blasphet reared up, his head nearly brushing the high rafters of the barn. He didn’t look angry or frightened. Instead, he gazed at her with eyes filled with pity. His fore-talon moved to his throat and pulled the tomahawk free, letting it drop. Splashes of red dappled the canvas he stood upon.
Whatever the cause of the delay, Anza decided to exploit it. She spun, bolting for the door. She didn’t make it even a yard before Colobi jumped on her back. She hit the ground hard as Colobi fell on top of her. The white-robed woman straddled Anza’s hips, pinning her.
“Defiler!” Colobi shrieked as she closed her hands around Anza’s windpipe. “This is how you repay our kindness?” She squeezed with all her might.
The battle gears in Anza’s mind clicked forward a notch. Colobi’s choking attack was a reasonable one for unarmed combat. Under the present battle conditions, however, it possessed a rather serious flaw. Anza swung her remaining tomahawk, driving the blade several inches into Colobi’s forehead. The young woman’s eyes rolled upward until only white showed, and she fell.
Anza pushed the corpse aside, freeing her tomahawk with a slurp. She rolled to her hands and knees and looked up.
If not for her ordeal in the river, she might have stood a chance. The remaining Sisters of the Serpent fell upon her like a wave. Anza swung her hatchet, but it was too late. A trio of women caught her arm, pressing it down, tearing the tomahawk loose. Another woman wrapped her arms around Anza’s waist and pushed her once more to the ground. A dozen hands grabbed her legs. More hands grasped her right arm, pinning that limb to the straw-covered floor.
Anza arched her back, wriggling, trying to kick free, but for every hand she knocked loose, four more seized her. In seconds she was pinned, immobile, spread-eagle on the ground as the dark form of Blasphet loomed above her.
Blasphet had his fore-talon pressed against his throat. When he pulled his gore-wet claws away, blood no longer squirted from the wound. The blood on his claws and neck faded, absorbed into his dark hide. The wound was no longer visible.
The black beast stared at Anza, his brow furrowed.
He ran his claws along his chest. The scales of his breast were malformed, no doubt due to the poisons that ran within his blood. The scales were bunched up, looking more like fat ticks than the smooth overlapping plates of a serpent. He plucked one of the scale polyps free and handed it to the woman who sat on Anza’s chest.
“Feed this to her,” he said.
Anza clenched her jaws. One sister pinched her nose shut. Another clawed at Anza’s lips, sinking her nails into the gums beneath. Anza fought the pressure until she trembled, but it was of no use. Slowly, her jaws were pried open. One of her own knives was placed between her teeth to keep them from closing. A woman’s fingers flickered against her tongue, pushing the seed-like scale toward the back of her throat.
A jug carried by one of the women was held over her head. A stream of water poured into her open mouth. Suddenly the knife was pulled free and her jaws were forced shut. She closed her eyes, fighting to the urge to breathe. Against her will, Anza swallowed.
The women released her mouth. When she opened her eyes, Blasphet no longer loomed above her. The black dragon leaned over Colobi’s fallen form, ignoring Anza for the moment.
“Ah, my faithful one,” he said, his voice mournful as he lifted her limp body. “You’ve known nothing but violence all your life.” He brushed the bloody hair away from her forehead. He placed his scaly talon over her face. “I know you acted out of love, but there’s no need for fighting.”
He pulled his talon away. Colobi’s forehead was intact; there was no sign of the tomahawk wound, not even a scar. Colobi’s eyes opened, glistening with tears. She whispered, “I’ve defiled your holy presence with my anger. I’m not deserving of your mercy.”
“You’re wrong, my child,” said Blasphet. The skin around his eyes creased. Dragons couldn’t smile, but his eyes signaled affection. “All are worthy of wholeness and mercy. You understand what you did wrong; you won’t transgress again. You’ve paid for your sins. When I picked you up, you had no heartbeat. The woman who acted in anger is dead. You are a reborn creature now, free from the sins of your past.”
Blasphet set Colobi down. She stood on unsteady legs; tears ran down her cheeks. Driven by emotions that Anza couldn’t fathom, Colobi spun and ran from the barn, weeping.
Blasphet turned toward Anza. His great, long face, bigger than a horse’s head, snaked down toward her. He exhaled as he studied her. His breath was pleasant, smelling of mint. It was nothing like the carrion breath of most dragons.
He took a long, deep breath inches from her face. A fine silver dust rose from Anza’s flesh. It reminded her of the residue that had been left behind by Jandra’s bracelet.
Blasphet’s eyes stayed focused upon her as she searched his face for any possible weak points. If she could get her hands free, she still possessed a chance. The silver halo that hung above Blasphet’s scalp reflected candlelight, meaning it was solid. It was plain, and didn’t look strong, but it did have a small triangle near the front that rose up into a decorative peak. A sun-dragon’s ears were large, flat disks on the side of their head, almost like the surface of a drum. If she could grab the circlet, then drive the point into Blasphet’s ear, the pain would immobilize him. Then, if she could reach her throwing knives . . .
Blasphet observed, “You’re calculating how best to kill me. This is one reason I hold such affection for mankind. The best of you cling to hope long after a more rational being would succumb to despair. Tell me my child, what is your name?”
Anza glared at him.
“There is no need to fear me. I will not harm you.”
Anza stared silently as Blasphet cocked his head, waiting for her answer. In the candlelight, she saw more of the silvery dust riding in and out of Blasphet’s nostrils. Blasphet turned his head to the right, then to the left, his eyes running up and down the length of her body.
“You’ve not lead an easy life,” said Blasphet, touching the festering burn wound on her chest. She sucked in air as a jangle of pain ran through her. “You possess far more scars than a typical woman your age. You’ve broken several bones over the years. Yet, you’ve received better medical attention than most humans. Your cuts have been expertly stitched and your bones have been reset by a confident hand.”
Blasphet turned his attention to her face. He stroked her cheek. “A typical female your age would already be a mother. Yet I see you retain your virginity. It’s obvious from your rather formidable skills that someone has trained you as a warrior, not a wife. What a curious life you’ve led. Won’t you tell me your story?”
Anza ground her teeth together and strained against the hands that held her. Though she was still fully clothed, she felt as if Blasphet was somehow undressing her. She’d never felt so vulnerable.
“Whoever trained you . . . he was never able to teach you to speak, was he?” asked Blasphet. He didn’t wait for Anza to answer. His eyes were fixed on her throat. “He couldn’t have. I see a small tumor on your recurrent laryngeal nerve. It looks quite old; perhaps you’ve had it since infancy. It’s become calcified. It’s a tiny stone in your throat that blocks nerve impulses to your vocal chords. The muscles in your larynx have atrophied, producing your present aphonia.”
Blasphet’s talons fell upon Anza’s throat. He lightly rubbed her skin. Anza shuddered, then tipped her head back as searing pain ripped through her neck. It felt as if Blasphet were attempting to decapitate her from the inside out. She couldn’t breathe—it felt as if a dozen thick worms were squirming and coiling in her windpipe.
She opened her mouth and tears welled in her eyes. She’d lived her life as a tool of death, like a sword or a bow. She’d known that the day would come when she would break and be discarded, as was the fate of all tools. She’d never told a soul that she was afraid of this day. Who was she to tell? It was her shameful secret that she sometimes woke up in the dead of night, from dreamless sleep, shivering at the thought of nothingness, of non-existence, of the world moving on in her absence.
Suddenly, the worms in her throat lined up in a more orderly fashion, allowing the movement of air once more. She filled her lungs to fullness with a deep, desperate gasp.
As she exhaled, a noise tore from her throat that was like nothing she’d ever heard. It was something the cry of a hungry baby, only deeper, like the howl of a coyote, or the wail of a wildcat. It was a long, deafening, drawn-out scream that caused the hands that pinned her to flinch.
It was the scream of a woman who had never even whispered. It was a howl that was the sum of countless days of silence. It was the cry of a woman who’d never laughed, never cursed, and bore in silence the pain of broken bones and a thousand cuts.
It was a sound she’d heard only in her dreams. There was no mistaking it. This noise was coming from her own mouth. It made her tongue itch and her teeth ache.
Slowly, the scream died away as the last thimble of air left her lungs. She took a deep breath, and screamed again.
One by one the hands that held her let go. She didn’t move. She couldn’t. All the anger and fear and shame of a silent lifetime had provided the tension that drove the springs of her clockwork heart. That tension was gone now, carried away by the primal howls. The last remnants of her unspoken agony seeped out as loud, choking, sobs.
“Ooo,” she said, trembling. “Ooohhh, oohhhh, ooohhhhhh.”
She possessed a voice, but she didn’t know how to make words.
“Ooohhhh!” she groaned, as she curled into a tight, fetal ball. “Oooohhh . . . Ooooohhh!”
Gently, a pair of giant talons slipped beneath her and picked her up. She was cradled against Blasphet’s enormous breast. She pressed her wet face against it. His scales felt cool in contrast to the heat of her tears. The drum-like beat of his heart filled her ears.
“Your screams are like music to me, child,” Blasphet whispered. “They are the sounds of your body healing, so that your soul may heal. Soon enough, we’ll teach you to talk. You shall be whole, child. You shall be healed.”
“We shall all be healed,” the chorus of women said in unison.
Anza opened her teary eyes. She didn’t see an angry face among the women who looked up at her.
Beyond the women, however, was the sky-dragon she’d spotted earlier. He was standing near the back of the room, staring at her with a look that was best interpreted as a scowl. He didn’t look pleased by what he was seeing, but he didn’t look like a threat either. Nothing in the way the dragon carried himself suggested he was contemplating violence.
Feeling completely, truly safe for the first time in memory, Anza closed her eyes and cried herself to sleep in the cradle of Blasphet’s wings.
JANDRA WOKE TO THE SOUND of a woman screaming. Her eyes popped open as the echoes faded. She felt a flutter of panic; total darkness engulfed her. Was she blind? The disorientation faded and she remembered she was underground, deep in the mines.
She’d seldom encountered true darkness. Above ground, even a cloudy, moonless night still possessed some faint trace of light. Within the palace where she’d grown up, there were many shadows, but she was never far from a torch or lantern. When she’d had her powers, she could create light simply by sprinkling dust in the air. She sat up, tossing off the blanket that covered her, taking a deep breath to calm her racing heart. She felt stupid. She was too old to be frightened of the dark.
She groped for the visor she’d placed beside her rolled up coat that she used as a pillow. The walls of the mine came into sharp focus as she slipped it on, not that there was much worth looking at. They were in a long shaft of black stone. Up was rock, down was rock, side to side was rock. The only living things to be seen were Shay and Lizard. Shay was sitting up, his back to the wall. He already had his visor on, hiding his eyes. The short braid he normally wore had come undone, and his red hair lay about his face in tangles. He hadn’t shaved in a week, and the shadow of stubble around his mouth made him look older. Coal dust had darkened the creases of his skin. His shotgun was in his lap, grasped with both hands. Life underground was proving hard on Shay. He’d grown increasingly silent the deeper they moved into the earth.
The cool, dank tunnels were also taking a toll on Lizard. The little earth-dragon was pressed up against Shay, staring at Jandra with a wide-eyed gaze. He looked worried.
“Have long have you been awake?” Jandra asked.
“You were talking in your sleep again,” said Shay. “You woke up screaming.”
“Did I?” Jandra cocked her head. She had a fleeting memory of a woman shouting, but it was ephemeral, the echo of an echo. “What did I say?”
“You were talking to someone named Cassie,” said Shay. “Just before you woke, you screamed, ‘It’s mine!’”
Jandra brushed the hair back from her forehead, puzzling over this revelation. She thought about her tongue, how it could possibly speak without her mind controlling it, and grew aware of the bad taste in her mouth. “I need water,” she said.
Shay held out the leather canteen. She uncorked it and took a deep drink. The water had a sulfurous taint to it. There were numerous streams and pools in the mine, but most tasted like rotten eggs. It wasn’t pleasant to drink, but neither was it dangerous. Vendevorex had provided her with a thorough education in chemistry. Sulfur posed no harm to the human body when ingested. The main downside was that her spit was taking on the foul odor. In fact, she was starting to reek, period. When she’d still been in control of her nanotech, the tiny machines had kept her skin clean, her breath fresh, and her hair untangled. Low tech grooming was tedious and almost pointless in a coal mine, where every surface she touched sullied her further.
She put the jug down and wiped her lips with the back of her hand, feeling the coarse grit that covered both her hands and her mouth. The black grit reminded her of the black sand of an oil-covered beach—one of Jazz’s memories.
“Can you remember your dream?” Shay asked. “Who’s Cassie?”
“My sister.” Jandra cringed. “I mean, Jazz’s sister. I don’t remember the dream directly. I feel like my brain is sorting through all these extra memories. Jazz’s life story is starting to make sense finally. All the random, disconnected memories are becoming a coherent sequence of events.”
“A lot of slaves worshipped the goddess, but I wasn’t a believer,” said Shay. “It’s hard to swallow the idea that she was real.”
Lizard jerked his head upward when Shay said the word “swallow.” The little beast’s vocabulary was limited, but he knew all the words connected to food.
“Real is a relative term. Jasmine Robertson wasn’t a goddess. She was a human, born a thousand years ago.”
“I’ve read about that time,” said Shay. “The Human Age. It must have been like paradise.”
“Not quite,” said Jandra. “Human civilization took a toll upon the earth. Vast areas of the globe had their native species plowed under and replaced with agriculture based on a few select plants, like corn. The soil had to be constantly replenished with petroleum-based chemicals. Poisons meant to fight pests worked their way into the groundwater. Water was also contaminated by runoff from digging into the earth for various minerals. To get at coal, humans would tear down entire mountain ranges. They burned that coal non-stop for two centuries, forever altering the atmosphere.”
“Was the sky of the whole world like the sky over Dragon Forge?”
“Not quite. They constantly refined technology to make it cleaner. That’s one reason Jazz’s memories confuse me. She could have done so much to make the world better with her brilliance. Instead, she decided to tear the world down.”
“Was she insane?”
“No. She was a genius, and something of an outsider, but not insane. Her sister, Cassie, had been born blind due to a side effect of a drug her mother had taken while she was pregnant. Cassie was an early recipient of artificial retinas. Jazz was fascinated by technology, and by biology, and, well, by everything, really. She wasn’t insane—she was . . . overly confident. She thought she understood the world’s problems and could fix them. Fixing the world, unfortunately, meant cutting the world’s human population from eight billion to eighty million.”
“I can’t even imagine eight billion people,” said Shay. “Where did everyone stand?”
“The world’s bigger than you can imagine,” said Jandra. “I don’t think I really grasped just how big it was until Jazz took me to the moon.”
“To the . . . you mean, you’ve been . . . the moon?”
Jandra nodded.
“How? I mean, not even dragons fly that high, do they?”
“Jazz knew a short cut. There’s apparently a different kind of space that exists under our reality. Jazz called it underspace. She stole the technology for traveling through it from Atlantis.”
Shay scratched his head. She sensed that her explanations were only making things worse. “Atlantis is an alien artifact that arrived on Earth at the tipping point of its environmental collapse. It was a machine intelligence programmed for almost perfect altruism—a living city designed to serve the needs of its citizens. It could have ushered in a true golden age . . . except, Jazz was one of the first people to encounter it. While the machine intelligence was far more advanced than anything she’d ever experienced, she was able to subtly alter its mission. She stopped its altruism at the edges of its immediate environment. The humans who went to live in Atlantis are effectively immortal. The city ignores the rest of the world. Jazz has since reduced mankind to a feral state, devoid of advanced technology. She thinks this is the wisest path for the long-term health of the world.”
Shay nodded. If he didn’t understand, at least he was humoring her. “You’re still talking about Jazz in the present tense.”
Jandra lowered her head as she realized he was right.
“What if I’m using the present tense because she’s still alive?” Jandra whispered. “I need to get a genie back so I can fix my brain. I think . . . I think she’s slowly pushing me out of my own memories.” Despite her best efforts to hold them back, tears trickled down her cheeks.
Shay scooted over toward her. He placed his fingers gently on the back of her hand. Lizard’s small claws fell next to them. She shuddered.
“Whenever . . . I go . . . to sleep,” she said between sobs, “I’m afraid . . . I won’t wake up as me.”
Shay slid beside her. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “Shh,” he said, in a soothing tone. “You’re just getting scared by a few bad dreams.”
“No!” she protested. “You don’t understand. Nothing terrifies me more than losing my identity. I was raised by a dragon. I’ve always been confused about who I am.”
Lizard looked up at her with a concerned expression. Shay squeezed her hand more tightly.
She wiped her cheeks. “I’ve always . . . I feel crippled because I didn’t have wings, or a tail. I feel ugly when I look in a mirror and see skin instead of scales.”
Shay stroked the hair back from her face and said, softly, “You aren’t ugly, Jandra. You’re the prettiest woman I’ve ever met.”
Jandra rolled her eyes. “Inside, I’m all broken up and scarred. I’m a freak, raised by the wrong species. Now I’ve had my brain rewired by thousand year old egomaniac. I have to be the most screwed up person who’s ever lived.”
“Jandra,” said Shay, “if you’re screwed up, then the world needs more screwed up people. You’re incredibly brave. My mind went blank with fear when Vulpine attacked, but you kept your wits. I was on the verge of peeing myself while you calmly reloaded your gun. You’re amazing. You bossed around Bitterwood. You took away an earth-dragon’s own axe and killed him with it. Could a brain-damaged freak do these things?”
“Why not?” She attempted to grin but couldn’t quite manage it. “No wonder I wake up screaming. I’m a brain-damaged freak with a violent streak.”
“You’ve also got a compassionate streak. You put your life in danger to save Lizard. You’re kind and caring. Despite all the awful things dragons have done to you, you aren’t consumed with bitterness and hatred. More than anyone I’ve ever met, you’re trying to make the world a better place. Lizard’s right . . . you’re a good boss.”
“Good boss,” Lizard cooed. “Good, good boss.” He stared up at her as she wiped the tears from her cheeks. The little dragon turned his gaze to her backpack. “We eat?”
Jandra laughed, then hiccupped. “Flatterer,” she said. “Yes, we’ll eat.”
Shay released her hand. “If you want to talk more about this later, I’m ready to listen. You don’t need to feel like the weight of the world is on your shoulders alone.”
She looked at Shay, his face only inches from hers. Of the three people she’d ridden with from Dragon Forge, he was the last one she would have expected to still be with her when she undertook what was probably the most dangerous mission of her life. This seemed like an insane amount of effort for Shay to go through in order to get his hands on some books. A light clicked on in her head.
He hadn’t come all this way for the books.
“By the bones,” she whispered. “You like me!”
He grinned. “Of course I like you.”
“I mean . . . you’re . . . interested in me. As a potential, um, mate.”
He looked away sheepishly and cleared his throat. “I haven’t . . . I mean . . . I’m really. . . , ” his voice trailed off. He took a deep breath and looked back toward her. “Yes. I find you, as you say, interesting. On many levels. I’ve never met anyone like you.”
“How long. . . ?”
Shay shrugged. “It . . . it wasn’t love at first sight. You are . . . you’re a little intimidating, to tell the truth. But there’s . . . there’s something . . . something about the way you stand. Your shoulders are always pulled back. You hold your chin up. It’s so . . . regal. I understand how a woman raised in a palace might find the interest of a slave . . . unwelcome.”
“No!” said Jandra. “I mean . . . I didn’t know. I hadn’t been . . . I’m just . . . I’ve never been taught how to look for the, uh, signals. The only man who ever showed interest was Pet, but I always found his attentions . . . creepy. I felt like a mouse under the watchful gaze of a hungry cat. He may have given me a false sense of what indicates a man’s interest. Since you weren’t constantly leering, I just didn’t suspect.”
“I didn’t . . . I don’t know the signals either,” said Shay. “Among slaves, we’re usually matched with whoever our masters choose. Courtship isn’t something I’ve had any experience with. When I look at you, I do feel . . . it’s something like hunger, but nothing like hunger. It’s . . . It’s—”
“Lizard hungry,” said the earth-dragon, tugging on Jandra’s sleeve.
“We should eat,” said Jandra, welcoming the change of subject. This wasn’t a conversation she felt ready to have. She turned her back to Shay. She flipped open her back pack and reached in for the hardtack inside. “We have a long way to go.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
* * *
SWIFT DECISIVE ACTION
JEREMIAH’S HANDS TREMBLED as he cut away the watery black rot from the soft, lumpy potato. He dropped the remaining white chunk in the large iron pot he crouched over. He felt sick to his stomach. No doubt the stench of the mound of partially rotten potatoes he sat next to was the blame. It didn’t help that his head was throbbing from his earlier “training,” or that his arms and legs were covered with knots and bruises. These same knots and bruises had kept him from sleeping much at all the last few nights despite his exhaustion. His bed was a pile of empty potato sacks, and he was still using the same filthy blanket he’d been wrapped in by Vulpine. He wiped his brow with a burlap rag. He was sweating, despite the chills that shook his hands.
When Jeremiah had arrived at Dragon Forge, he’d been hungry, weary, and freezing. He’d possessed a half-formed dream that he would be welcomed into town by some kindly woman who looked like his mother. She would give him soup, clean clothes, and put him to bed in a big, soft mattress with clean sheets.
Instead of a kindly woman, he’d been met at the gate by a pair of thuggish teenagers who’d taunted his thin limbs and the tear-tracks down his filthy face. He later learned their names were Presser and Burr. They’d finally allowed him in, and brought him before a frightening man named Ragnar, who looked like a wild beast with his mane of hair and leathery skin.
Ragnar had made the rules of Dragon Forge clear: If you wanted to eat, you had to work, and, what’s more, you had to fight.
“Can you do that, boy?” Ragnar had demanded.
“Y-yes sir,” he’d answered. He’d never fought before, but he had Vulpine’s knife still tucked into his belt. He imagined it might be satisfying to bury that knife into some dragon, though the exact details of how that might happen were fuzzy in his mind.
“Find a job for him,” Ragnar had told the guards. “He looks too scrawny to be of much use, but get him outfitted with a sword, at least. Can you use a sword, boy?”
“I-I’ve never tried,” said Jeremiah.
Presser chimed in, “There’s a sharp end and a dull end. Once you learn which end to grab, it’s not so hard.”
Jeremiah wasn’t sure if he was joking.
Burr added, “We’ll get him trained, sir. Make a regular soldier out of him.”
Ragnar grunted his approval, then dismissed the boys with a wave.
Presser and Burr had pushed Jeremiah before them out into the street. In the sunlight, the two guards' youthfulness was apparent—though both were taller than Jeremiah by a head, he doubted either was older than fifteen. They swaggered as they walked in their chainmail vests and iron helmets, sky-wall bows slung over their backs.
Once they reached the middle of the street, Burr said, “Presser, give me your sword. Leave it in the sheath.”
Presser had complied. It was obvious that Burr was the leader of the pair. Burr gave the sheathed sword to Jeremiah. The weapon was only a short sword, two feet long at most, but it was still heavy. Jeremiah looked up quizzically, not certain what he was supposed to do next.
Burr removed his own sheathed sword from his belt and swung it, slapping Jeremiah hard on the back of his right hand, knocking the sword from his grasp.
“Ow!” said Jeremiah. “What did you do that for?”
“You heard Ragnar. We’ve got to teach you to fight. The first thing to learn is don’t drop your sword. Pick it up.”
“You’ll hit me again!”
Burr swung his sword, attempting to slam it into Jeremiah’s thigh, but Jeremiah jumped out of the path of the blow. He had good reflexes, and eluded Burr’s next two swings as well.
Unfortunately, with his attention focused on Burr, he hadn’t seen Presser slip behind him. Presser grabbed him, pulling him to his chest in a bear hug.
“Damn, this boy thinks he’s a jackrabbit,” said Burr. “You can’t be a soldier if you’re afraid of getting hit, Rabbit.”
To prove his point, Burr punched Jeremiah in the stomach. After that, the lesson had devolved into a rather thorough beating that drew a crowd. No one intervened. In the end, they’d tossed Jeremiah, half conscious, into the kitchen and said, “This is your new home. We’ll come around in a few days to train you some more. Next time, don’t drop the damn sword.”
LIFE IN THE KITCHEN wasn’t completely miserable. It was warm, at least, with the wood-fired ovens churning out endless trays of cornbread. On the stoves, pots of beans and potatoes simmered night and day. Thankfully, no one tried to talk to Jeremiah other than the occasional grunted command. No one cared who he was or where he’d come from. Jeremiah took comfort in this, since he was certain that, if he did talk about everything that had happened to him since the night the long-wyrm riders attacked Big Lick, he would cry. That could only result in further beatings from Presser and Burr.
Even without talking, he still found tears welling up in his eyes, which was odd. He wasn’t always the bravest boy in the world, but he wasn’t a crybaby. The only times he normally felt weepy was when he was getting sick. Maybe it was more than the stench of rotting vegetables that made him queasy, or the heat of the stoves that made him feel feverish. His sweat smelled funny. He was so tired. He wondered if anyone would notice if he crawled into the back room and took a nap.
Before he could act on the impulse, the door to the kitchen burst open. He raised his hand to shield his eyes from the bright winter sunlight outside. The chill wind cut right through him. Two shadows stood in the doorway.
“Rabbit!” one of the shadows shouted. “Time for another lesson!”
Jeremiah blinked, bringing Burr and Presser into focus.
“I-I’ve got to peel potatoes,” he said, his voice faint and quavering.
Presser stomped inside and grabbed him by the wrist. He dragged Jeremiah toward the open door and threw him into the street.
“Everyone fights! You don’t fight, you don’t eat!” Presser yelled.
Jeremiah lay on the cold, packed earth of the street. A crowd was already starting to gather. Burr’s feet came round to his face. His boots were scuffed and worn. The right sole was peeling away at the toe, revealing a gray wool sock.
A sheathed sword dropped to the ground next to Jeremiah’s hand.
“Get up,” said Burr.
Jeremiah shook his head.
“Get up or I’ll kick the snot out of you,” Burr said.
“I feel sick,” said Jeremiah.
“You feel chicken,” said Burr. “Presser, help him up.”
Presser leaned down and grabbed Jeremiah by the hair. He pulled and Jeremiah found the motivation to rise to his hands and knees, then to his feet. Presser let him go and Jeremiah stood, swaying in the bright sunlight, feeling the world spinning beneath him.
“Pick up your sword, Rabbit,” Burr said.
Jeremiah didn’t move. It wasn’t fear that held him motionless. In truth, he didn’t feel anything at all beyond the terrible dizziness. It took all his will to stay on his feet.
“He looks like he’s about to faint,” Presser said with a giggle.
Jeremiah felt like he was about to faint.
“This will wake him up,” said Burr. He charged forward and delivered a powerful punch to Jeremiah’s gut. Jeremiah instantly vomited, spraying a jet of thin yellow fluid as he doubled over.
Burr cursed as he staggered backwards, wiping the vomit from his face.
Presser giggled as Jeremiah fell back to the dust. He vomited again, heaving and heaving. He was stunned by the amount of liquid pouring from him. He hadn’t eaten a thing all day, and had only taken a few sips of water.
Presser continued to giggle, but the rest of the crowd grew deathly quiet. The circle of men drew back further, dispersing. Some of the men took off running. Only as he watched the frightened reaction of the crowd did Presser’s giggles trail off.
Jeremiah stared with unfocused eyes as a pair of black boots came up from behind the crowd. The crowd parted at their approach. The man who wore the boots fearlessly approached Jeremiah, kneeling before him, rolling him onto his back. The man was white haired, his face dimpled with countless scars. His left ear was nothing but a mess of scabby ribbons. The white-haired man looked down with concerned eyes. On one of his hands, several of the fingers were set in splints. He pressed the back of this hand to Jeremiah’s forehead. He pulled open Jeremiah’s mouth with his good hand, tilting to better see inside, and frowned.
“Whose son is this?” the man asked the crowd.
“He arrived alone,” said Presser. “Said he’d escaped from Vulpine himself. He’s been working in the kitchen since.”
“What’s his name?”
“We’ve been calling him Rabbit.”
Jeremiah swallowed, then whispered, “Juh . . . Jeremiah, sir.”
“Where’d you come from?”
“F-from the m-mountains,” he said, his teeth beginning to chatter as chills seized him. “B-Big Lick. I w-was sold into s-slavery.”
“To which dragon?” the man asked.
“R-r-rorg.”
A second pair of boots approached. These were the biggest feet he’d ever seen on a man. A deep voice asked, “What’s happening, Frost?”
Frost shook his head. “Stonewall, you don’t want to know.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” said the big man.
“This boy has yellow-mouth. Probably contracted it in Rorg’s cavern.”
“You’re right,” said Stonewall. “I didn’t want to know that.”
“And he’s been working in the kitchen.”
“Oh.” Stonewall was silent as he contemplated this news. “Can yellow-mouth spread through—”
“Yes,” said Frost. “Since he can still talk, he’s not yet in the final phase. He won’t live too many more days, though. I had the disease when I was his age, but I was healthy. He’s half-starved and infested with lice. He won’t make it.”
Stonewall rubbed his eyes. “How widespread do you think—”
“He worked in the damn kitchen,” snapped Frost. “Everyone in Dragon Forge is at risk.”
“You’ve survived the disease,” said Stonewall, sounding calm and thoughtful. “Others have, too. Spread the word that I want anyone who’s survived yellow-mouth to gather at the kitchen. The men who this boy has been in contact with will need to be quarantined. We need to find out what his kitchen duties were. If he was in contact with the food before it was cooked, it may be that the grace of God has spared us. Not much survives the cooking here.”
“This isn’t something to joke about.”
“Nor is it something to panic about,” said Stonewall. “We have to have faith we’ll get through this. We’ll control the outbreak. We’ll isolate those most exposed. We’ll start a regimen of checking people’s gums daily. Swift action is the key.”
Frost scooped Jeremiah up and slung him unceremoniously over his shoulder. “Swift action works for me. You go update Ragnar. I’ll take care of the boy.”
Stonewall looked at Frost. “When you say take care of the boy. . . ?”
“This isn’t the time to argue.”
Stonewall frowned. “After what you did to Biscuit, I—”
“I know what I’m doing. Go!”
Stonewall slowly turned away, then loped off on search of Ragnar.
Jeremiah kicked as Frost turned and walked in the opposite direction, but Frost only grasped his legs tighter. Jeremiah lifted his head, straining to see where they were going. They were heading toward the foundry. The double doors stood open—even in the dead of winter, the interior of the foundry was sweltering. The doors looked like the gates of hell. It was dark and shadowy within. White flames danced above a red stream of molten iron flowing into molds.
“Put me down,” Jeremiah said. “I can walk.”
“You can run, you mean,” said Frost.
“I won’t run. I’m sick.”
“I know,” said Frost. “Very sick. You’re going to die, boy. Yellow-mouth is a bad way to go. It’s not a quick death. So, I’m going to throw you in the furnace.”
Jeremiah didn’t believe him. “What are you really going to do?”
Frost chuckled, but didn’t answer.
They passed through the door into the dark interior. The heat jumped dramatically—it was hotter than the kitchen, a dry, parched blast that sopped up the sweat beading on his skin. The noise of the foundry was as hellish as the swelter, with the constant roar of furnaces stoked by mule-driven bellows, and the banging of countless hammers against anvils.
“Y-you’re really going to do it?” Jeremiah asked.
“I’ll snap your neck first. I’m not cruel, boy. Only practical.”
Jeremiah still felt dizzy, but panic sent a surge of strength through his limbs. He beat Frost’s ribs with his fists. The man’s broad back sounded like a drum. He kicked furiously, but to no effect. Frost didn’t even flinch.
“Open the furnace door!” Frost yelled. “Then, get back! This boy has yellow-mouth!”
Slowly, the noise changed throughout the foundry. Hammers fell silent and men began to shout, “Yellow-mouth!”
“Don’t panic, damn it!” Frost shouted. “Fear is more dangerous than the disease. We’re taking swift, decisive action to stop the spread. Gather round. Watch me. This boy is the only one we know of who’s sick. I want you all to see that we're stronger than any disease!”
There was a horrible groan as an iron door swung open. The roar of flames grew louder, and the back of Jeremiah’s legs grew hotter. Red light cast a stark black shadow on the wall behind them.
Jeremiah screamed, “Please don’t—” His hands flailed around. His fingers fell onto the scabby strips of flesh that had once been Frost’s ear. He gripped these shreds of skin for all he was worth.
Frost screeched, pulled Jeremiah from his shoulder, and threw him to the hot brick floor. Jeremiah rolled onto his back, skittering and kicking to get away. He scooted backward until he was pressed against a low brick wall.
“Until now, I wasn’t planning on enjoying this,” Frost said, rubbing his ear nub with his good hand. He pulled his fingers away; they were orange with blood and puss. He reached toward Jeremiah’s face. “Before I throw you in, I’m going to break every last damn fi—NNNG!”
Frost cried out in pain as an arrow erupted from his good hand. He drew back, staring at the missile that had entered the back of his wrist and passed through to the skin on the other side, pushing it out in a little pointy tent. The arrow was fletched with fresh green leaves that wilted in the sweltering heat of the foundry.
Frost craned his neck. “Who?” he screamed. “Who did this?”
From above, a voice answered. “The boy is mine. You may not touch him.”
Frost and Jeremiah both looked into the shadows of the rafters. A human figure could barely be seen, the contours of his body distorted by a cloak. It was apparent, however, that he held a bow before him, with a second arrow aimed at Frost.
“This boy has yellow-mouth!” Frost protested. “He’s dying anyway!”
“We’re all dying,” said the shadowy archer. “Some of us today, perhaps. Step away.”
Frost walked backward, clutching his bleeding wrist with the thumb and splinted fingers of his other hand. The arrow swayed when he walked.
The archer dropped a pink rope down from the rafters. He slid down, landing at Jeremiah’s feet. Jeremiah recognized the man; he’d traveled with his sister, Zeeky. It was the old man who’d claimed he was Bitterwood. But Bitterwood and Zeeky were dead, killed by the demons in the mines. Did this mean that Zeeky was also alive?
“I’m taking the boy,” Bitterwood said. “We’re leaving Dragon Forge. He won’t spread the disease further.”
“You can’t leave,” Frost said. “There’s a blockade of dragons.”
“They didn’t see me come in,” said Bitterwood. “They won’t see me go.” He looked down at Jeremiah. “Stand up. We’re leaving.”
Frost snarled. “Who are you to come here and start issuing demands?”
Bitterwood held his hand down to meet Jeremiah’s outstretched grasp and help him to his feet.
“My name isn’t important,” said Bitterwood. “If you’re going to order your men to stop me, do so. Their blood will be on your hands.”
Frost glared at his assailant, studying his face. Bitterwood met his gaze with an icy stare. At last, Frost looked away.
“Let him go,” Frost said to the men who’d gathered between Bitterwood and the door.
Bitterwood tugged at the rope in the rafter. The pink cord snaked down, shrinking as it fell into his gloved hand. He turned, prodding Jeremiah with a nudge between his shoulder blades. Jeremiah scuffled forward. When they reached the street, Bitterwood slung his bow over his shoulder then picked up Jeremiah. Jeremiah draped his arms around the old man’s neck and was carried toward the city gates. He rested his head on Bitterwood’s shoulder.
“Is Zeeky here?” he whispered.
“She’s near,” said Bitterwood. “Poocher, too.”
“Will she catch yellow-mouth from me?”
“Don’t know,” answered Bitterwood.
“That man said I was going to die.”
Bitterwood continued to walk, without saying another word.
SHAY’S FEET WERE SORE. He’d lost track of how many days they’d been walking underground. He had no idea how many miles they’d covered. Since this morning when he’d confessed his attraction to Jandra, they’d walked without conversation. He followed behind her has she led the way. Lizard scrambled along like a faithful dog at her heels. The little dragon had a strange walk. He was bipedal, but he didn’t really stand erect like a human. His torso leaned forward as his tail jutted out beside him. He bounced along in a gait resembling some flightless bird.
From time to time, Lizard would look over his shoulder, glaring at Shay with what seemed to be a newfound hostility. Did Lizard understand the conversation he and Jandra had shared earlier? Was the small beast jealous? Or did his muted hostility somehow reflect Jandra’s own reaction? She certainly had been anxious to change the subject. Was she looking for a way to let him down gently? He’d been a fool to say anything. He’d never mention it again.
Or was he being a coward now? When he’d praised Jandra for her bravery, it had been a subtle confession of his own lack of courage. He’d run to escape from Chapelion while his master was away. A braver man might have waited for Chapelion’s return and killed him. The biologian certainly wouldn’t have anticipated it. No doubt, Shay would have been killed in the aftermath, but as a tactical move, killing the head of the College of Spires would have been a serious blow to the morale of all sky-dragons. But was courage only measured as a willingness to kill or be killed? Wasn’t it also a type of courage to steal books and run so that he could teach others to read?
He’d read a thousand books on the subject of courage, and been offered a thousand different answers. The same was true of love. He’d read countless poems and essays on the matter, studied numerous plays, and could recite from memory a hundred lines where a man summed up his feelings and offered them to a woman like some gilded rose. And now that his moment of romantic confession had come and gone, what had he summoned up? Something like hunger? Nothing like hunger? A lifetime of working with words had left him with these inanities. Perhaps, in the end, Bitterwood was right. Books had never done the world any good.
He was pulled from his thoughts as the smell of the mines started to change. The damp, egg-scented air took on a saltier, more marine smell, as if they were nearing the ocean. It was like saltwater at low tide, a sort of soggy, methane-rich rot.
Jandra halted as she studied the tunnel ahead. The passage widened. The mine shaft led to a cliff, and beyond this he couldn’t see anything. Jandra reached up and took off her visor. She turned, nodded her head toward the end of the tunnel, and said, “Light.”
He removed the visor. He blinked in the darkness that swallowed him. Yet the darkness wasn’t complete. The open end of the tunnel had a dull glow, like dawn just over the horizon. Jandra was a dark silhouette against this faint light.
“Something’s changed,” said Jandra. “When we left, the place had fallen into total darkness.”
“We’re here? This is the kingdom of the goddess?”
“Yes,” said Jandra, walking forward at a rapid pace. “It’s a world within a world. I only saw a small part of it when I was here with Bitterwood and Hex, but it stretches out for over a hundred square miles.”
Shay hurried to keep up. They halted at the mouth of the tunnel, on a ledge overlooking a large underground lake studded with islands. The stench of rot was extreme. The light came from thousands of small bright pin points scattered across the roof of the endless cavern.
“To have been built by someone who loved nature, this has to be one of the least natural places on earth,” Jandra said. “After the human age ended, Jazz withdrew to this underground world. She took her self-appointed title of goddess a bit too seriously perhaps, and began to populate it with life of her own design. She was fascinated by the limits evolutionary history had imposed on organisms. She wondered if she could create species that were more intelligently designed to fill niches left in the earth’s ecology by the mass extinctions brought about by civilization.”
“She thought the world needed long-wyrms?”
“And talking cats, and amphibious sharks, and zebra-striped winged monkeys,” said Jandra. “She thinks of herself as an artist. She has the freedom to work on a canvas that no artist has ever truly been able to master: life itself. Some of her art is serious; some is whimsical. And, from the looks of things, some of it might still be alive.”
Shay wrinkled his nose. “It doesn’t smell like much is alive down there.”
“Something or someone turned on the lights,” said Jandra. “The other long-wyrm riders, perhaps? And . . . wow. Look at the walls.” She pointed to the stone behind them. He turned and found that almost every surface was studded with pale yellow mushrooms. There was also something moving over his head. It was the size of a squirrel, but furless, slimy, like a long, pink frog with a tail. It crept along the rock face using sucker-toes, pausing to munch on mushrooms.
“I’ve never seen one of those before,” said Shay.
“I haven’t either,” said Jandra. “But somehow I know that if you lick the hide, you experience psychedelic visions.”
“My first instinct wouldn’t be to lick it,” said Shay.
“When you’re immortal, even with all of creation as your plaything, there are times when you get a little bored,” said Jandra. She looked back out over the saltwater lake. “Luckily, that big island a few miles away is where we need to go. That’s where we buried the goddess’s heart. It was a genie . . . the same sort of device I used. Vendevorex said his was designed to unlock upon his death so that anyone could use it. I’m gambling that hers acts the same, if it still works at all. We buried it with a flaming sword stuck through it. I’m not certain any technology, no matter how advanced, is going to survive that.”
“How are we going to get over there?”
“That’s an excellent question,” she said. “Swimming is a bad idea if the ichthyosaurs are still alive. They were the apex predator of the lake and could survive quite a while by hunting one another. Any that are left are likely to be hungry.”
“So what options do we have?”
Jandra pointed toward a stony path leading down the cliff side toward a black beach below. The beach ran along the outer perimeter of the cavern. About a half mile away, a waterfall spilled down over the rocks, crashing into an elevated pool before it spilled into the lake. A few sad trees stood beyond it, their leaves gone.
“Maybe we can build a raft?” she said. “I’ll think about it some more in a little while. More immediately, I want to take a bath. There aren’t any ichthyosaurs in that pool. I’ll feel better and be able to think clearer once I get the grime out of my hair.”
“I know what you mean,” said Shay. “I’ve never been this dirty. Even my teeth feel gritty.”
“There may be some small fish in the pool,” said Jandra. “Won’t it be nice to eat something fresh, instead of hardtack and jerky?”
“Good hardtack,” said Lizard. “Good jerky.”
“You’ll like good fish even more,” Jandra said. “You can use a bath, too. You used to be green. Now look at you.”
Lizard looked down at his coal-darkened scales. “No bath,” he said, firmly. It was the first time he’d ever said no to Jandra that Shay could remember.
Jandra gave the little dragon a good, firm stare.
Lizard looked down, avoiding her gaze, then looked up at Shay with big, pleading eyes.
“Don’t drag me into this,” said Shay.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
* * *
THIS CLOSE TO HEAVEN
THE WATERFALL FELL a hundred feet into a pool twenty yards across. The water churned white at the point of impact, but most of the pond was crystal clear, revealing schools of silvery fish no bigger than Shay’s thumbs darting through the water. On the rocks surrounding the pool, white crickets the size of mice jumped away as they approached. The insects chirped with a high pitched rhythmic drone that provided a musical accompaniment for the thunder of the falling water. The whole scene was lit by a trio of bright lights high overhead. They looked like shards of moon set in stone. They emitted a steady radiance like nothing Shay had ever seen outside the heavens.
Through some lucky chance of geology, the water smelled like nothing more than water, free of the sulfur stink that had tainted their canteens ever since they’d moved underground.
Jandra dropped her pack on the rocky shore. “I’ve never wanted a bath so badly in my life,” she said.
“No bath!” Lizard chimed in. He was perched once more on her shoulder.
“Fine. Don’t take a bath,” Jandra said, reaching up and stroking Lizard beneath his chin. “I like you the way you are.”
Lizard tilted his head, looking skeptical.
Jandra pointed toward the pool. “Look at all those fish! I bet they’d taste delicious. Too bad we don’t have anyone fast enough to grab them.”
“Lizard fast,” the small dragon said, sounding mildly offended. “Good hunter!”
“But see how they’re darting around? Nobody could be fast enough to jump into the pool and start catching them by hand.”
“Lizard catch!” The small dragon leapt from Jandra’s shoulder with such force that Jandra stumbled backward toward Shay. Lizard looked like he was flying, sailing out twenty feet over the pool before splashing into the water.
Jandra lost her footing on the slick rock and Shay’s hand darted out, catching her arm, giving her the added point of stability she needed to steady herself. She looked up at him. They stood there, still and silent. Jandra’s eyes were fascinating, a complex mixture of hazel and amber flecked with mossy green.
“You have the most beautiful eyes,” he whispered. It felt perfectly appropriate to kiss her.
She turned away as his lips approached, looking flustered.
“I’m sorry,” he said, drawing back. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”
“You didn’t,” she said. “I . . . I want you to kiss me. But, not right now. I want everything be right. I’ve never kissed anyone before. I mean, Pet kissed me, but it was sort of a sneak attack that I wasn’t really prepared for.”
“That’s more experience than I have with kissing,” said Shay. “But my impression is that it isn’t all that difficult.”
“I’m sure it isn’t,” she said. “But, we’re both covered with mine grime and have breath that could wilt flowers. A kiss at this moment might not be a pleasant experience for either of us.”
“I’m absolutely certain I’d enjoy it,” Shay said.
“You can wait, can’t you?” Jandra said, backing away. “We could both stand a dip in the water first.”
“Oh,” said Shay. “I . . . yes, of course. I’ll go wait behind those trees while you bathe.”
“You can wait there if you want,” she said, shyly. “Or we could both go in the pool together. There’s plenty of room.”
Shay’s mouth felt dry. “Of course,” he rasped, as Jandra unbuttoned her coat.
Behind them, Lizard splashed up onto the shore, his mouth and all four claws brimming with bright minnows. “Big catch!” he said, spraying wriggly fish parts over the rocks before him.
Jandra knelt down to her pack and pulled out the tin pot she carried. “Good job! Put the fish in the pot. They’re small, so you’ll need to catch a lot. Can you do that?”
“Good hunter,” Lizard said as he dropped his catch into the pot. He turned and leapt once more. He undulated beneath the surface as gracefully as an otter, his long tail whipping around like a rudder.
“That should keep him busy,” said Jandra, continuing to fumble around in her pack. She pulled out a walnut-sized chunk of white soap, the only thing that remained of the fist-sized bar they’d started the journey with.
Shay had his coat, boots and socks off by this point and was fumbling with the buttons of his shirt. He peeled it off then reached for his belt buckle. He looked up, to see if Jandra was looking at him. She was. She had her hands on her own belt buckle. With a synchronized movement, each pulled their belts free. A few seconds later, each was standing before the other in their long-johns. The coal that had permeated their skin had sunk down to the once white cotton of their undergarments, leaving them gray. Jandra turned her back to him as she unbuttoned her long-johns.
Slowly, she peeled the gray cotton down her shoulders, revealing her bare back. She was slender, but not boney. Her pale skin glowed in the soft light. Her underwear bunched up at her hips for a moment. She took a slow, deep breath and pushed the long-johns over her hips until they dropped around her ankles. She stepped out of them. She was now naked save for the silver bracelet on her wrist. She wrapped her hands across her breasts and looked back over her shoulders.
“So,” she said. “This is me. Scaleless, tailless, wingless, pale, and hairy.”
“I give thanks to whatever gods there may be that you are scaleless, tailless, wingless, pale, and hairy. You’re breathtaking. The most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
“Have you seen many naked women?”
“None.”
Jandra smirked. “So the bar for comparison is fairly low.”
“Have you seen many naked men?”
“Ragnar, obviously. Bitterwood when I cleaned his wounds. And I caught a pretty good look at Pet,” she said. She paused, and he wondered if she was still searching her mental list. Apparently, however, she was remembering the last man on her list. “Pet was . . . well, honestly, he was like a work of art. He’d been bred to have a perfect body. It was only everything else about him that made my skin crawl.”
“I suspect magnificent isn’t the word about to spring into your mind,” Shay said. He clenched his jaw. Jandra was all but naked. It was time for him to take the plunge. Since she’d turned her back to him to work up the courage, he did the same. He unbuttoned his long johns and pushed them down. They didn’t bunch around his hips. Unlike Jandra’s hourglass figure, Shay was built like a plank. His limbs were lanky and lean. His torso was so thin his ribs could be counted. If there was an ounce of fat on him anywhere, he was unaware of it.
His skin was as white as the soap Jandra held, save for stripes of freckles around his shoulders. His torso was mostly hairless, though his legs were covered in thick orange growth. Jandra was quiet. He wondered if she was repulsed. He looked over his shoulder and discovered she was only a few inches away, staring at his back. Her hand fell gently upon his shoulder blades, her fingers tracing the map of ropey white scars.
“By the bones,” she whispered. “You said . . . you said you’d been whipped. But . . .” Her thought trailed off. Shay knew why.
His most severe beatings were best described as flayings, the whip peeling away flesh and muscle down to the bone. It was why he always stood with rounded shoulders and a slight hunch. Due to the scarring and muscle damage, he couldn’t stand truly straight if he tried.
“You said I was brave,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “I couldn’t have survived this. I can’t believe you’re still alive, let alone still hopeful. So willing to risk everything to share what you know with the world. I don’t know that I could be so defiant after what’s been done to you.”
“I was always willful,” Shay said, managing the faintest ghost of a grin. “I read about things like freedom and justice and love, and I believed in them. I wanted to experience them. And if a world run by dragons didn’t offer these things, then I knew from an early age I’d have to change the world. Chapelion did his best to beat my dreams to dust. I’m not brave, Jandra. I’d beg to avoid a whipping. I’d weep before the leather ever touched my back, and renounce every idea I’d ever believed in. When the beatings would stop, the slavecatchers would order me to drop and kiss their talons in gratitude for their devotion to my improvement. I’ve groveled, Jandra. It’s not courage that drives me. It’s fear. It’s shame. I’ll slit my own throat before I ever bow down to a dragon again.”
Silently, she took him by the hand and led him toward the pool. They crept into the cool water together, their hands clasped for balance on the slick, smooth stones. Shay shivered as the water rose up his legs. They neared the white water at the edge of waterfall and suddenly he slipped. He plunged beneath the water, pulling Jandra down with him. They both flailed about, their legs and arms entwining. They both grew still as Jandra pressed her breasts against his chest. They clung to each other tightly as they drifted back to the surface. Jandra’s body was hot against his despite the chill of the water.
They bobbed above the surface of the pool. The water was deep here; Shay could barely touch bottom by stretching his toes. Jandra was floating, with her arms still clasped around his shoulders and her left leg wrapped around his hip. Gray water streamed out of her coal-tinted hair. Dark, oily spots lay upon her cheeks as the water beaded on the grime. Her face was only inches from his.
“Clean enough,” she murmured, as she pressed her lips against his.
His assumption proved true. Kissing was simple enough to figure out. He closed his eyes as his toes curled and they drifted in the water, weightless.
“SCARY BIRDS,” SAID LIZARD.
Jandra’s eyes fluttered open. The little green earth-dragon was perched next to her head. Behind Lizard, the fire had died down to a few smoking embers. Shay was still asleep beneath the blanket with her, his bony arm draped across her rib cage. It was warm under the blanket with the two of them pressed together. Jandra wasn’t in the mood to get up and worry about breakfast yet.
“Go catch fish,” she mumbled as she closed her eyes. She snugged the blanket tightly beneath her chin. She felt marvelous. For the first time since the goddess had altered her memories, she felt like she’d dreamed her own dreams. Shay’s arms around her made her feel safe. He held her tightly enough that she couldn’t be pushed out by the goddess.
Lizard’s damp paw fell onto her forehead. He flexed his claws ever so slightly, pricking her.
“Scary birds!” he said, more emphatically.
She opened one eye. She didn’t normally consider birds a threat, though she supposed a particularly robust eagle could have carried off Lizard. Still, for all she knew, there could be eagles the size of elephants down here.
“Where?” she asked.
“Scary birds!” Lizard shrieked, pointing skyward.
It wasn’t birds. Three winged humans were flying across the lake. Their wings were metallic silver, similar to the wings Gabriel—the goddess’s robotic angel—had flown on. While Gabriel had been designed as the pinnacle of human perfection, these winged men were a sorry looking bunch. They were wearing the once white uniforms of long-wyrm riders. All carried crossbows. Two of them still wore silver visors, but the third one’s visor was missing and he’d recently suffered some horrible injury to the left side of his face. His eye was swollen shut and his lower lip dangled, streaming drool.
“Poor Meshach,” she said, as Jazz’s memories flashed the men’s names into her mind. These were survivors of the goddess’s long-wyrm riders. The wounded one was Meshach, the one with the thick black beard was Shadrach, and the last one, a short, balding man with a unibrow, was named Guido.
Shay sat up, stretching his arms. “Good morning,” he said, his voice low and hoarse. “Waking up next to you is like waking up in heaven.” He looked up, following her gaze. “Okay,” he said. “Even this close to heaven, I didn’t expect angels.”
The winged men halted about fifty yards away, hovering in the air. Jandra vaguely remembered that the wings didn’t need to flap to keep the men airborne. It was the sort of memory that might prove useful, yet, as often happened whenever she tried to actively access Jazz’s memories, the details faded away before she could grasp them.
“Hide,” she said to Lizard.
Lizard crept away, low to the ground, slithering into pool with barely a ripple.
Shadrach, the highest ranking of the three guards, called out, “Intruders! You’ve violated the sanctity of the sanctuary of the goddess! The punishment is death!”
“Wait!” said Jandra. “You must know your goddess is dead! We’re not violating the sanctity of anyone. There’s no need for us to fight.”
“She’s right!” Meshach, the wounded one, snarled. “I told you the goddess was dead. Look around, Shadrach! The evidence is before your eyes!”
“Silence!” Shadrach snapped. “I’ll bash in the other side of your face if you don’t still your blasphemous tongue.”
“But Shadrach,” said Guido. “What if it’s true? We don’t need to follow the codes no more. We can make our own rules.”
“We will obey the commandments!” Shadrach shouted. “Intruders are to be killed, not molested!”
“What if we just molested her a little?” said Guido. “We can kill her after we’re done.”
Shadrach spun around in the air, delivering a savage kick to Meshach’s guts. Meshach doubled over, clutching his stomach.
“Guido suggested it!” Meshach whined.
“You were closer, and you were thinking it too,” said Shadrach, completing his spin, halting as he faced Shay and Jandra once more. “Now, kill them!”
Shadrach lifted his crossbow. Guido did the same, though he didn’t look happy about it. Meshach was still clutching his stomach. He looked a bit greenish.
Jandra flapped the blanket, jumping up as the crossbows rang out in simultaneous twangs. The crossbow bolt fired by Shadrach punched through the blanket, passed a few inches to the left of Jandra’s belly, and buried itself in her backpack. The bolt fired by Guido was better aimed. It tore into Shay’s left thigh, right on the inner edge of the skin a few inches above his knee. Shay’s mouth opened as if to scream, but no sound came out. Jandra quickly analyzed the wound. The bolt had only cut the surface. His muscles looked uninjured, which was confirmed when he sprang to his feet.
Jandra dropped the blanket and dove toward the shotgun.
“Sweet goddess! She’s naked!” Guido shouted. “Shadrach, you’ve got to—”
“Shut up!” said Shadrach, swinging out with the butt of his crossbow, smashing it into Guido’s nose.
Guido did a loop in the air in response to the blow. He dropped down toward the saline lake, catching himself only five feet above the surface, with a massive down-flap of his silver wings that sent waves rolling toward the shore.
“Bastard!” Guido growled.
“The goddess is dead!” Meshach screamed, spraying spittle from his flapping lower lip. He was now the only guard with a loaded crossbow. He turned the weapon toward Shadrach. “I’ll do as I please! There is no law!”
He fired, the crossbow bolt passing neatly through Shadrach’s neck. The bearded man’s eyes rolled up in his head as he tilted in the air. His body went limp, and his wings did as well. He plummeted toward the rocky shore, landing with a wet slap on the black beach.
“The woman is ours!” Meshach screamed, casting his one leering eye toward Jandra.
Jandra finished stuffing the shot bag down the gun barrel and pulled the ram rod free, dropping it onto the blanket at her feet. She took aim at Meshach. “I think I should have a say in this,” she said, then pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. Oh, right. The safety.
Meshach dropped his crossbow and zoomed toward her, his arms open, on a trajectory to tackle her and carry her back into the sky. She fumbled to release the safety, but somehow her finger couldn’t quite find it. Guido was now racing toward her as well, coming in low, skimming along only a few feet above the ground.
Suddenly, Lizard shot out of the pool, his claws extended, his jaws open wide, flying like an angry green bobcat into Meshach’s path. Meshach’s already tortured face collided with a smack into the little dragon’s belly. Lizard’s claws snapped around the flying man’s head like a mechanical trap. Meshach zoomed skyward, shrieking. Jandra tracked him with the shotgun, her finger finally on the safety. There was no way she could be certain she wouldn’t hit Lizard as she fired. She lowered her gun to target Guido, but here, too, her aim was blocked. Shay jumped into the path of the on-rushing guardsmen. The short, winged man smacked into Shay’s lanky, naked form at the knees, flipping him into the air. The impact was enough to knock Guido off course. He smashed face-first into the rocky beach, tumbling head over heel before coming to a splashing halt in the pool. He lay limp, his head underwater.
Meshach, still under assault by Lizard, had flown back out over the water. He was about thirty yards off shore, his toes grazing the surface of the salt lake, as if he were dancing upon it. He had both hands on Lizard, trying to pull him off. Lizard had his turtle-like beak clamped down in a death-grip on the man’s right eyebrow, and both his fore-claws buried into the scalp behind Meshach’s ears. Meshach released a string of loud, incoherent yelps that might have been curse words.
Shay rose on his hands and knees following his collision. He shook his head. Except for the blood trickling from his bolt-wound, he looked okay. Jandra ran toward the shore, worried about what would happen to Lizard if Meshach flew further away.
Meshach gave a blood-curdling shriek as he finally tugged the little dragon away from his face, throwing him toward the water below. Lizard left a trail of blood as he fell. Meshach’s face bled from countless wounds.
Jandra raised her shotgun. As she sighted down the barrel, her eyes were drawn to something odd. The once flat surface of the lake was mounding up behind Meshach, a moving hump of water almost a yard tall rolling toward his dangling legs.
Jandra almost shouted a warning—almost. The hump of water suddenly shot into the air, splitting open into a pair of toothy jaws that clamped around Meshach’s legs. As quickly as it had appeared, the ichthyosaur plunged back down into the water, taking Meshach’s legs and hips with it, leaving the guard’s remains floating in the air, a winged torso from which entrails slowly spilled.
Meshach looked down, his face growing pale beneath the bloody wounds that crisscrossed it. He gave a breathless sigh and fell into the water with a splash.
Jandra stood on the shore, feeling a chill that ran all the way down to her bones.
“Lizard!” she yelled, lowering her gun. “Lizard!”
Meshach’s winged corpse bobbed upon the waves. Aside from this, there was no sign of motion. She turned back toward Shay. He was in the pool, crouched over Guido. It looked as if he was making sure the guard’s head stayed beneath the water.
“Lizard didn’t come up for air!” she shouted.
Shay looked up, his eyes scanning the waves.
“He can hold his breath for a long time,” said Shay. “You saw him in the pool.”
“There’s an ichthyo . . .” he wasn’t going to know what she was talking about, “a sea monster out there!”
“A what?”
“It’s a great big ocean-dwelling reptile! It can swallow Lizard whole!”
Suddenly, Lizard popped to the surface, gasping for air. His limbs flailed wildly as he splashed across the surface of the lake in a bee-line toward Jandra.
“Bad fish!” he shrieked as the water mounded up behind him.
Jandra ran to the edge of the shore. The ichthyosaur’s mouth gaped open, creating a suction that drew Lizard back toward its teeth.
Jandra aimed at the top of the ichthyosaur’s snout and fired. The explosion knocked her onto her butt as her feet slipped on the slimy stone. The scaly sea beast snapped its jaws closed with Lizard only inches from its teeth. Lizard shrieked as the monster flipped in a sudden u-turn. Bright red wounds speckled the ichthyosaur’s snout. It dove beneath the water. The wave it left behind lifted Lizard, carrying him toward the shore. The wave broke over Jandra’s legs, leaving Lizard sitting in her lap. Lizard swung his tail around and looked at it mournfully. The last four inches of it were missing.
“No more fish,” he said, shaking his head.
“I’m comfortable with that,” said Jandra.
Shay walked down the shore toward the still form of the first guard to fall. He poked the body with his foot, though it was pretty obvious from the angle of the man’s head in relation to his shoulders that he was dead.
“This certainly wasn’t the wake up I had in mind,” he said.
Jandra chuckled grimly. “Me neither.” She looked at the wings jutting up from Shadrach’s corpse. The goddess memories stirred faintly and she realized she knew how to use the wings. “At least we don’t have to build a raft now. We can just fly over to the island.”
“Fly?” Shay asked, sounding skeptical. “I mean, yes, I saw them doing it, but it didn’t look safe. None of these men had pleasant landings.”
“The wings have an artificial intelligence that will do most of the flying for you. You’ll be fine.”
“If man were intended to fly, God would have given us wings,” said Shay.
“The goddess corrected his oversight,” said Jandra.
She stood up. She was covered in slimy grit all the way down the back of her legs.
“Looks like we’ll need another bath,” she said. “As long as we’ve got a pool of fresh, clean water—at least, we will once we pull Guido’s corpse out—we should take this chance to wash our clothes.”
“I only have one set of clothes,” said Shay. “I don’t want to walk around all day in wet pants.”
“We can spend the day under the blanket while our things dry,” said Jandra.
“Oh,” said Shay, brushing his curly orange locks back from his face. “Yes, then. Of course. That sounds like a perfectly acceptable plan.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
* * *
HER DRAGON SOUL
SHAY’S PANTS WERE STIFF after they’d dried by the fire. He carefully tugged them up his legs, wincing. Many of his body parts were somewhat tender. Beside him, Jandra hummed as she pulled on her boots. The worried look that normally haunted her face was completely gone. She stood, buttoning the fine blue coat she’d recovered at the palace.
“What are you humming?”
“It’s called ‘Original Air Blue Gown,’ ” she said. Instantly, her face fell.
“What?” he asked.
“It’s one of her memories. This song is a thousand years old.”
Shay moved to her side and took her hand.
“It’s okay,” he said. “You’re here now. Don’t worry about all that other stuff in your head.”
Jandra leaned into him. “I hate it when the lines blur. Some of the things we did came so naturally. What if I was drawing on her experience?”
Shay kissed her forehead. “Don’t let it bother you. No one is a clean slate. We all have other people’s voices in our heads. After all the books I’ve been through, I have a hard time untangling my own thoughts from the things I’ve read.”
Jandra nodded. “I hear Vendevorex inside me sometimes. Perhaps one day I’ll accept these new memories as part of who I am. I’m afraid I’ll get lost inside my own head if I surrender to these thoughts.”
Shay squeezed Jandra’s hand. “I’ll be beside you to help you find your way back.”
Jandra smiled. She took the bracelet off her wrist and slid it onto Shay’s hand. “Take this,” she said.
“You need it to turn invisible,” he said.
“I need you even more,” she said. “It’s all I have to give.”
Shay knew she had given him so much more.
In the dead tree near the waterfall, Lizard was still sound asleep, his limbs dangling from the tree branch. The bandaged tip of his tail twitched in response to dreams Shay could only imagine.
Jandra pulled her hand away, her fingertips lingering until the last possible instant. “As wonderful as this moment is, we should do what we came here to do.”
“Lead on,” he said.
Jandra reached down beside her pack and picked up one of the three metal plates laying there. She handed one to Shay. It was remarkably light for a grooved steel disk a foot across and two inches deep. He’d watched as Jandra pulled these from the backs of the dead guards. The huge wings had folded into these compact shapes. Looking into the edge-groove, hundreds of delicate metallic feather tips could be seen, all packed up in neat rows.
“It should weigh more,” said Shay. “It’s as big as some cast iron skillets I’ve used, and they’re pretty hefty. This weighs little more than a quill.”
“It's made of carbon nanofibers. It’s like woven diamonds. The wings generate some lift with their shape, but an ion discharge provides the real thrust. That’s why you can hover in these.”
“I have no clue what an ion or a nanofiber is,” said Shay.
“It’s not important,” said Jandra. “Just stick it between your shoulder blades. Hyper-friction will hold it. Then, think about the wings unfolding.”
Shay stood up and reached behind his back. He didn’t see how it was possible to get the disk centered directly between his shoulder blades, but when he got the disk near, he felt a tug. The disk leapt from his fingers and grabbed onto his back. His skin tingled as the disk adjusted itself to the correct position. The tingling stopped abruptly. He turned, expecting to find the disk behind him, certain it had fallen off. Seeing bare ground, he reached behind his back and found the disk was still there.
He imagined the wings spreading. Instantly, they did so, growing outward in an intricate unfolding pattern until they stretched from his body several yards in each direction. The feathers chimed like tiny bells. To his surprise, he could feel the wings as if they were part of his body. The wing nearest the fire was warm—the wing extending out over the pool was cool, and he felt beads of water dripping across the surface. All the tiny breezes stirred by the waterfall ruffled the feathers. It felt as natural as the breeze playing with his hair.
Until this moment, he’d been skeptical that the wings would lift him, despite having witnessed the flight of the guards. Now, flight felt like it could occur with only the slightest flick of his wing tips.
He flicked.
The sensation of his feet leaving the ground was one he knew would remain with him forever. He rose three feet in the air and hung there, holding his breath as his heartbeat pounded in his ears. When he finally allowed himself to breath, he found himself giggling.
Jandra rose into the air in front of him, leveling out. They both hovered on outstretched wings. The air smelled curiously fresh.
Jandra tilted toward him and drifted over. He leaned forward to meet her. This resulted in a sudden acceleration. Their lips met with what could fairly be called a collision. They each jerked back.
“We, uh, should practice before we try that again,” Jandra said, her voice muffled by her hand over her mouth. She seemed to be checking for loose teeth.
“Scary birds!” Lizard screamed.
The little earth-dragon was awake on his branch now, looking ready to leap into the pool. His eyes narrowed when Jandra spun around in the air to face him. Shay had to duck to avoid her wings as they passed over his head.
“It’s okay, Lizard,” said Jandra. “It’s just Shay and me.”
“Good boss?” Lizard asked, sounding skeptical.
Jandra floated toward him, her arms outstretched. “Jump on,” she said. Lizard scooted further back on the branch. “Don’t be scared,” she said. Lizard looked down at his tail tip and changed the subject.
“Tail hurt,” he said.
“I know,” said Jandra.
“Eat soon?”
“Breakfast is the next item on the agenda,” said Jandra.
“New meat?” Lizard asked. This wasn’t a question Shay had heard before.
“Same old beef jerky and hard tack for now,” said Jandra.
“New meat!” Lizard insisted.
Jandra cast a puzzled glance back toward Shay. Shay shrugged. Lizard looked perturbed. He leapt down from the branch and skittered across the rocks like a small green monkey, traveling thirty yards in the space of a few seconds, until he reached the mound of stones that Shay had used to bury the guards.
Lizard sniffed the rocks. “New meat,” he said, looking up at Jandra. Jandra grew pale as she realized what was on Lizard’s mind.
“Lizard, we can’t eat those men,” she said.
Lizard cocked his head, confused. “Smell,” he said, and drew a deep, whistling breath through the nostril slots in his beak. “New meat.”
“Lizard, I wouldn’t let the men back at Dragon Forge eat you. I’m not going to let you eat men.”
Lizard tilted his head to the other side. It was as if thoughts were physically shifting around in his skull. “Lizard not meat,” he said.
Jandra lowered herself onto the rocks beside the little dragon. He looked up at her with a mix of hunger and reverence. He reached to the grave and picked up a stone that looked too heavy for his small frame.
“Put that down!” Jandra snapped. Lizard dropped the rock and hopped backward, looking alert as he studied Jandra’s face. “Who’s the boss here?” Jandra asked.
Lizard lowered his eyes. “You boss.”
“We eat hardtack. Any questions?”
“No boss,” Lizard said softly.
“Now jump onto my shoulders.”
The little dragon leapt as if gravity had no true claim upon him. He made it to her shoulders in a single bound and clung tightly as she glided back over the pond toward Shay. Together, they drifted down to a landing beside the fire. Her wings folded up with a soft, musical chiming. He willed his own wings to close and they did the same.
Lizard hopped down from her shoulder and sat before the pack with the last few bricks of hard tack, staring at it intently. Jandra glanced at Shay. The stern countenance she’d wore while bossing Lizard melted into a look of worry. Shay knew what she was thinking. If Lizard was hungry for human flesh now, with other food available, what would he be like if the food ran out?
THEY LIFTED INTO THE AIR with a rush of ozone and the wind-chime tinkling of silver feathers. Jandra bent her head up to meet the wind. She closed her eyes, lost in memories. As a child, she’d traveled many miles with her face pressed against Vendevorex’s breast as he flew with her strapped against him in a sling. She remembered the hard, smooth texture of his scales and the way his muscles had radiated heat as he beat his wings to soar across the miles. She remembered the sound of his heart, the powerful bellows of his lungs, and the whistle of wind whipping her hair against her cheeks.
She opened her eyes. Lizard clung to her coat, looking moderately terrified. They’d risen a hundred feet in the air and were now arcing out over the underground lake. Its waters were dark as crude oil. Ripples on the surface hinted at the monsters beneath. Lizard’s fear was rational.
Yet, so was her happiness. All her life she’d dreamed she had wings. She’d wake in the night and ached at their absence. Her dragon soul felt as if it had reclaimed a birthright.
Shay was flying lower, slower. She curved and flew a broad, graceful circle around him. He flew straight and steady, his eyes locked on the island shore that was their destination.
“You look nervous,” she said as she slowed into a path parallel to him. “Relax. The wings won’t drop you.”
“I’m sure the guards thought the same thing,” said Shay.
“Those crashes were a failure of the men, not the wings,” said Jandra. “The fact that the wings survived proves how tough they are.”
“It’s not the wings' survival that concerns me,” he said.
She beat her wings and soared high above him, climbing toward the stone sky. “I feel so alive!” She did a backwards flip and dropped toward him. Lizard squeaked at the maneuver and dug his claws deeply enough through her coat that she winced. Perhaps the more daring moves should wait until she was flying solo.
Too swiftly for her satisfaction, the lake passed beneath them and they arrived at the shore of the island. Shay dropped down onto a beach of black sand flecked with countless specks of gold.
“I’ve never imagined there was this much gold in the world,” he said as he surveyed the long beach.
“There isn’t. This is fool's gold.”
“Oh.”
Jandra floated down beside Shay and folded her wings. The beach stank. The decaying jungle gave the place a garbage heap aroma. A few hundred feet away, the bones of two long-wyrms stretched down to the water’s edge. They’d fallen victim to Bitterwood during the final confrontation with Jazz. Crabs had picked the bones completely clean, leaving vertebrae, ribs, and claws scattered along the shore in a vaguely serpentine outline. Copper scales were strewn across the beach, gleaming in the dim light like newly minted coins.
She picked up one of the scales. Deep inside her mind, a door opened and she recalled sketching out her plans for the long-wyrms.
“What’s that?” Shay asked.
Jandra held out the copper scale in her open palm. It resembled in size and shape the petal of some strange rose.
“Jazz spliced genes found in beetles into reptilian DNA to give the long worms their metallic sheen. She was inspired by images of Chinese dragons.”
“Chinese?”
“There used to be a country called China.”
“Like the plates and cups the wealthy biologians use? A country named for dinnerware?”
“It was actually the other way around. We remember the porcelain, but we’ve forgotten the country.”
Lizard hopped down and picked up one of the scales, testing it against his tongue. He dropped it, apparently deciding it wasn’t food.
“There may be more gaps in my knowledge of reproduction than I thought. I didn’t think it was possible to breed a beetle and a reptile,” said Shay.
“It isn’t. Not in traditional ways. Jazz came from an age where it was possible to insert the genetic material of one creature into completely different creatures. Dragons were created this way. They were made as exotic game animals, to be hunted for sport.”
“Humans used to hunt dragons for sport?” Shay sounded skeptical.
“Ironic isn’t it?”
“Did Jazz make the dragons?”
“No. She was against hunting as sport. Her opinions shifted, though, when . . . if you don’t mind, I’m going to change subjects. I’m uncomfortable talking too much about her life. She had a thousand years of memory; I have seventeen. I don’t want her memories washing mine away through sheer volume.”
“I understand,” said Shay. He looked concerned. “I know you have additional memories, but do you feel like you’re losing your own?”
“How would I know? How do you remember the things you’ve forgotten?”
“Perhaps you should keep a journal?”
“I’d rather get a genie again,” said Jandra.
AS THEY HEADED AWAY from the shore, the tree branches took on a ghostly white pallor, as if covered in cotton. It wasn’t until Shay grabbed one to brace himself that he realized nearly every surface of the dead jungle was covered with a film of mold.
He rubbed the slime off on his pants, then hurried to catch Jandra. She was carefully stepping over fallen branches as she worked her way toward the vine-draped ruins of some ancient civilization. Jandra moved confidently toward it and the stones began to shift, forming a staircase leading down into the ground.
The air coming up the stairs was dry and fresh, a refreshing change from the odorous dank of the decaying jungle. An iron door at the bottom of the steps slid open as Jandra approached. The space beyond was brightly lit. “What if there are more guards,” Shay asked in a loud whisper. “Is this safe?”
“There were only thirteen riders because I only made thirteen long-wyrms,” Jandra answered. “This was their barracks. It’s abandoned now.”
Shay started to point out she’d said “I” when she meant “Jazz,” but held his tongue, not wanting to upset her.
“We killed three yesterday, Bitterwood killed two on the beach, six were killed at the battle of Dead Skunk Hole, and Bitterwood told me he’d killed one at Big Lick. That’s twelve. Adam’s the only one left. If my math is right, there are still four long-wyrms unaccounted for. Maybe Adam knows where they are.”
Shay stepped into the barracks, squinting as he adjusted to the light. The room was long and sparsely furnished with narrow cots. The walls were white brick. There were no windows. The ceiling was made of a translucent material like a large, uniform sheet of paper, glowing warmly. Toward the back of the room was a large desk. Behind it were shelves filled with books. Shay was afraid to approach them, given the recent ill fates of any book he touched.
“Oh look,” said Jandra, as she peered over Shay’s shoulder. “A map.”
Shay gathered it was the island they were currently on, since there was a yellow arrow pointing to a spot that read, “You are here.” Jandra placed her fingers on the map. The island got smaller as the area shown by the map expanded. Soon, a vast, perplexing network of white lines against a black background was revealed.
“This is her entire underground empire,” said Jandra. “We’re underneath what was once called West Virginia. It was absolutely riddled with mines.” The image spun around when Jandra twirled her fingers on the image. “Ah. Just as I suspected. We took the long way here. We can make it back to the surface in just a few hours.” One of the white lines began to pulse with pale red light.
Shay approached the frame. “A magic map. There are cartographers at the College of Spires who would kill for this.”
“If you want to see magic, wait until we dig up the genie.”
She walked over to the wall and pressed one of the white bricks. They slid back to reveal a large closet filled with tools. Shay spotted more of the wing disks on a metal shelf. Before he could examine the closet further, Jandra turned around with two shovels in her hand, as well as a small garden trowel.
She tossed a shovel toward Shay and the trowel at Lizard. “Everybody digs,” she said.
JANDRA LED THEM to a clearing. The ground was blackened by a relatively recent fire. It was cool now, but the air still held the smell of a well-used fireplace. Charcoal crunched beneath Shay’s boots as he stepped on what had once been a tree branch. Unlike the slimy ghost forest, the land here was bone dry. Jandra wandered over the ashes, her fingers outstretched.
“Can you feel it?” she whispered.
“Feel what?” asked Shay.
“The buzz in the air. It’s a fine mist of nanites. Even without a genie, I can sense it. It feels like sunlight under the skin.”
Lizard looked up at the stone sky. “Sun gone,” he said, sadly.
“The sooner we get the genie, the sooner we get back to the surface,” said Jandra. With a grunt, she thrust her shovel into the black dirt. “Once I have my powers back, we can fly out of here and bask in all the sun we want. Then . . . then I’ll fix everything.” She tossed away a spadeful of shiny black dirt. “I’ll go back to Dragon Forge and heal Vance’s blindness. I’ll fix Burke’s leg so well he’ll be dancing.” She plunged the shovel into the ground again.
Shay joined in the digging. Lizard approached and tentatively tossed aside a few scoops of earth with his trowel.
Shay pursed his lips and put his back into the task. Could this device they were digging for really give Jandra the power to heal the blind and the lame? If so . . . would that matter much in the overall scheme of things?
“I know you mean well,” he said, tossing aside dirt. “But . . . doesn’t the world have bigger problems than a few people’s eyes or limbs? If this genie makes you as powerful as you say, couldn’t you use it to fight dragons? Ragnar wants to drive all the dragons into the sea. Couldn’t you actually do that?”
Jandra stopped digging. She bit her lower lip, lost in thought.
“What?” he asked.
“I just wish I could talk to Vendevorex,” she said. “He had so much power, but he barely used it. He hinted that he was afraid that the Atlanteans might find him.”
“And you’re worried they might find you?”
“Not in the least,” she said, with a cocky smile. “But . . . it’s easy to sit here and talk about driving the dragons into the sea when we don’t have the power to do it. Once I have my power back, though . . . I hope I’m wise enough to know what to do.”
Shay brushed back the hair that was falling down into her eyes. He said, “The fact that you have thoughts like this is all the proof I need of your wisdom.”
“Thank you,” she said. She leaned forward. He closed his eyes and met her in a kiss. It was much more pleasant than their aerial lip smash.
She pulled back and gave him a wicked smile. Shay smiled back. “Would you like to take a break?”
She put a hand on her hip and rolled her eyes. “First work, then fun. Keep digging.”
THREE HOURS LATER and six feet down, Shay’s hands were blistered, his back was on fire, and sweat rained from his body with every thrust of the shovel. He’d removed his shirt and peeled his long-johns down, bunching them up at his belt. The deeper he dug, the harder the earth was packed. The hole was also becoming hotter.
Lizard had long since tuckered out. The little dragon lay next to the hole, his chin draped over the edge, looking down. Lizard was roughly at eye level whenever Shay tried to straighten up.
“I promise I’ll make you feel better once this is done,” said Jandra, who was sitting at the edge of the pit, her legs dangling. “Vendevorex had me study anatomy. I know what muscles to rub.”
“If you’re trying to motivate me, I appreciate it,” he said. He stopped to wipe the sweat from his eyes. “But, honestly, I think I’m done for the day. I’m a scribe, not a ditch digger. If you need someone to sit at a desk and write for eight hours straight, I’m your man.”
“You’re my man anyway,” said Jandra. “I like watching you dig. Your muscles are really bulging.”
She handed him the canteen. He tilted it up and let it pour into his mouth and down his chest in a bracing gush. He glanced at his shoulders and biceps. They did look particularly chiseled after his efforts.
“Ten more minutes,” she said, staring at him hungrily.
He swallowed another gulp of cool water. “For you, my love, I’ll make it eleven.”
He plunged his shovel toward the black earth, driving it with all his strength. The shovel blade barely scratched the soil. It felt like he’d hit bedrock.
“Ow,” he said, pulling his hand away from the shovel. The abrupt halt had pushed a splinter into his palm.
He looked up, hoping for a sympathetic word from Jandra. Instead, her eyes were focused on the spot where he was standing.
“Out of the pit,” she said, tossing off her coat.
“Do you think. . . ?”
“I think there’s not enough room for both of us in there,” she said, holding out her hand. “Climb out.”
She practically yanked him out of the hole. Before he could brush the dirt off himself, she’d grabbed Lizard’s trowel and leapt into the pit. She knelt on the black dirt, her fingers tracing the outline of something he couldn’t see.
“The sword,” she said. “I can feel the heat.”
Dirt flew up over her back as she hacked at the ground with the trowel. “Vendevorex and I wore our genies as helmets, but Jazz kept hers beneath her skin. It served as her heart. Bitterwood left Gabriel’s flaming sword piercing her heart but it never melted, even when the rest of her body crumbled to ash. We buried her heart with the sword still in it.”
Suddenly, orange light began to dance around the walls of the pit. Jandra stood up, holding a sword over her head. Faint flames flickered along the length of the weapon. Jammed against the hilt, pierced by the blade, was a lump of silver metal the size and shape of a human heart.
It was still beating.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
* * *
GET READY FOR MAGIC
SHAY SWALLOWED HARD. He was ten feet away from Jandra but could feel the heat of the sword warming his face. The air smelled like a hot stove. Lizard, who normally clung to Jandra like a burr, scurried behind Shay and cowered between his legs.
“I’m not certain this was a good idea,” he said. “I didn’t expect the genie to look so . . . alive.”
“It’s not alive,” said Jandra, her eyes focused on the reflection of her face in the silver heart. “It’s only a tool. It’s no more alive than a hammer.”
“I’ve never seen a hammer pulse like that,” said Shay. “I’ve stood by you Jandra. I believe in you and I’ve trusted your judgment this far. Now, I’m hoping you’ll trust me. I think we should re-bury the heart and consider this further.”
“You’ve got to be joking,” she said. “After all we’ve been through to get our hands on this? You want to put it back in the ground?”
“I think—”
“When Bitterwood and I escaped from the Free City, he told me his hate was the hammer he used to knock down the walls of this world. That’s all Bitterwood knows how to do—tear things down. I promised myself I would never walk that path. I don’t want my life to be remembered for the things I’ve ruined. I want to be known as a maker, a builder, a healer. I need the power of this genie if I’m ever going to be the person I want to be.”
“Jandra, you’re already that person,” said Shay. “You’re a good woman. You’re going to change the world with your kindness and wisdom. Put the heart back in the ground. There are other wonders we can take from this place. The wings, for instance. Tools that are a little less frightening.”
“I’m not afraid of the genie,” said Jandra.
“Aren’t you afraid of the goddess?”
Jandra shook her head. “There’re no such things as ghosts, Shay. Without a brain and a body, a person is gone forever. Jasmine Robertson is dead. You’re covered in the ashes that were once her bones. She’s not coming back.”
“You still have her memories,” said Shay.
“Those are, for better or worse, in my head,” said Jandra. “It’s my brain that will control the genie. Wearing this will help me make my own memories stronger, not weaker. I’m going to fix everything, Shay.”
Jandra placed her hand upon the heart. Shay winced; given the unbearable heat of the sword, he expected a sizzling noise, followed by smoke. Her fingers skimmed along the surface. The metal pulsed more rapidly.
“It senses I’m here,” said Jandra. “It’s responding to my thoughts. I was right. It unlocked upon her death. And it’s hurting. It’s wounded. It can’t heal itself while the sword is inside it.”
“You’re speaking like it’s a living thing,” said Shay.
“Sorry,” said Jandra. “It’s not really alive, but it’s easy to slip into biological terminology. The nanocomputers woven into the heart are programmed to regenerate if damaged. Right now, they can’t overcome the constant destructive effects of the sword.”
She grasped the hilt. “There’s no trace of her inside the heart,” she said.
“How can you know?”
“I know,” she said.
She pulled the flaming sword free and dropped it on the ground. The heart pumped in her palm, the jagged puncture wound pouring out a stream of black ooze.
“Get ready for magic,” said Jandra. She furrowed her brow and the heart began to melt in her hand. The silver slid across her fingers and down her arms. It flowed like paint under her sleeves, disappearing under her clothes. A few seconds later, it appeared at the base of her neck and flowed upward, covering her throat, creeping across her chin, tinting her lips with a sheen of silver. She closed her eyes as the metal flowed across her cheeks and nose and climbed over her brow. Within seconds, every patch of visible skin was enveloped by the liquid metal. Shay held his breath as Jandra stood silently, her eyes closed, a look of intense concentration on her silvery face.
When she opened her eyes, they were no longer hazel, but were, instead, an intense jade green.
Lizard dug his claws deep into Shay’s calves. “Good boss?” he whispered.
“Jandra?” Shay stepped closer, to make certain his eyes weren’t playing tricks. “Are you okay?”
Jandra grinned. She stepped toward Shay and draped her arm across his shoulder. She pulled his face to hers and pressed their lips together. Her lips were cool, much smoother than flesh, yet still soft. Her tongue slipped between his teeth. It, too, was cold and slick coated with silver.
Jandra made a purring noise as she ran her hands along his naked back. She grabbed his butt in a fashion he found unnerving, despite their previous intimacies. He stood still as a statue, not even breathing, as she groped him.
Her tongue stopped moving in his mouth. She pulled her head back, studying his face. She grinned again. She snickered and stepped away, giggling harder.
“What’s funny?” Shay asked.
Jandra laughed wildly, clutching her belly as silver tears ran down her cheeks. Her laughing turned harsh, almost braying. Lizard’s claws sank deeper into Shay’s legs.
“Is it something I did?” Shay asked.
“She slept with you?” Jandra said, between gasps for air.
Shay scowled.
Jandra straightened up. She wiped the tears from her cheeks, and then motioned with her hands along her body. “I mean, look at me! I’m hot! Why am I wasting time with some skinny, freckle-faced slave boy? Any man in the kingdom would kill to touch me. Half the women too, probably.”
Shay frowned.
“Nothing personal. I kissed you because, hey, you were convenient, and it was a nice way to celebrate the moment. Alas, I’ve outgrown you. I’m going to be more upscale in my partners from now on.”
“Jandra?” Shay whispered.
The woman shook her head. “Guess again.”
JASMINE ROBERTSON, goddess, hacker, geek, had always lived on the razor edge of risk. She’d topped the FBI’s most wanted list when she was nineteen and had taken a paid tour of the White House to celebrate. She’d worked as an intern for Senator Coe the summer her Earth Liberation Army set off the bomb that toppled the Washington Monument. When she’d finally had to get out of town due to the tightening net, every member of the Senate woke up to a zero balance in their bank accounts and she’d been, on paper at least, the eighth richest woman in the world. Not that she ever cared about money. Money was only useful if you were the type of loser who actually bothered to pay for stuff.
Yet, despite her rebellious, devil-may-care nature, Jazz had always possessed one cautious, even conservative, trait: she never failed to back up her data.
Jazz stretched her new back. If felt as if Jandra had been sleeping on rocks, which was probably the case. Jandra's body was also scuffed and scraped and bruised in a variety of places, including some difficult to reach spots that hinted of interesting stories. She felt curiously . . . bubbly. Hormonal, even.
“Yowza!” she said. “I’m seventeen again!”
Across the pit, the lanky red-headed guy gawked at her. There was something trembling under the dirty long-johns that hung around his waist like a backwards apron. Either there was a frightened dragon hiding between his legs, or he was really unhappy to see her.
“Hmmm,” she said, searching Jandra’s memories. “You’re Shay? Runaway slave. Would-be librarian. How pathetically noble.”
“What have you done with Jandra?” Shay asked.
“I’ve evicted her,” said Jazz. “My genie did a running back up of my memories while I was alive. I’ve overlaid these onto Jandra’s synapses, onto the sections of her brain I altered on the moon to make her more receptive. The preprogrammed urge to rescue my genie in the event of my body’s demise must have worked. I’ve prepped a few hundred girls over the centuries, but this is the first time I’ve ever actually lost a fight.”
Shay knelt and reached for a long leather pouch beside his backpack. He drew out a weapon, taking an oddly long time to free it. It was obvious the kid hadn’t watched many westerns. Jazz looked down the barrel of the flintlock as he stood, a bit perturbed that it existed. She’d worked diligently to keep the world gun-free.
“Get out of Jandra’s body,” said Shay, in a low, hissing voice as he clicked off the safety. “Get out or I’ll blow you to hell.”
Jazz shook her head. “Kid, you really need to work on your threats. I’ve just spent a month buried underground as a bodiless intelligence with a flaming sword burning big holes in my personality. What was left of my senses was all digital, meaning I felt the full chemical subtleties of being buried in soil composed of my own cremated remains. Hell would be a vacation after that. Besides, we both know you aren’t going to shoot your girlfriend in the face.”
“You aren’t her,” said Shay. The muscles in his face twitched, but his hands remained steady on the flintlock.
“Jandra isn’t dead, only dormant. I might give her back eventually. To be honest, she feels a little short. I’m sure I have enough DNA in my hairbrush to grow a new me. So put the gun . . . gun . . . guh . . . uh . . .”
Jazz’s neck twisted. Her tongue cramped, bunching into a hard knot near the back of her throat. Her left hand jerked forward spastically, fingers wide, as if grasping for a rope just out of reach. Her jaw began to move of its own accord as she exhaled, “Kiilll meee . . .”
Tears trickled onto Shay’s cheeks as he closed his eyes and squeezed the trigger.
Jazz was knocked from her feet by the force of the lead balls smacking into her. They tore at the cotton blouse Jandra wore, but failed to penetrate the silver shell of nanites that coated her skin. She hit the ground hard. The impact silenced the spirit that had temporarily grabbed control of some of her muscles.
“Son of a bitch,” she muttered as she sat up. Her ribs felt like they’d been hit with a hammer. “This is why I hate guns.”
She rose on shaky legs. Her toes didn’t feel right. Was something wrong? This was Jazz’s first experience with putting her mind into a new body. The Atlanteans did it all the time. No doubt there was going to be a learning curve.
Shay was busy reloading. While she was confident the gun couldn’t do any real damage, she wasn’t in the mood to get knocked on her ass again.
“I honestly hadn’t intended to kill you until now,” said Jazz.
Shay walked backward as she approached, still reloading the gun. He was attempting to pull the ramrod free as Jazz lunged forward and grabbed the gun barrel. It was still hot from the previous firing, but nothing like flaming angel sword hot. Almost pleasant, in fact. She ripped the shotgun from his hands, grabbed him by the collar, pulled him to her face, and whispered, “It was sweet of you to reload. Now, it’s my turn to see if bullets bounce off yoooooOOO!” She cried out as something sank its beak deep into her inner thigh. She staggered backward, dragging a heavy weight on her left leg. She looked down and found a twenty pound earth-dragon with its mouth clamped firmly onto her leg just beneath her crotch. The little beast hadn’t pierced the nanite shell, but it had pinched several inches of skin, muscle, and nerves between its powerful beak.
She banged it on the head with the shotgun. “Get off me, you damn lizard!” The small beast growled and shook its head, refusing to let go. She hit it again, harder. Still it held on. When she tried to strike again her swing went wide and the shotgun flew from her grasp. Her mouth moved without her ordering it too. “Run Lizard! She’ll kill you!”
Jazz grimaced and retook control of her mouth. Tears welled in her eyes; the dragon bite hurt like hell, and the beast showed no signs of letting go. She said, her voice quavering, “You should have listened to your mama.”
With a thought, she electrified her nanite shell. Lizard flew back and rolled across the burnt ground. White smoke trailed from his open jaws. She studied the dent on her inner thigh, half expecting to find that the little devil had drawn blood. It hadn’t, though it had torn away a fair-sized chunk of Jandra’s pants and long-johns. The silver thigh that shone through danced with reflected flame.
She looked up in time to see Gabriel’s sword coming straight for her neck. She ducked as the blade passed overhead, trailing an arc of fire. Shay grunted loudly and fought to maintain his balance after the missed blow. The way Shay held the blade revealed that he wasn’t terribly experienced with sword-fighting. The way he was standing so out of balance hinted he wasn’t experienced at any sort of fighting, period.
Jazz straightened up before he could attack again with a backstroke. She raised her leg with all the power that her newly-youthful muscles could summon, planting the boniest part of her knee right into Shay’s testicles. The young man’s eyes bulged and the sword flew from his fingers. He dropped to his knees before her, unable to breathe.
She grabbed him by the hair. He had a skinny neck. Would Jandra’s body be sufficient to break it? She grabbed his chin and the back of his skull and decided to give it a test.
Shay spoiled the moment by vomiting. A pale, fishy soup splashed all over Jazz’s belly. Jazz jumped backward, wrinkling her nose. “Ewwww!”
She stared down at her ruined clothes and snapped her fingers, willing the fibers to disintegrate. Jandra’s clothes fluttered away into dust. Except for black leather boots, Jazz was now wearing only the nanite shell. It flattered her. She looked at herself in the mirror of her inner arm. She would have been the heartthrob of any teenage sci-fi geek, if they all hadn’t died off a thousand years ago.
She glanced up at Shay, who crawled across the ground toward the fallen sword.
“What, you aren’t even going to gawk at me?” Jazz asked. “I’m practically naked and you’re more interested in the sword? What’s wrong with you?”
Shay’s fingers closed around the hilt. “I’ve seen Jandra naked. She was beautiful. You’re an abomination!”
Jazz snickered. “This sweet talk is doing nothing to delay your violent death.”
Jazz stepped toward him. He pulled himself to his knees. A shadow fell across his face, a trick of the light that made it seem as if he knew death was approaching.
Except the shadow wasn’t a trick of the light. There was a sound like a flag snapping in the wind and a powerful downdraft sent black ash swirling in all directions. Jazz looked up and found a familiar sun-dragon swooping toward her, his wings spread into parachutes, his long jaws open wide with twin rows of teeth aimed straight at her head.
“You again?” she said, or started to say as the jaws snapped down. She clenched her teeth and concentrated on her nanite shell to resist the impact and pressure of the bite. The teeth slammed into her ribs with a force greater than the shotgun pellets. Her face flattened up against the dragon’s broad, hot tongue. His thick saliva smooshed through a gap in her lips, gagging her with the taste of some long dead mammal that still haunted his breath.
She turned her head and spat. “Gross!” She electrified her nanite shell. The stench of frying tongue was added to the unpleasant mix washing into her nostrils. Unfortunately, the sun-dragon proved a tougher opponent than Lizard. The brute refused to open his jaws. Instead, he jerked Jazz from her feet with a growl that nearly deafened her, given her proximity to his vocal chords. She was swung through the air until an abrupt collision with the hard-packed ground numbed her from the waist down.
He lifted her up to slam her down again. She was certain the points of several of his teeth had punched through the nanite shell and were now slipping between her ribs. She wanted to scream, but she couldn’t even breathe.
She grabbed the longest tooth in his bottom jaw with both hands. It was time to test Jandra’s strength. She grimaced until veins bulged in her forehead as she tried to push the tooth away from her ribs. All she accomplished was to drive the teeth at her back further in.
Fighting her urge to gag, and breaking her ten-century long commitment against taking a bite of meat, she opened her mouth as wide as she could and sank her teeth into the dragon’s tongue. The dragon flinched. Blood spilled into her mouth.
She commanded a stream of nanites to swim into the open wound.
Seconds later, the beast’s bite slackened. Jazz dropped from his saliva coated jaws, slipping in the pool of drool beneath her as the sun-dragon staggered away. He shook his head violently, banging it on the ground, as if he were trying smash to death a hive of bees that had somehow found its way into his skull.
She sat up, feeling woozy as she gasped in air. Several of her ribs were broken. A three-inch gash near her belly button bled profusely. Her old body would have already fixed this injury. Of course, her old body had more nanites in it than actual biological molecules. Jandra’s blood was still mostly blood. She would have to fix that.
Before she could command the nanite shell to cover the wound, she went down again as the young earth-dragon tackled her, sinking his claws into her silvery hair, snarling as he bit at her right ear. “Bad boss! Bad boss!”
She grabbed the little dragon with both hands and jerked him free. Lizard wriggled in her grasp, kicking and scratching like a rabid animal, his eyes red with fury, his sharp beak snapping empty air.
“You are just so cute,” Jazz said. She grabbed Lizard’s beak with one hand, and his shoulder with the other. She gave a sharp twist, and the little creature went limp in her hands. “I really don’t do cute.”
She tossed Lizard’s corpse aside as she tried to stand, but her legs wouldn’t obey. Without warning, her left hand flew up and punched her in the eye.
“Kill you!” her lips snarled.
“Calm down!” Jazz shouted.
“Kill you!” the voice shouted again. The fingers of the left hand began to grow long, silver knives that slashed at Jazz’s face. She grabbed her left hand with her right and pushed it away. Her breath came in panicked, sobbing gasps.
“Calm down!” she commanded again.
“Die!” a voice shouted. Only this time, it wasn’t from her mouth. Shay ran toward her with the sword brandished in both hands. He lunged, chopping the sword down with a grunt. Jazz rolled to the side, but something fought her and kept her from moving as far as she could have. The sword cut a deep gash into her left shoulder. At least he’d hit the side she was having trouble controlling. She eyed the gaping wound in disbelief as blood spilled down her silver skin. A chill ran through her. This dumb slave boy might actually kill her. If Jandra’s brain was burned to ash, she didn’t have another back-up.
Shay raised the sword once more.
Jazz clenched her jaw and raised her right hand, willing the nanite shell to full strength. She caught the sword against her shielded palm with a satisfying CLANG. She closed her fingers and jerked the blade from Shay’s grasp, tossing it as far into the forest as she could manage. He looked forlorn as the flaming sword flew away.
He never saw her foot flying toward his crotch again. She hated repeating herself, but this did seem to be his Achilles’ heel. Shay staggered backward, doubled over, until he tripped over the tail of the still thrashing sun-dragon. She was surprised the sun-dragon hadn’t died yet. Of course, sun-dragons had the largest brains of any sentient organism on earth, and she hadn’t exactly been concentrating on guiding her nanites to the important bits of his gray matter. If she stayed around to guide the attack she could finish him off in less than a minute, but sticking around felt like a bad idea. She was having enough trouble fighting the unwelcome ghost inside her without having to worry about external enemies as well.
Jazz reached out and traced an arch in the air. Her finger trailed a thread of pale white light that blossomed into a rainbow. A black crack of nothingness yawned between the bands of light. She crawled forward and fell, tumbling into darkness.
HEX ROLLED OVER onto his belly as the rainbow fizzled away. The bees buzzing in his brain slowly quieted. He was too weak to stand. His mind felt full of holes. He tried counting to ten. The numbers were still there, he hoped. If he was forgetting one, how would he know? What if there was some number between six and seven that was now absent from his brain?
Down near his tail, a human wept.
With a great deal of effort, Hex lifted his head and craned his neck around to better see the red-haired man who crawled across the dust toward the body of a small earth-dragon.
“Do I know you?” Hex asked. “I feel as if we’ve met. Why can’t I recall where?”
The man didn’t look back. He reached the small dragon and tentatively touched its shoulder. It lay perfectly motionless. The man dropped his head to the earth-dragon’s chest. He kept his ear against the dragon’s breast for a long moment, before rolling away to sit down, his hands on his knees. Tear tracks stained his soot-blackened cheeks.
“He’s dead,” said the man.
“I’m sorry,” said Hex. He tried to rise, making it to all fours, trembling as he learned to control his muscles once more. Specks of light danced before him. He had the worst headache of his life.
“I’m Shay,” the man said. He sighed heavily. “You’re Hexilizan, Albekizan’s eldest son. You know me because you were an aid to Dacorn and I was personal slave to Chapelion.”
“Ah,” said Hex, slowly rising onto his hind-talons, stretching his wings for balance. “You traveled with Chapelion to the Isle of Horses. I remember now. I take it you’ve escaped?”
Shay tensed. His eyes searched across the ground, perhaps hunting for a weapon.
“You’ve nothing to fear,” said Hex. “I am a fervent opponent of slavery.”
Shay nodded. He looked more relaxed now, but also more sorrowful.
“Jandra’s gone,” he whispered. “Lizard’s dead. I warned her not to remove the sword from the heart.”
“Did you help her dig it up?”
Shay nodded.
“Perhaps dissuading her from taking that step would have been more effective.”
“I didn’t know the heart would be alive,” Shay said. “I thought it was some kind of machine. I imagined it like a heart-shaped clock.” Then, his face hardened. He stared up at Hex. “You’re the reason we came here! You’re the dragon that stole her genie!”
Hex nodded. “It’s true. Jandra was in possession of incredible power. I couldn’t trust that the spirit of the goddess wasn’t lurking somewhere inside her.”
“You drove Jandra back into the kingdom of the goddess,” said Shay. “You caused the thing you were trying to prevent!”
Hex kept his mouth shut. He wanted to argue that this wasn’t his fault, but a significant part of his throbbing brain was shouting that he was, indeed, responsible. He decided to accept blame and move on to the next phase, finding a solution. “No matter where Jazz has gone, I’ll hunt her down.”
“And then what?” said Shay. “You’ll kill her?”
“I have no other choice. Though, as we’ve both witnessed, that may not be an easy task.”
“Jandra’s still alive inside her,” said Shay. “She was fighting to get back out. I don’t understand everything that’s happened here. But Jazz said her spirit had survived inside her genie. What if part of Jandra’s spirit survives inside the genie you stole from her? What if we gave it back to Jandra? It might let her become the dominant mind inside her own body once more.”
“Or it might add to Jazz’s already formidable powers,” said Hex.
“Just how much more powerful can she get?” asked Shay.
“You wouldn’t ask that if you’d fought the goddess the first time. However, your idea is worthy. We’ll go to the Free City.”
“The Free City? Why?”
“That’s where I buried Jandra’s genie. The Free City has been abandoned in the aftermath of the atrocities that took place there. No human or dragon would want to call that cursed place home. I’d planned to keep the genie there until I could locate some force powerful enough to destroy it.”
“After we get the genie, how can we find Jandra?” Shay asked.
Hex sat down. His legs were still weak. The dancing lights before his eyes were fading, at least. “We should find Bitterwood. He killed Jazz last time. She may seek revenge. More importantly, Bitterwood is now the guardian of Zeeky, a girl who possessed a power that the goddess greatly desired.”
“What power?”
“I’ll tell you what I understand, though when Jandra explained it to me I failed to grasp much of it. You witnessed the rainbow Jazz escaped through?”
“Yes. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Beneath our own reality, there’s a larger reality known as underspace. The rainbow gates let you slip through underspace to travel instantly to any other part of our own world. Apparently it’s possible to become trapped in underspace. If you linger outside our reality, you gain the ability to see all points of space and time. You become omniscient.”
“What does that have to do with Zeeky? She’s smart for her age, but hardly omniscient.”
“Jazz trapped Zeeky’s family inside underspace, sealed inside a crystal ball. The goddess can’t communicate with them, but, somehow, Zeeky can. From what Jandra told me, Jazz wanted to study Zeeky to discover what quirk of her brain gave her this ability.”
Shay stood up. He walked over and picked up the flaming sword. “It sounds as if we have a plan. Recover the genie. Find Bitterwood. Guard Zeeky and hope the goddess still wants her.”
He held up the sword, looking mournfully at the dancing flames. “This blade cut her. If I’d been a better fighter, she might not have escaped.”
“Let me carry the sword. I trained extensively in my youth. When we find Bitterwood, we’ll let him carry the blade.”
Shay frowned. “How do I know you won’t just fly off and bury this?”
Hex sighed. “I’ve done nothing to earn your trust. Keep the blade. Let us hope your mistrust doesn’t doom Jandra.”
“Let’s hope your mistrust of Jandra, which led you to take her genie, doesn’t doom us all,” said Shay.
“We can argue later. We should leave. We have a long journey from this place back to the surface.”
“Maybe not,” said Shay. “We found a map at the barracks. It showed a shorter route out of here. We should stop and get it. There were other supplies that also would be useful.”
“Lead on,” said Hex.
Shay walked toward the fallen earth-dragon. The coat Jandra had discarded lay nearby. He knelt and wrapped the small body within it.
“I . . . I didn’t like Lizard,” he said. He shook his head slowly. “I thought Jandra was taking a risk in adopting him.” He cradled the bundle to his chest as he stood. “When we make it back to the surface, I hope you don’t mind if I pause for a while to bury him. He deserves better than to rot away down here in this sunless kingdom. I’d like to find a tranquil valley, or a sun-drenched mountain top. Some place . . . some place that . . .”
“Of course,” said Hex. He wanted to ask more about Jandra’s adoption of a dragon, but held his tongue. In truth, he wasn’t surprised. Jandra had befriended Hex almost from the moment they’d met. She’d been, perhaps, the most trusting, open-minded individual he’d ever known. The burden of betraying her still weighed heavily on his soul.
Could all of this have been avoided if he’d extended her the same faith and trust she’d shown him?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
* * *
STRUGGLE AGAINST MONSTERS
JAZZ FELL FROM NOWHERE, face-down onto the white sands of a sun-washed beach. She rolled to her side, squinting as she looked around; the beach sparkled like powdered diamonds. She closed her eyes, letting the bright sunlight sink into her silver shell. The tiny machines that coated her hummed with pleasure as they ate up the free energy. All around her, the air buzzed with nanites not guided by her genie. She exhaled a thin swarm of machines, commanding them to acts of piracy. Given time, she could manufacture more nanites; right now, here in Atlantis, it was simply more expedient to steal them.
The ghost of Jandra’s personality shouted somewhere in the back of her mind, but as the power levels of her genie increased, the faint remnant grew quieter. Jazz sat up, wincing from her wounds. The dragon had given her quite the workout. She ran her silvery fingers along the three-inch gash he’d torn in her belly, knitting the wound shut. She turned her attention to her shoulder. The heat of the sword had carbonized much of the tissue. It wasn’t going to be as easy a fix. She set her nanites to work on it, then flowed the silver shell of her genie back over the wound to prevent contamination.
Satisfied that her new body was no longer in peril, she paused to look around. She was on the western shore of Atlantis. The sun hung over the waves. In another hour or two it would be night. The ocean lapping the shore was breathtaking, a bright shade of blue that would have looked perfect on the wings of a tropical butterfly. When all this was over, she’d have to whip up a batch of butterflies. She’d design them as flesh eaters the size of small eagles, but they’d still be beautiful. The required DNA chains uncoiled in her mind’s eye.
Jazz stood up, wiping the sand from her silvery butt. She craned her neck to see as much of her new body as she could. She looked good in chrome, better than she would have imagined. Despite her high-tech talents, Jazz had always possessed simple, down-to-earth tastes in fashion—blue jeans, cotton blouses, hemp sandals. Her vegetarianism had extended to eschewing leather, but she had to admit that Jandra’s calf-high black boots looked good against the mirror-smoothness of her legs. The fact that they were scuffed and worn provided a pleasing contrast to the machined perfection of the rest of her. The rationale for her longstanding vegetarian ethics rested on shaky ground, anyway. She was honest enough to admit she’d long ago lost the moral high ground when it came to killing the creatures who shared the planet with her. Jandra had eaten meat her whole life. Her brain brimmed with cells programmed to enjoy the taste of fish. Perhaps it was time to try sushi.
Jazz looked up and down the beach. Not a sushi vendor in sight. In fact, the beach was empty. Six billion people lived in Atlantis, and not one could be bothered to come down to the beach on this perfect day. Of course, this beach was perfect every day. That had always been the fatal flaw of the city. After a thousand years of paradise, even the most innocent souls grew bored.
She looked up at the towers behind her. The tallest spires stretched into the blue sky, vanishing in haze, their peaks somewhere beyond the edges of the atmosphere. She saw a shadow of movement race along the shell-pink surface of one of the towers, miles up. She had the nanites in her retinas reprocess the photons striking them and the image sharpened. It was a man, falling, flapping his arms like they were wings. He looked as if he was laughing. Quickly, Jazz spotted another man, then a woman, all falling on parallel paths. Now that she was aware of them, she quickly spotted a hundred more. Some were laughing like the first man she spotted, but others were weeping, and still others looked as if they were screaming in terror. One by one the bodies vanished behind the screen of the lower towers surrounding the spires. If anyone was walking below, Jazz hoped they were carrying heavy-duty umbrellas.
“If your friends jumped off a building, would you?” she asked out loud, remembering the question her father had put to her over ten centuries earlier. She shook her head in disgust. It was time to get to work. She said, “Find Cassie.”
Her genie responded instantly, hacking the datastream that flowed along the beach like an invisible river. In Atlantis, every cubic centimeter of air was permeated with nanites, waiting to serve the inhabitants. Her eyes zoomed back up the tallest tower, the Bethlehem Spire. A bright green circle of light flashed around a window too far away to be anything more than a speck, even with the fine tuning of the nanites. Still, she had the coordinates, which was all she really needed.
She waited a while longer, stealing more of the microscopic machines, turning in the ever-dimming sun to charge them to their fullest. Soon, her ribs felt better, with no evidence at all that she’d been a sun-dragon’s chew toy. Jazz flexed the fingers of her left hand. They were fully under her control now that she’d fortified the nanites clinging to Jandra’s nervous system. Her shoulder tingled as the nanites busily worked on cutting away the charred tissue they found there. On the whole, she felt back in control, not only of Jandra’s body, but of everything.
She knew what she had to do to make sure she’d never lose control again.
Humming “Somewhere over the Rainbow,” she opened an underspace gate before her.
A YOUNG WOMAN with golden skin looked up as Jazz stepped from the rainbow. The woman had glossy black hair that seemed to bubble up from her scalp like a fountain and flow down her neck and back in liquid smoothness. The woman frowned.
Jazz smiled, until she felt movement beneath her feet. She looked down. The white sand from the beach falling from Jazz’s boots were causing tiny mouths to open in the onyx floor, swallowing the grains, leaving the smooth black tile immaculate.
The entire room possessed the same sterile cleanliness. It was as big as a museum gallery, yet barely furnished—its walls were clear panes of glass, free of any curtains or blinds. The golden woman sat at a black table, or at least table top. The perfectly square polished wood hovered, unsupported by legs. A pearl-white cup and saucer sat before the golden woman, full of fluid as dark as the woman’s hair. Jazz wondered why the woman was drinking ink. A memory stirred within her.
“Is that . . . is that . . . coffee?” Jazz spoke the last word with in a reverential tone.
The woman’s golden eyebrows scrunched together above diamond eyes. Her lips parted to reveal pearl teeth.
“Do I know you?” she asked.
Jazz walked across the floor, trying not to be distracted by the mouths gobbling up sand that fell with each step. The golden woman held her ground as Jazz approached until they were practically touching. Jazz grabbed the cup and sniffed it. The toasted, nutty odor of coffee filled her nostrils.
“Sweet merciful Jesus, I haven’t drunk coffee in seven hundred years,” she said.
She took a sip. Her lips puckered at the bitterness. The receptors in Jandra’s tongue weren’t mapped to the parts off her brain that would find the taste pleasant. She set her nanites to work fixing that. For now, there was a mildly pleasant surge of endorphins as the hot liquid scalded her tongue.
“Jazz?” the golden woman asked.
“How’d you guess?”
“One of your identifying traits is taking things that belong to me.”
“Ah, Cassie,” said Jazz. “Do we really have to launch straight into the old arguments?”
Cassie crossed her arms. Her chair drifted backwards, putting some space between her and her sister. A trickle of the liquid hair ran down the crease in her forehead, over her eyebrow, and down the edges of her nose. She blew it away and the liquid responded as if it was normal hair, falling to the outer edge of her cheek. She said, “I thought you died in that explosion on Mars.”
“That’s what I wanted you to think,” said Jazz. She put the cup down and walked toward the window. Her chrome-plated skin was faintly reflected in the glass. She smiled as she realized how youthful her body looked. Her old body had been more or less frozen in development around the age of forty. Unlike the Atlanteans, she’d never had any particular fetish for looking as if she were barely out of puberty. She’d been comfortable with her body, with its stray hairs and generous curves and the familiar sags and wrinkles. It had looked, and felt, lived in. Still, there was something about this fresh, clean body that made her spirit shiver. It was the same artistic rush she felt when she picked up a sheet of fresh white paper.
Outside the window, the distant horizon curved in a perfect arc. They were on the threshold of space. The blue-gray ocean stretched out beneath them. At the edge of the horizon, the color changed as the ocean met land. She was looking at the eastern seaboard of what had once been the United States. These shores had once been studded with cities; now, it was a wild place, the abode of dragons. It was the crowning achievement of a long life.
Jazz leapt backwards as a man flashed past the window. He was naked, with bright red skin crisscrossed with black zebra stripes. He looked as if he was giggling as he plummeted toward the earth, many miles below.
“Jesus,” said Jazz. “He scared the shit out of me. Is there a rash of suicides in Atlantis?”
“Don’t be absurd,” said Cassie, rising to stand beside Jazz at the window. Cassie was wearing a simple slip of sheer black lace that clung to her almost flat chest and barely noticeable hips. Save for Cassie’s unnatural height—she was easily a foot taller than Jazz now—she looked no older than twelve. “The city won’t let anyone die. The bodies of the jumpers will be destroyed when they hit the ground, but they’ll awaken instantly in a backup copy. The essential part of a person is nothing but information, and information is immortal.”
“Ah, yes,” said Jazz. “You Atlanteans change bodies more frequently than I change my hairstyle. Speaking of which, the last four times I’ve seen you, you’ve been female. You get that boy phase out of your system?”
Cassie shrugged. “The female body has . . . aesthetic advantages. It supports a broader palette of colors. The male body has never looked right to me in the brighter shades.”
As if to prove her point, as second man fell past the window. He was dressed like a rodeo cowboy in a fringed leather vest and chaps, but had neon pink skin that looked dumb on him. A few seconds after he flashed by, his hat dropped past.
“It’s like bungee jumping without the bungee,” said Jazz, tracking the hat down as far as she could.
“They say it’s the ultimate adrenaline rush. If you’ve gotten tired of a body and don’t intend to use it again, why not dispose of it in style? It’s less boring than going to sleep and waking up new.”
Jazz shook her head. “This is what’s so wrong about Atlantis. You’ve let the city remove all pain and fear and worry. You’ve devolved into beings so jaded you have to throw yourselves off buildings to get ten minutes of feeling alive. You’ve been given the gift of immortality, and except for the moderately ambitious folks who went off to new worlds, you’ve all turned into bored teenagers looking for the next distraction.”
Cassie shrugged. Her hair flowed into a new trickle along her neck. “What great goals are left? There’s no hunger. There’s no death. There’s no fear, or want, or sorrow. Every great challenge of mankind has been solved. How are we supposed to spend our days? There are no more battles to fight.”
A leopard-skinned woman in a bathing suit darted past the window, her arms pointed before her in an arrow, her feet held in perfect balance. If they still held the Olympics, this would be a 10. But, of course, any dive—all dives—could be a ten. The muscle memory for doing anything perfectly could simply be borrowed from the Atlantean datastream. Atlanteans could know everything while literally learning nothing.
Cassie pressed her forehead to the window as she looked at the world far below. She sighed. “After the struggle’s over, all that’s left is entertainment.”
Jazz nodded. She felt a flickering pulse of sympathy for Cassie. She thought of the empty beach below. Her sister was fated to eternity in paradise with the promise—or curse—of a billion years more of the same. The rebellious, fire-bombing ecoterrorist who’d once followed in Jazz’s footsteps was long gone. How do you rebel against heaven?
As quickly as the sympathy welled up, it ebbed back. Jazz remembered the real reason for her visit.
“If you thought I was dead, why did you send people to kill me?”
Cassie raised an eyebrow. “Come again?”
“Don’t act innocent. I’m wearing the body of a girl named Jandra. She had an Atlantean genie and a body full of nanite enhancements. She got them from a sky-dragon named Vendevorex. I don’t think Vendevorex invented the technology on his own.”
Cassie smiled. “Oh! Vendevorex. Wow. I haven’t thought about him in years. How is he?”
“Jandra remembers him dying,” said Jazz. “Of course, we both know that could be a false memory. Jandra doesn’t have any memories of meeting you, but that could have been edited as well.”
Cassie shook her head as she looked out toward the darkness of space that hung over the horizon. “I don’t have a clue who Jandra is.”
“But you know Vendevorex. How did he get the genie?”
“I gave it to him. I’m part of a debate committee to decide whether or not the dragon species should be regarded as hazardous bio-engineering waste and removed from the ecosystem.”
“Atlanteans shouldn’t care about that,” said Jazz. “You shouldn’t be able to care about that, because the city can’t care about it.”
“I know,” said Cassie. “You hacked the city to keep Atlantean technology from spreading. You made the most powerful, benevolent force ever seen on this world turn a blind eye on the continents so they could go feral. But, while the Atlantean master intelligence doesn’t care about what goes on beyond these shores, I still do, and so do some others. You didn’t hack our memories, Jazz. Some of the people here were involved in creating the dragons. They’re concerned about their spread. They were created as novelties. No one anticipated they’d become the dominant sentient species on the North American mainland.”
Jazz leaned against the glass wall. “Unintended consequences are what make life interesting. But what does this have to do with Vendevorex?”
“Vendevorex was one of a handful of dragons the committee captured for study. Usually we keep them in laboratory settings, but Vendevorex was clever enough to escape. He eluded capture for three days, this on an island where even the air is sentient. I finally tracked him down. He was frightened, but also defiant. His fighting spirit stirred something inside me. He reminded me of the person I once was.”
“I remember when you were a teenager. You were a real hell-raiser.” Jazz grinned. “If you’d had a few more years, I bet you could have knocked me off the top of the most wanted list.”
“Thanks,” said Cassie, her golden cheeks blushing rose pink.
“I didn’t say it enough back then, but I liked you,” said Jazz. “You were fully committed to saving earth from mankind. You were a rebel to the bone.”
“There’s some of that still inside me,” said Cassie. “That’s why I gave Vendevorex a genie and trained him to use it. I helped him escape back to North America. It was a form of rebellion against Atlantis; more importantly, it was a form of rebellion against you.”
“Me? How?”
“You prevented the spread of Atlantean technology by humans. Vendevorex would have no such qualms. I gave him the know-how to build other genies. I thought he would eventually spread the technology, and get around the block you placed on the island.”
“Clever,” said Jazz. “But there’s no way he could have linked into the Atlantean networks to make full use of the genie’s potential.”
“Vendevorex was smart. Since he couldn’t link to a database to guide his nanites, he devoted himself to the study of chemistry and biology. His mind would be the database.”
“Ah,” said Jazz. “That’s why Jandra has the periodic table memorized and can name every bone in the body.”
“It’s not as efficient as the Atlantean mind, of course,” said Cassie, “but it works.”
“You said you were on a committee trying to stop the spread of dragons. Why give one such a powerful tool? This is only going to lead to more powerful dragons.”
Cassie looked away. However, her reflection was clearly visible on the glass. She had the faintest hint of a smug grin.
Jazz added up all the clues. “Don’t tell me. You’ve buried a code in those genies. Vendevorex was supposed to keep propagating the genies until they reached a critical mass. They’d form their own network, one that would communicate with Atlantis, and wipe out the shackles I programmed. Atlantis would turn all of Earth into a paradise for humanity, wiping out the dragons as an environmental pollutant left over from careless genetic tinkering.”
Cassie raised her eyebrows. “Wow. That’s quite a guess.”
Jazz looked around the big, empty, dustless room. On the opposite wall, the earth was now in darkness, and the stars shone as perfect points, untainted by atmosphere. She spotted Mars and thought about the settlers there, and the good time she’d had two centuries ago intervening in their civil war. All the people worth knowing had long since fled the earth. “Do you remember how mom used to drag us to church?” she asked.
“I haven’t thought about that in a long time,” said Cassie.
“I recently had a reminder of the fire and brimstone sermons. I was buried in a pit of fire, neither dead nor alive, in constant agony. If things had gone badly, it might have lasted for all eternity. It’s sheer luck that I escaped. Luck and my complete lack of any moral qualms about stealing another woman’s body.”
“Sounds rotten. Have you decided to mend your ways?”
“No.”
“No?”
“Let me show you something,” said Jazz. She opened her hand. The chrome coating her palm boiled, bubbling up into a silver marble an inch across. She rolled it forward and caught it between her fingers.
“What is it?” said Cassie.
Jazz held it out. “Take a close look at the writing on the surface.”
Cassie frowned, leaned forward, and squinted. She picked it up, holding it only a few inches from her face, and turned it slowly.
“I don’t see any wri—” she stopped in mid-word as the gold coating her face and lips begin to crack, flaking away like the shell of a boiled egg, revealing pale flesh beneath.
Cassie dropped the marble. It bounced on the floor. A small mouth opened to devour it, then froze. Jagged cracks ran across the surface of the onyx tile.
“What’s happening?” The metallic shell that coated her fell away in fine flakes. Her black silk slip now sported a sheet of scaly dust, as if she’d just developed the world’s most severe case of dandruff. Her black ink hair stopped seeping from her scalp, leaving her bald, missing even her eyebrows.
“Call for help,” Jazz said.
Cassie glared at Jazz, her eyes full of hate. Slowly, her features changed; hate funneled away, leaving only fear.
“It’s silent,” she whispered. “You’ve made the city go silent.”
“Not yet,” said Jazz. “This is only a test run. The marble is a jammer. It emits a coded radio pulse that scrambles the Atlantean datastream. You’ve vanished from the city’s awareness. You can’t even use your own genie to communicate with your nanites. I’m immune because I encoded the pulse.”
“This is . . . this is monstrous!” said Cassie, backing away, leaving a trail of dust. He body looked pink and raw. Despite being taller than Jazz, she looked vulnerable in her girlish body, with the absurdly thin limbs that were the fashion in Atlantis. “Disabling my genie is like gouging out my eyes! You’ve made your point! Turn it off!”
“If I turn it off, you’ll be back online, and Atlantis will know what you know.”
“But . . . But . . .”
“Don’t fight this. You had a good run. A thousand years. Try to appreciate the adrenaline rush.”
Jazz willed an underspace gate to open in the air near her hand. She grabbed the edges of the rainbow, wrapping her fingers around it. Her nanites generated an electromagnetic field that let her fold the light. At the center of the rainbow, a slender black arc thinner than a human hair curved from her grasp like a scimitar.
“Have you ever seen what happens if you hit something with an underspace gate only a few nanometers wide?” Jazz asked.
Cassie clenched her fists. Despite the thinness of her limbs, Cassie’s muscles would be finely tuned, and fast. Her nerves had been created cell by cell in absolute perfection, while Jandra’s body still clunked along on the nervous system she’d been born with.
“Jazz, you can’t seriously be thinking of killing Atlantis. There are six billion people here! Killing the city is the same as killing them. Not even you are that black-hearted.”
“I snapped a baby’s neck before I came here,” said Jazz. “A scaly baby who bit the shit out of me, but still . . . I wouldn’t place bets about my holding onto any moral limits.”
“But . . . why? Why is it so awful to let the city help people? The city takes care of us.”
“Atlantis turned mankind into a race of eternal children,” said Jazz. “I’m tired of being the world’s only grownup.”
Cassie lunged forward, her fist aimed for Jazz’s nose.
Jazz stepped aside, twirling the underspace blade into her sister’s path. Cassie fell past her, landing with a wet smack on the stone floor. Jazz looked down at her sister’s hands, which had fallen near her feet, severed by the world’s sharpest scalpel.
Cassie twitched on the floor. Her exsanguination became a dark pool before her. Jazz had little appetite for gore.
She went to the black table, picked up the coffee cup, and took another sip. She was braced for the bitterness now. Jandra’s tongue was no longer virgin; this time, the liquid washed across her taste buds with a mix of sharpness and heat that was almost pleasant.
Killing Cassie was an act of mercy. The centuries had left her sister soft; she would have been ill-prepared to face the world to come. The risk Atlantis represented was too great. Maybe Cassie had failed to undo her programming over a thousand years, but what of the next thousand years? Jazz had never learned the true origins of Atlantis. It was obviously an alien construct, but who had sent it here, and why? What would happen if they suddenly showed up to fix it? She had no choice but to kill the city.
Of course, Atlantis was probably a more formidable opponent than Cassie had been. If she was serious about doing this, she needed allies. Her long-wyrm riders had been laughably ineffective. Her best angel had been thoroughly trashed by a sour-faced little man with nothing more than a bow, an arrow, tenacity, and brains.
Bitterwood had killed her, true, but she didn’t feel angry about this. Instead, she had a grudging admiration. The people of Atlantis were spineless hedonists. They reminded her of the world of her youth, an entire planet full of people with the mentality of locusts, devouring all the pleasures the world could grow, ignoring the wastelands left in their wake. Bitterwood, born and bred in Jazz’s new world, was a true man; fearless, clever, and full of conviction. He was living proof that her world was a better environment for humans than this false paradise. There were more important things in the world than being safe and healthy and entertained.
For a man to be truly great, he must struggle against monsters. With the right weapons, Bitterwood would make a valuable ally.
Darkness crept across the ocean, lapping the shore of North America.
THE SUN WAS LOW over the hills to the west as Vulpine walked along the Forge Road, admiring the decaying scarecrows Sawface and his Wasters had placed along the highway. Word of the blockade had apparently spread quickly throughout the human population. In recent days, the stream of humans attempting to reach the fort had ended. This meant that humans were staying on their farms. Now that the earth-dragons that had been raiding them were organized once more into an army, home was the safest place for a human to be. In a few weeks, they would go out and plant their crops. Rebellions were easier to sustain in early winter, when food was plentiful following harvests. Once the crops were in the ground, the rebellion would effectively be finished. Few people would abandon crops to join a hopeless cause. By this time next year, the rebellion would be only a bad memory.
As pleasing as the results of the scarecrows were to Vulpine, the stench of the road was unsettling. He lifted into the air, climbing, climbing, till he was almost a mile high. In the dying light, it was difficult to be certain, but it appeared as if activity within the walls of Dragon Forge had greatly reduced. The streets were empty. Only a few spotters remained along the walls with the wheeled bows that caused such terror among the sun-dragons.
Most importantly, only one of the smokestacks of the foundry was spewing smoke. It was too soon for yellow-mouth to have manifested in many victims yet, but even one or two would be sufficient to spread terror. The foundry was faltering, no doubt because the workers were hiding in their bunks, afraid of encountering anyone with the disease.
Dropping from the sky back toward his camp, he saw the squad of valkyrie engineers still working on the thousands of iron bits spread upon the large tarp near his tent. These were the remnants of the war engine Sawface had destroyed. It was a shame—the machine had looked impressive in its short run. It obviously had design flaws—exploding after the bridge collapsed being chief among them. Still, he could only imagine what the valkyrie engineers and the biologians could accomplish if they’d gotten their talons on a working prototype.
Arifiel was present, speaking with her fellow valkyries. She broke away as she saw Vulpine, flapping her wings for a short flight to his landing target. Arifiel was a veteran of Blasphet’s recent attack on the Nest. She still bore a rather unattractive festering burn wound on her shoulder as a reminder. It didn’t slow her, however.
“How goes it?” Vulpine asked.
“My engineers are still analyzing the placement of the fragments. We’ve interviewed the earth-dragons who witnessed it up close, but their capacity for describing a device of this complexity is somewhat limited.”
“I value Sawface for his ability to demolish a stone bridge with a hammer blow more than for his verbal prowess,” said Vulpine. “Still, the report from Bazanel should be complete any—”
“Bazanel is dead,” said Arifiel.
“What?”
“Chapelion’s messenger arrived while you were visiting the other checkpoints. I was present when he gave the news to Sagen. A human assassin killed Bazanel and stole the gun. The secret of gunpowder had already been given to a valkyrie. She gave it to Chapelion, who shared the news with his advisors. A few days later, all of his advisors were slain by an assassin too—a young human female. Unfortunately, no copies of the formula survived, and Chapelion didn’t bother to memorize the formula.”
“Was poison used by the assassins?”
“No. This was my first thought as well. It doesn’t appear to be the work of Blasphet.”
Vulpine walked over to the tarp. He craned his neck down to see the gears and wheels laid out before him in the dim light that remained. He shook his head as he contemplated this turn of events.
“Why did he delay in sending me the formula?” Vulpine asked, speaking more to himself than Arifiel. “I would have had gunpowder in production within a day.”
“The greatest failing of biologians is that they debate all matters endlessly before taking action,” said Arifiel. “Chapelion is the ultimate embodiment of this flaw.”
Vulpine wanted to scold the female for making such disparaging accusations against his chief employer, yet in his heart, he knew it was true. As well as things were going here, it sounded as if things were in decline at the Dragon Palace. Every few days brought bad news. The Grand Library was burned. A dozen aerial guards and valkyries had abandoned their posts, in contrast to the mere four under his command. Now this.
“The valkyries were to aid in the protection of Chapelion and his advisors,” said Vulpine. “Instead they’ve focused their attention on seducing members of the aerial guard and fleeing.”
“I would argue it's members of the aerial guard who are leading the valkyries astray.”
Vulpine ground his teeth. “The blame for our setbacks rests upon multiple shoulders, including my own. I’ve underestimated the humans in the fort. First the new bows, then the guns. Now they’ve built a war machine capable of rolling under its own power. There’s obviously a genius hidden within the walls of the fort. He sent the assassins.”
“What do you propose to do about it?”
“You valkyries are the ones who boast of being experts in war,” said Vulpine. “What would you do about it?”
“I would load the catapults with barrels of flaming pitch and burn the city to the ground. We can build a new foundry on the ashes of the old.”
“We could build a new foundry a few miles up the road without destroying anything,” said Vulpine. “There’s more to victory than mere destruction.”
“Do you have a better strategy?”
Vulpine scratched his chin and gazed at the red sky left by the vanished sun. The black outlines of Sawface’s scarecrows ran along the ridge.
“Ah,” he said.
“Ah?” asked Arifiel.
“Tell your valkyries to ready their catapults. Have Sawface remove the scarecrows. They’ve served their purpose on the roads.”
He looked toward Dragon Forge. The sky above it was dim in comparison to only a week ago. He said, “Whoever our mysterious genius is, he’ll be working in unpleasant weather tomorrow.”
Arifiel looked up. “The sky isn’t all that cloudy.”
“We won’t need clouds for the rain I have in mind,” said Vulpine.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
* * *
THIS LITTLE PATCH OF EARTH
SHAY AND HEX stood beside the tiny grave. They were near the peak of a rocky, rugged mountain, covered with a low, thick cover of rhododendron bushes. The stone shelf jutted out relatively flat for a dozen yards. Shay had made Lizard’s grave by piling stones into a rough pyramid. From the cliff, the view was breathtaking, a narrow valley winding among steep-walled mountains. The sun painted the valley in vivid shades of green. The rhododendron leaves held their color throughout the winter.
The sun warmed the stone shelf. Birds sang in the bushes behind him. When his own time came, Shay could think of worse places for his mortal remains to rest.
Hex stood nearby. Shay hadn’t spent much time around sun-dragons—even though Hex was friendly, it was still difficult not to feel small and vulnerable in his imposing presence.
“I should say something,” Shay said. “It’s traditional to pray.”
“We dragons don’t offer prayers to the dead,” said Hex. “We speak mainly for the comfort of the surviving relatives and friends. We cremate our dead. The living inhale the smoke of the body. In this way, the deceased becomes part of our vital energy. It seems wasteful to bury a body.”
“Humans prefer burial because we like to think of death as a type of sleep from which we’ll one day awaken. The families of the dead visit the grave and talk to their lost loved ones.”
“Not many people can visit him here, I fear.”
“Lizard didn’t have any friends other than Jandra. Zeeky, maybe.”
“And you,” said Hex.
“I wasn’t much of a friend, I’m afraid,” said Shay. His shoulders sagged. “I thought it was only a matter of time before the little beast tried to eat us.”
“So why bury him?”
“Because Jandra loved him. And . . . he obviously loved her, or came as close to love as an earth-dragon can get. He fought to protect her.” Shay straightened up, crossing his hands in front of himself as the wind whipped over the edge of the cliff. He faced the mound of stones.
“Lizard I don’t know if you can hear me. I don’t know if anything waits for anyone after we die, for men or dragons. But, if there is some great final judge who weighs the good we’ve done in life against the bad, I hope he judges that you were brave, you were gentle, and you were even wise. You accepted Jandra’s love without question or hesitation. If there’s a heaven, I hope you find a home there.”
The shadow pointing from the pyramid led straight to Shay’s feet. He felt as if the words he was saying were trivial, weightless noises that would vanish in the air. Yet, he had to keep talking.
“Maybe there is no heaven, and perhaps death is just another kind of sleep. Maybe someday you’re going to wake up and look out over the valley. I hope this little patch of earth will make you happy when you see it.”
Shay looked over his shoulder. “In a month or two, all these bushes are going to bloom with a million flowers. Maybe you’ll wake up on a morning like that. It would have been fun to watch you hiding among them with your camouflage.”
He searched desperately for more words to say. A faint smile crossed his lips as he found the words he'd meant to say all along. “Sleep well, Lizard.”
Shay turned away from the stones. “I wish I’d had something to read.”
“You took those books from the barracks.”
“Those aren’t for poetry,” said Shay.
“Your words were quite moving,” said Hex. “I think you’ve said what needed to be said.”
Shay shook his head. “I think that with every day that passes, I’m coming to understand the inadequacy of words.” He unfurled his metal wings. The wind played across his silvery feathers. In the valley, white circles of light danced on the dark leaves, reflections of the sun on his wings.
“Let’s go,” he said, tilting forward, his feet lifting from the earth. Now driven by the urgency of their cause, Shay had lost all fear of flying and was grateful for the twists and turns of fate that had provided him wings. They traveled a hundred miles in the span of a few hours.
Shay could have traveled further, faster. His mechanical wings were tireless. They also propelled him more swiftly than Hex could follow, a literally breathtaking speed at which the wind made it difficult to fill his lungs. Hex required several breaks. The sun-dragon flew at a speed that any could outpace any horse, but he couldn’t keep up with Shay.
They paused to drink by a stream at the edge of a farm. Off in the distance, cows gave them nervous glances. Shay noticed the big dragon trembling when he lowered his head to the water. Hex’s right limbs looked shakier than their counterparts.
“Are you all right?” Shay asked. “Are you still recovering from Jazz’s attack?”
“Somewhat,” said Hex. “Half of my body is numb. Perhaps it’s my imagination, but my speech feels slurred.”
“I never heard you talk before, so I can’t judge. Have you always lisped?”
“I suspect Jazz’s attack had the practical effect of a mild stroke,” said Hex. “A more sustained assault might have killed me.”
“We don’t have to keep pushing on if you don’t feel up to it. We don’t know where Jazz is.”
“We don’t have the luxury of resting,” said Hex. “It’s difficult to counter the speed advantages of a foe who can traverse great distances in a heartbeat by taking a shortcut through unreality. I want to go to the Free City as swiftly as possible to recover the genie, then travel to Dragon Forge.”
“Dragon Forge? Why?”
“Bitterwood was heading there to rescue Zeeky’s brother, Jeremiah. He may linger there still. If he’s moved on, no doubt someone can provide us with clues to their next destination.”
“I’m not really welcome in Dragon Forge anymore. You definitely aren’t welcome. They’ll shoot you from the sky the second they see you.”
“I’ll approach on foot, fully armored. I hid my armor near Rorg’s cavern to travel more swiftly. If needed, I’ll recover it. I’m not afraid of archers.”
Shay held up the shotgun. “Forget the archers. This is what you need to worry about. It can punch holes in armor. The earth-dragons we fought at Burke’s Tavern had armor and we cut right through them.”
“Hmm,” said Hex. “I’m sure we can think of something. Perhaps you can enter the city in disguise.”
Hex peered toward the western sky. “It will be dark before long. Perhaps we should rest. I don’t like to fly after dark. Landing is often problematic.”
“It’s a shame the visors don’t fit you,” said Shay, pulling his own silver visor from the satchel that hung at his side. He looked down into the leather bag, at the many treasures within it he’d taken from the long-wyrm rider barracks. He had a second bag slung over his other shoulder—Jandra’s pack. He’d stuffed her coat into it. It was probably pointless to hold on to her things, but it felt wrong to leave them behind. “If you could use the visor, we could fly all night.”
“At some point, you’ll need sleep as much as I do. You can’t move forever on pure adrenaline.”
Shay stretched his back. He ached all over from his earlier efforts in digging. “You’re probably right. A couple of hours of sleep might do us both some good. At the first light of dawn, we’ll split up. You go to the Free City and get the genie. I’ll go to Dragon Forge and find Bitterwood.”
Hex took another sip from the stream as he thought about this plan, lapping the water like a giant cat. His tongue looked awful, with a circular wound all purple and raw right in the center of it.
“Your plan is sound,” said the sun-dragon. Water streamed from the right side of his mouth. “I only hope that the goddess doesn’t find him first.”
BURKE GROANED as he stretched out on the burlap sack they’d spread on the chicken coop floor, a filthy mess of waste, feathers, and straw. They’d traveled to Nat Goodsalt’s farm near Burke’s Tavern and found the house and barn burned to the ground. The chicken coop had been the only building still standing, though it was blackened on one corner and the door lay on the ground a dozen yards away. All the chickens were gone. The spoils of war, no doubt.
It was dark outside; the wind whistled as it pushed through the cracks in the thin walls. Scratching noises within the straw told Burke he was sharing his bed with mice, but he was too tired and sore to worry about his bedmates. Covering ninety miles on uneven terrain with one leg had narrowed the focus of his world these last few days. It was difficult to think of anything other than the bloody, puss-filled blisters that the crutch had worked into his armpit.
Burke barely moved when a shadow fell across him. From the smell, he knew it was Thorny.
“Vance is hunting up some grub,” said Thorny. “I looked around and can’t find any bodies. Goodsalt must have fled before the dragons got here.”
Burke nodded slightly, too worn out to speak.
Somewhere not too far away, there was a crisp, musical ZING as a sky-wall bow was fired, followed by, “Woohoo!”
Thorny left the doorway and peeked around the edge of the coop. “Dang if that boy hasn’t got us a possum!”
Burke’s stomach gurgled at the thought of food. “Let me rest my eyes for a minute, then I’ll help cook it.”
Thorny said something in response, but the words sounded distant. Sleep yawned before him like an open pit. He slipped into its depths.
When he woke, there were voices outside the door. It was still dark outside; he could smell a campfire and charred meat, and something else, something he couldn’t identify at first.
It smelled musty, slightly sour, almost like . . . a dragon? He sat up, his eyes wide as they probed the darkness. He bit his lower lip to keep from crying out in pain as he tried to move his left arm. The blisters had scabbed over as he slept; it was like his upper arm had been glued to his rib cage. His eyes watered as he peeled his arm free.
Burke was freezing. They’d escaped Dragon Forge with only the clothes on their backs, plus the few meager supplies they’d stolen from the cabin. His toes were full of tiny little knives of ice. His phantom leg shared the symptoms. He reached down and rubbed the toes of his remaining foot through his boot. Though he knew it was irrational, he moved his hand to where his nerves told him his other foot lay. On some instinctive level, he was disappointed when his fingers closed on empty air. On a more rational level, he was relieved that he still had at least some tenuous understanding of reality.
He scooted closer to the wall and carefully peeked through a crack to see what was happening. That tenuous understanding of reality took a sharp blow as he found himself staring at the side of an impossibly long, multi-limbed dragon covered with overlapping copper scales. The head of the beast reminded him of old prints he’d seen of eastern dragons—purely mythological creatures, unlike the flesh and blood dragons he was used to fighting. For a mythical beast, it looked solid enough. Its breath came out as great puffs of steam in the frosty night.
The beast turned its giant head toward the chicken coop. Burke jerked his eyes from the crack and pressed his back against the wall, his heart racing. He searched the blackness of the chicken coop for a weapon. The shotgun must be outside with Vance.
As the seconds ticked past, he began to assemble a theory about the oversized lizard waiting at his door. Jandra had talked about a new kind of dragon, a long-wyrm, that fit the description. More importantly, she’d told him about the long-wyrm riders. These creatures weren’t as smart as other dragons and were closer in intelligence and temperament to horses.
He could still hear Vance and Thorny talking. They didn’t sound particularly nervous. From time to time a little girl’s voice chimed in. And, there was an older male voice, gruff and gravelly. Bitterwood?
He steadied himself with a hand against the wall and rose. He didn’t bother trying to find his crutch. He hopped into the doorway and studied the scene once more. Beyond the long-wyrm, there was the glow of a fire. This is where the voices were coming from.
The long-wyrm turned its head to him once more, but didn’t show any signs of attacking. It seemed merely aware.
“Thorny?” Burke called out.
Thorny stood up on the other side of the long-wyrm. “Burke! Sorry. We didn’t mean to wake you. We have visitors.”
“I see,” said Burke.
A second man rose up beside Thorny. He wore a heavy cloak, his face hidden in the shadows of the cowl. “You look like hell, Kanati,” the man said.
“It is you,” said Burke. “Now I see why you didn’t want a horse. I take it this beast is yours?”
“He belongs to Zeeky, actually.”
The little girl’s voice called out, “No he doesn’t! Skitter’s my friend, not my property!”
Burked hopped out of the chicken coop, keeping his hand on the wall for balance. Vance ran to his side to help him hop to the fire.
In addition to Bitterwood and Thorny a boy slept on a blanket by the fire, and a small, blonde girl he assumed was Zeeky sat next to him. There was also a pig, wearing a metallic visor and a sneer.
Vance helped lower Burke to the ground only a few feet from the fire. Burke welcomed the heat. He hadn’t been truly warm since he crawled out of the river. Not so long ago, whenever he closed his eyes, he would see visions of new weapons he might design. Now, he kept imagining bath tubs continuously filled with hot water, regulated by a finely balanced system of pipes and gauges.
“This is Zeeky,” said Bitterwood. “The pig is Poocher.”
“I’ve never been introduced to a pig before,” said Burke.
“Poocher’s family,” said Bitterwood. “Sleepyhead over there is Jeremiah. Keep your distance. He’s got yellow-mouth.”
“Oh,” said Burke. He’d never had the disease. He wasn’t certain in his weakened state he’d survive it. “How’d you find us?”
“Skitter smelled cooking possum,” said Zeeky.
“Skitter?”
“The long-wyrm,” said Bitterwood.
Zeeky said, “Normally, I would have had him ride past the campsite, but the villagers whispered that a friend of Bitterwood’s was nearby, so I let him follow his nose.”
“The villagers?” Burke asked. “From Burke’s Tavern?”
“No. From Big Lick.”
“They’re ghosts,” said Bitterwood.
Burke frowned.
“You don’t believe in ghosts, do you?” Bitterwood said. “I remember back at Conyers—you didn’t believe me when I told you I’d seen a devil get his head chopped off, stick it back on and kill the dragons that had decapitated him. You didn’t believe in gods or ghosts, angels or devils. I’ve fought all these things and worse. There’s more to this world than you understand, Burke.”
The toes of Burke’s phantom foot thawed as the fire penetrated into his phantom boot. He wasn’t in the mood to reopen this old debate.
Zeeky opened it for him. “They ain’t ghosts,” she said. She held out a crystal ball. The firelight danced across its surface. “They never died. They just don’t have bodies no more. The world inside this crystal ball isn’t like our own. There’s nothing solid there. Everything exists like a dream. The villagers can see into our world if they try, but, for the most part, they’re learning to get by in their new world.”
The hair on the back of Burke's neck rose. “Are you talking about underspace?”
“That’s what the goddess called it,” said Zeeky.
“That’s Atlantean science,” said Burke. He scratched the stump of his leg as he pondered this. His training was in metallurgy and engineering. Over in Tennessee, he'd had relatives charged with solving the mysteries of extra-dimensional space, but Burke had always preferred to study things he could do something about.
“I met an Atlantean once,” said Bitterwood. “She healed my hands after they’d been bit off by a dragon.”
“Your hands were . . . of course. Atlanteans were masters of technologies far beyond our imagination. Jandra said she used to have healing powers.” He looked toward Vance. “Could that seed you ate have been from Atlantis?”
Vance shrugged, looking as if he didn’t understand the question.
“Jandra’s healing powers are the reason we’re traveling this way,” said Bitterwood. “Hex stole the source of her powers—”
“The genie,” said Burke, feeling like his mind was full of jigsaw pieces that he could almost, but not quite, fit together.
“When I met Hex in Rorg’s cavern, he told me he’d buried the genie in the one place humans would never look for it. The way I figure, the last place humans would go look for anything would be the Free City. So we’re going there to hunt for the genie. I don’t know how to use it, but it’s something I have to try. It may be able to cure Jeremiah.”
Two puzzle pieces clicked together in Burke’s head. “Shanna said she’d come from the Free City. She had healing seeds. Her body had been repaired to the point that she no longer had tattoos. It suddenly makes sense. Someone has found the genie in the Free City and is using it to heal people. Jandra told me the genie wouldn’t work for anyone but her, but it looks like she was wrong.”
“There are humans at the Free City?” Bitterwood asked. “When I was there a few weeks ago, I saw earth-dragons around it. I figured refugees from Dragon Forge were using it.”
Burke looked down at his missing leg. His armpit throbbed. He thought of Vance’s restored vision and Bitterwood’s regrown hands. Could he one day walk again?
Zeeky looked up from the crystal ball with a serene smile upon her lips. “We shall all be healed.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
* * *
RESPONSIBILITY TO MANKIND
BURKE GRIPPED THE EDGE of the saddle so hard his knuckles turned white. The long-wyrm flew across the landscape at a breakneck speed. They avoided the main road, splashing along the twisting beds of a stream as they raced eastward toward the Free City. The creature veered up a steep river bank, running perpendicular to the water below. Given the speed with which they traveled and the ruggedness of the terrain, Burke couldn’t believe he hadn’t been thrown off the beast. His butt stayed planted firmly on the smooth saddle, as if it were a powerful magnet and the seat of his pants were steel.
As strange as the circumstance of his ride were, there were stranger things still on his mind. Bitterwood rode on the saddle before him carrying Jeremiah in his arms. The boy’s face was corpse white, glistening with sweat. The boy somehow slept through the convolutions of the long-wyrm, his mouth hanging open. His gums were puss yellow. Bitterwood risked his life by carrying the boy. Yet, not only did he hold him, he cradled him. He stroked the boy’s brow and whispered encouragements.
“This is a side of you I’ve never seen, Bant,” said Burke. “I didn’t know you had such fatherly instincts.”
“I wasn’t always the Ghost Who Kills. I had a family once, long ago. I would rather have lived my life as a father than as an avenger.”
Burke shook his head as his own regrets welled up. “I’ve had the opportunity to live as both and I’ve failed at both. I have no idea where Anza is. You tell me she’s gone off to try to recapture the shotgun Vulpine stole, but that could be anywhere, and it will be heavily guarded. It’s a terrible risk to chase after it. She’ll keep trying to retrieve it until she succeeds, or she’s killed. Why didn’t I tell her that her life means more to me than the gun does? What if I never learn of her fate?”
“Anza struck me as a woman who could take care of herself,” said Bitterwood.
“Maybe. But then what? She’ll return to Dragon Forge looking for me, and Ragnar’s men will ambush her. Ragnar has a whole army to throw against her, all armed with the guns I designed. Anza’s fast, but not faster than a shotgun blast. I can’t believe how badly I’ve let things spin out of control.”
Bitterwood narrowed his eyes. “This has always been your great flaw. You treat the world as if it’s a giant machine, and if you can only find the right screws to tighten, you can make the whole thing hum.”
“Someone’s hand needs to be on the controls,” said Burke.
“There are no controls,” said Bitterwood. “There is no mainspring. Your pride blinds you to this simple truth.”
“What have I done to piss you off?”
“You started another revolution you couldn’t finish,” said Bitterwood.
“Technically, Ragnar started it,” said Burke. “One might even argue that you started it by killing Albekizan.”
Bitterwood turned his back on Burke.
Burke reached out with his crutch and poked him on the shoulder. “I’m not done talking.”
“I am,” said Bitterwood.
“I’ve listened to your criticism. You’re going to listen to mine. I’m not angry that you killed Albekizan. Your guerilla warfare tactics of the last twenty years have been far more effective than I would have guessed. But I’ve never figured out what it was you were hoping to accomplish. Ridding the planet of one dragon at a time isn’t going to save humanity.”
Bitterwood looked back. His face was in shadows beneath is hood. “I care nothing for the fate of humanity. I only want to make certain that dragons suffer at least a fraction of the pain they’ve caused me.”
“That’s where we differ. All I’ve ever wanted was to give humans an equal footing—or better still, an upper hand—when dealing with the dragons. That’s never going to happen while men choose to follow fanatics like Ragnar. Mysticism and charisma have a way of trumping logic.”
“'Choose' is an interesting word,” said Bitterwood. “Did you ever offer the men of Dragon Forge a choice? Did you ever say to them, ‘I lead, or Ragnar leads, decide?’”
Burke shook his head. “Ragnar gathered the army. They were loyal to him. They cheered his firebrand speeches. What did I have to offer anyone other than gadgets and advice on sanitation?”
Vance, on the saddle behind Burke, spoke up. “I would have chosen you as the leader in a heartbeat. So would any of the sky-wall team.”
Burke shook his head, rejecting Vance’s words. “The members of the sky-wall team cheered Ragnar on during his little fire-sermon before the invasion. They lift up their hands in rapture whenever he preaches of war.”
“That’s because he’s making a stand,” said Vance. “We’re all tired of living under the shadow of dragons. We’ll cheer any man who fights them. Ragnar has been willing to get out in front of us. You haven’t. You’ve worked behind the scenes, a plotter, a planner, but never a leader.”
Burke grit his teeth as the long-wyrm splashed across a narrow ford in the stream. Vance was right. He was a planner at heart. He’d never thought of this as a character flaw. Nor had he thought that wanting to remain in control of events was a negative trait. This was why he liked machines. He could control all the variables. If one part of the machine failed, he could toss out that part and design a replacement. But the mob Ragnar had gathered . . . how could he control such a motley collection of variables? They were people with unknown abilities fighting and acting with unknown motivations.
With a shiver, he sat bolt upright in his saddle. This is why he’d raised Anza in such a mechanistic fashion. He’d programmed her to behave the way he thought a rational being should behave. She was his ultimate exercise in controlling all the variables in a human life.
He’d taught her that maintaining control by tracking down and recovering the stolen shotgun was more important than her own safety.
Even Bitterwood was a better father.
SHAY RODE THE WIND high above Dragon Forge. Far below, the fortress was a small gray diamond set in a broad circle of red clay. He was so far up that he could hold out his hand and cover the whole town. It was midday, with a clear blue sky above him; the air was clean enough that he could see Talon Lake and the Nest thirty miles to the west. The distant waters gleamed like a mirror.
The blue sky filled him with despair. All three of the smokestacks in Dragon Forge were lifeless. The fires of the revolution had gone out.
Shay shivered and pulled his collar higher. The air up here was frightfully cold. He wasn’t sure how high he was flying. He was certain it was over a mile, perhaps even two miles. The few guards moving along the walls of Dragon Forge were nothing more than specks. He doubted anyone below could see him. He suspected the wings would fly even higher, though his lungs kept him from testing the notion. Beyond this height, he grew lightheaded due to the thinness of the air.
Sky-dragons circled far below, patrolling in a rough circle around Dragon Forge. Shay could also see dragon troops encamped along the roads leading to the city. It looked like a blockade, a fairly obvious tactic for dealing with an entrenched enemy. Surprisingly, none of the sky-dragons appeared to have seen him. He was high enough that they were the size of flies. No doubt he was only a speck to them as well. Or perhaps dragons simply didn’t bother with looking up. They had no predators in the sky; all their threats were on the ground.
Shay wasn’t happy about the events that had caused him to be the world’s only winged human. He’d rather have Jandra than the wings. But perhaps there was some good that would come from his sorrow. With his wings, he could fly higher, faster, and further than any dragon. He was still firmly committed to the cause of human liberty, despite Ragnar’s rather chilly reception. Burke would definitely understand the tactical importance of humans having control of their own wings. He hoped Jandra was right about the technological origins of the wings; if they were nothing but machines, then perhaps Burke could reproduce them. If they were magic, then they would be beyond even the Machinist’s understanding.
Getting down into the fort was no easy task, given that the sky-wall archers were likely to fill the sky with arrows the second he approached. The dragons might not be looking up, but the humans almost certainly were. Could he dive fast enough to avoid the arrows, and then pull from the dive quickly enough to survive the drop? If only there was some way of doing this . . . invisibly.
He looked at Jandra’s bracelet on his wrist. When she’d used it before, she’d simply struck it hard against the stone. She said a strong jolt would activate the tiny machines that could produce invisibility.
Shay pulled the angel’s blade from beneath his coat. He’d learned that he could control the heat of the weapon with but a thought. Right now, the blade was merely warm. The broad side of the sword provided a flat, hard surface. He banged Jandra’s bracelet against it and the light around him dimmed.
HEX’S NOSTRILS TWITCHED as he caught the distinctive smell of a long-wyrm. As quickly as he’d detected it, the odor vanished. He circled back, searching for the tendril of breeze that had carried the aroma. Long-wyrm scents were an intriguing mix—snake mixed with sulfur mixed with crushed beetles. Ten minutes of searching the air proved fruitless. Had it only been his imagination? He hadn’t eaten anything in over a day—his tongue was sore and swollen. Even sipping water was painful. Maybe his mind was playing tricks on him.
Fortunately, Hex was almost at his destination. Off in the distance was the Dragon Palace. His eyes were instantly drawn to the black jagged spire that had once been the Grand Library, now gutted by fire. His heart ached as he thought of all the history and wisdom within its walls, forever lost. Yet, perhaps it was for the best. The books within that tower told of a history of conquest and oppression. It was an age he was happy to see at its end. The era of kings was truly past.
As he studied the burnt tower, he noticed the wooden fortress a few miles beyond. This was the Free City—a clever death-trap designed by his uncle Blasphet and built using the wealth and armies of his father, Albekizan. When last he’d visited the structure, it had been abandoned. Now, it was bustling. Thousands of tents dotted the fields around the city. Within the walls, countless bodies swarmed over the dozens of large buildings under construction.
His mouth went dry. He’d chosen the Free City to hide the genie because he was certain no one would search there. He hadn’t expected it to grow overnight into one of the largest human cities he’d ever seen. Or was it a human city? He strained to make sense of the moving figures. There were definitely earth-dragons side-by-side with the men. Here and there, the bright blue form of a sky-dragon flitted from one side of the city to the other.
He squinted harder. Always in the past, when he’d seen the various races gathered like this at construction sites, the division of labor had been clear. Sky-dragons were architects, earth-dragons were bosses, and humans did the actual work. Here, everyone was working. None of the earth-dragons wore armor or carried weapons. Most were dressed in simple white tunics, as were the humans. There were no glowering slavecatchers watching over the scene. What was going on?
His nose once more picked up a few stray molecules of long-wyrm stink. He flared his nostrils, seeking the trail, his head snaking from side to side as he tested the relative strength of the aroma.
It was unmistakable now. He dropped lower in the sky, his eyes darting across the landscape, seeking the flash of copper that would reveal a long-wyrm’s presence. There! The bright scales of a long-wyrm shimmered through the leafless thickets by the river. The beast raced along with sinuous grace, seeming to fly as its many limbs worked in perfect harmony. Hex tilted in the sky, the cool wind soothing his aching muscles as he fixed his wings to glide on an intercepting pass.
The long-wyrm was absolutely studded with riders. At the rear-most saddle sat a young girl with flowing blonde hair—Zeeky, no doubt, though at this distance, with her back to him, he supposed there was a tiny chance he could be wrong, and that this could be some other girl riding a long-wyrm with a pig seated in front of her.
In front of the pig were three men Hex had never seen before, and, in the forward saddle sat a man in a familiar cloak. Bitterwood! He carried someone in his lap, a sleeping girl with similar blond hair. Or was it a girl? More logically, this was Zeeky’s brother, Jeremiah.
Hex was almost at the level of the tree tops and only a few hundred yards behind the long-wyrm. He beat his wing to accelerate. The sound caught the ears of one of the humans—the young man sitting two saddles back from Bitterwood. The man turned, revealing a face covered with wispy facial hair. His eyes bulged somewhat comically as they fixed on Hex’s approaching form.
It was much less comical when the man leapt up to stand on his saddle and produced a sky-wall bow, placing an arrow against the string with lightning reflexes. Hex was too close to climb out of the bow’s range, but not close enough to charge the man and reach him before he fired. At this distance, the man would have to be a horrible marksman not to place an arrow somewhere within Hex’s forty foot wingspan. He braced himself for the impact.
Before the man could release his arrow, however, Zeeky jumped up in her own saddle and shouted, “Stop! He’s a friend!”
The long-wyrm undulated to a graceful halt. The bowman leapt from his saddle to the ground, arrow still against the string, wary as Hex swung his legs forward to land. Hex hit the gravel of the riverbank with a lopsided stance. He flapped his wings to keep his torso from smashing into the rocks. His huge wings snapped the branches of the bushes lining the banks as he skidded to a halt. It wasn’t graceful, but in his present condition anything that brought him to the ground in one piece was a good landing.
“Thank you, Zeeky,” said Hex. His tongue felt swollen and stiff. “I’m happy you consider me a friend.”
Bitterwood carefully dismounted, cradling Jeremiah in his arms. The boy’s pale face glistened with sweat. Hex instantly recognized the scent of yellow-mouth.
Bitterwood said, “This boy is dying. We need Jandra’s genie now. Go to the Free City and bring it to us.”
“I . . . how did you know it was at the Free City?”
“You sun-dragons never really accept that people are as smart as you. You practically told me where it was buried, thinking I wouldn’t be clever enough to figure it out.”
Hex pressed his damaged tongue against the roof of his mouth, sucking to soothe the pain as he thought about how much he should reveal to Bitterwood. “You’re right,” he said. “I buried the genie in the Free City. It was a foolish choice of hiding places. Have you seen what’s happening there?”
The one-legged man who was still seated on the long-wyrm spoke up. “Let me guess. A couple of hundred women are running around in white robes.” The man was about Bitterwood’s age. His skin was darker than Bitterwood’s, and his gray-streaked black hair was pulled into a braid decorated with bright red sun-dragon feather-scales. His face had the balance of a sculpture—a square jaw, and a sharp, angular nose—though the symmetry was broken by three parallel scars that graced his right cheek. “Apparently, they’ve gathered there to worship some sort of healer. We had one of their disciples visit Dragon Forge.”
“There are more than a few hundred,” said Hex. “I saw thousands. And not only women. Men, as well, plus earth-dragons and sky-dragons. They’re working together to expand the Free City. I’ll dig up the genie if it’s undisturbed, but if a mob tries to stop me, I’m not certain what I can do. My encounter with the goddess has left me weakened.”
“The goddess?” Bitterwood said.
“My suspicion that she survived inside Jandra has proven accurate,” said Hex. “Her mind controls Jandra’s body. It’s lucky I’ve found you; we think our one hope of capturing Jazz will be if she tries to kidnap Zeeky again, or take revenge on you.”
“We?” asked Bitterwood.
“Shay also survived the encounter with the goddess. He’s gone to Dragon Forge to find you, in fact.”
The dark-haired man frowned. “The goddess will go to Dragon Forge once she learns about the guns. Once she’s done there, she’ll no doubt come looking for me. She’s had a thousand year agenda to keep the world free of guns. I doubt she’ll give up now.”
Hex furrowed his brow. This human was curiously well-informed about the goddess. “Who are you?”
The man crossed his arms. “You can call me Burke,” he said. “I think it’s time we found a good hiding place and stopped to compare notes. I’m pretty sure Jandra’s genie has already been found. Jandra said it gave her healing powers. Not that long ago, our friend Vance”—he nodded toward the young man with the sky-wall bow—“was blind.”
“He’s been healed?”
“He ate a seed left behind by a woman who said she was a disciple of a healer in the Free City.”
Vance lowered his bow, apparently content that Hex wasn’t a threat. He said, “It wasn’t only my eyes that got better. All my scars healed up. I used to have a doozy on my left foot from a bad swing chopping wood. It’s gone now.”
“We don’t have hours to sit around and talk,” said Bitterwood. “Jeremiah is growing weaker by the minute.”
Hex nodded. “We’ll talk as we travel. If the denizens of the Free City are offering healing, it looks as if several of you can make use of them.”
Burke raised his hand to his cheek and traced the scars there as Bitterwood and Vance climbed back onto the long-wyrm.
The last man on the copper serpent nodded toward Hex. He was older than Burke or Bitterwood; snaggle-toothed, with a wild mane of gray hair and hands knotted with arthritis. “If no one else is going to bother to introduce me, I’ll do it myself. Thor Nightingale. Most folks call me Thorny.”
“Hexilizan. My friends call me Hex.”
Thorny grinned. “What do your enemies call you?”
“I call him Hex, too,” said Bitterwood.
“It’s probably best if I approach on foot. They’ll quickly spot me if I’m airborne.” In truth, Hex wasn’t certain he had the energy to get airborne. Flying was demanding work. Sun-dragons normally ate voraciously to fuel the muscles that allowed them to lift their massive bodies into the sky. With his damaged tongue thwarting his appetite, he was quickly exhausting the last of his strength. It was probably best that Bitterwood not suspect this.
Hex noticed as Bitterwood settled onto his saddle that the living bow strung with the goddess’s hair was intact once more, and Bitterwood’s quiver was full. Hex wasn’t certain he could successfully fend off an attack if Bitterwood’s bloodlust returned. Yet, the hatred that normally burned in Bitterwood’s eyes was missing. Instead, all that remained was worry. The aging dragon-hunter wiped the sweat from Jeremiah’s brow with the edge of his cloak. The boy murmured softly in his feverish slumber.
“It’s going to be all right,” Bitterwood whispered.
SHAY FLOATED DOWN to a landing in the middle of the main street, near the foundry that housed Burke’s loft. His landing stirred up the sooty dust that covered the road. The bacon and egg smoke that had hung thick in the atmosphere was gone, replaced with the stench of raw sewage. He’d noticed while in the sky that the dragons had built a dam on the canal that emptied the city’s sewers.
The town was eerily silent, absent the sounds of hammers and foremen shouting. The handful of people left on the streets wore handkerchiefs over their mouths. It was as if most of the town had left and only a few bandits remained behind.
Shay folded his wings and wondered what it would take to turn off the invisibility that had allowed him safe passage into the town without attracting the attention of the sky-wall. Glancing toward the nearest wall, he saw only three bowmen. When he’d left, the walls had been thick with guards. As he pondered the control of his invisibly, he noticed a slight shift in the light. He once more had a shadow.
He bowed his head as he headed into the building that housed Burke’s loft. Perhaps no one would recognize him; he’d certainly not been in town long enough to leave much of an impression.
Within the foundry, it was cold and dim, with only the occasional lantern piercing the gloom. The building wasn’t completely uninhabited. A handful of workers were gathered at various stations along the work flow, tinkering with machinery. Had the production line encountered some mechanical failure?
He didn’t dare risk speaking to anyone until he talked to Burke. He didn’t know who might be loyal to Ragnar. His eyes searched the dim light for the elevator cage. Spotting it, he strode briskly toward it.
He was brought to a halt by a big, calloused hand that fell on his shoulder, and a voice that said, “Shay? What are you doing back?”
Shay looked behind him and found, to his relief, that the hand belonged to Burke’s friend Biscuit. He recognized the rotund, bald man even though Biscuit had apparently suffered misfortune in his absence. He now wore a leather patch over his right eye. “I’m glad it’s you. I need to see Burke.”
Biscuit’s jaw tightened. “Burke isn’t here any more.”
“What?” Shay said, louder than he should have. All the other workers were staring at him now. He lowered his voice as he asked, “Where is he?”
Biscuit frowned. “Burke was disloyal to the cause. He fled town when confronted. We think the dragons killed him at the southern bridge.”
“Disloyal to the . . . Burke was the cause! He was the whole reason this rebellion stood a chance!”
Biscuit shook his head, looking sad. Before he could say anything, a new voice interrupted: “Boy, this rebellion succeeded because of Ragnar and his faith.”
Shay turned to find the white-bearded blacksmith called Frost behind him. The ear Jandra had shot off was a mass of white scar tissue clinging to the side of his head, dotted with brown, peeling scabs. Frost approached until he was inches from Shay’s face and said, “Burke was trying to sabotage us. He killed a dozen men. If he’s dead, good riddance.”
Shay wanted to back away from Frost. His eyes were bloodshot and his breath stank of goom. He was looking for an excuse for a fight. Shay clenched his fists and held his ground. He was taller than Frost. He straightened to his full height and looked down into Frost’s eyes. “How about Bitterwood? Would he be welcome here? Because that’s who I’m really looking for.” Frost’s left cheek twitched at the mention of the name.
Biscuit said, “A man claiming to be Bitterwood was here a few days ago. He took the boy with yellow-mouth and left.”
“Yellow-mouth?” said Shay. “Is that why the streets are so empty?”
Biscuit nodded. “The men are all staying indoors.”
“To avoid those with the disease?”
Biscuit stared at Frost. He looked afraid. Frost carried a weapon resembling a short shotgun tucked into his belt. The barrel was less than half the length; it looked as if it could be held in one hand. Frost’s palm rested on the butt of the gun. Shay noticed the bloody bandage on his wrist.
Biscuit chose his words carefully. “Avoiding the disease is one theory.”
“You’ve let the foundries stop running because of this?” Shay asked, incredulous. “The disease is dangerous, yes, but with proper sanitation and a little—”
Frost yelled, “The disease is under control!” His spittle flecked Shay’s cheeks. “The furnaces have stopped ‘cause we don’t wanna run out of coal. We can’t get any more.”
“I see,” said Shay, wiping his cheeks as he backed away. Standing his ground wasn’t as important as not getting goom-spat. He knew there was still a sizable mound of coal out back; he’d seen it from the air. Of course, there had also been hundreds of coal wagons backed up along the Western Road.
“How did you get in?” Biscuit asked. “The only people the dragons have let slip past have been the sick and the disabled. You’re the first halfway healthy man I’ve seen get past the blockade.”
Shay decided that mentioning the wings—or Jandra’s bracelet—would be unwise. If Bitterwood had already been here and left, and Burke was dead, his immediate reason for staying was gone. On the other hand, with or without Burke, Dragon Forge was too important to the human cause to fail. Jandra was his top priority, but he had recovered items in the long-wyrm barracks that could give humans the upper hand in this war.
He closed his eyes. The vision of The Origin of Species crumbling to ash flickered before him. The last person he wanted to talk to was Ragnar. Yet, like it or not, Ragnar was the power in Dragon Forge. It was Shay’s responsibility to mankind to see that he did not fall.
“I can help break the blockade. I need to speak to Ragnar.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
* * *
THUNDER ON A CLOUDLESS DAY
JEREMIAH SHIVERED against Bitterwood’s chest. “I-it’s c-c-cold,” he whispered through cracked lips.
The boy’s breath was as hot as a furnace. Bitterwood pulled the filthy blanket that swaddled Jeremiah higher up on his chin. He knew that a thousand blankets wouldn’t be enough to make the boy feel warm.
“We’ll be inside soon,” Bitterwood said softly, brushing the boy’s matted hair away from his eyes. “I promise we’ll find you a proper bed, and some hot soup.”
“I-I’m n-not h-hun. . . , ” Jeremiah’s voice trailed off.
Jeremiah was slipping in and out of sleep without bothering to open his eyes. Bitterwood wasn’t certain if the boy was even aware that Hex had joined them. He showed no awareness of their odd surroundings.
They rode through the forest of tents that surrounded the Free City. Flaps were pushed aside as men and women peeked out to stare at the gleaming long-wyrm and the sun-dragon walking beside it with a noticeable limp. Here and there among the crowd, the dark green turtle-faces of earth-dragons could be seen. They were as curious as the humans, and showed no signs of hostility. The last time Bitterwood had approached the Free City, the only earth-dragons in sight had been armed soldiers, pushing their captives along at spear point.
“I didn’t know there were so many people in the world,” Vance said softly.
Bitterwood remembered how small the world had seemed to him back in his own youth. Until the dragons burned Christdale, he’d never journeyed more than thirty miles from his birthplace. The true scope of the world had been impossible to fathom.
“There are far more people here than at Dragon Forge,” said Burke as he surveyed the crowd. “Are these refugees who were turned away by the blockade? Or perhaps chaos is spreading further through the kingdom than we knew?”
Hex’s scales bristled at the use of the word “chaos.” “It isn’t chaos that’s spreading,” the sun-dragon said. “It’s freedom. The authoritarian regime that enslaved these people is gone, leaving them free to follow their own destinies.”
“If following their own destinies means abandoning their homes to live in tents, I fear their destinies will be short and sad,” said Burke. “Think of all the abandoned villages we’ve seen. Spring is coming. Who will plant the crops? Where will the food to feed everyone come from by next summer?”
“The beasts of the forest survive without farming,” said Hex. “The world is bountiful.”
“Hex, as I understand it, you’ve lived most of your life in a library on the Isle of Horses. You have an overly romantic view of nature, I fear. I’ve spent a fair amount of my youth in the forest. It’s not as full of food as you might think.”
“My views aren’t romantic,” said Hex. “I’m simply able to see the evil that has been inflicted on both men and dragons in the name of order.”
“I’ll take order over chaos any day.”
“This is a curious argument for a revolutionary to make.”
“Seizing Dragon Forge was the first step to imposing a new order,” said Burke. “Anarchy was never the goal.”
“Impose is a telling verb,” said Hex. “If the rebellion at Dragon Forge is intended to be the first step toward a human war of genocide against dragons, rest assured I will destroy your rebellion. I haven’t helped take the slavecatcher’s whip away from the dragons in order to give it to humans.”
“Someone’s hand is always going to be holding the whip,” Burke said. “It’s the way the world works. It’s the lesson of history.”
“I intend to bring an end to history. I want to live in a world where the strength of ideas has more power than the strength of arms.”
Bitterwood had heard enough. “You’re a hypocrite, Hex. You didn’t persuade Rorg with the force of your ideas. You didn’t change Shandrazel’s mind with an argument. Everything you’ve accomplished of note you’ve done through violence—you slaughtered Rorg and you allowed your own brother to die. You call yourself a warrior philosopher, but you’re nothing but a long-winded bully.”
Hex looked around at the throng of refugees who stared at them. “Bullies use their strength against those who are weaker. I’ve stood up to would-be kings and would-be gods. These humans have nothing to fear from me.”
“Unless they join the rebellion under their own free will, and you try to crush it,” said Burke.
Hex shook his head. “If they don’t become oppressors, they have nothing to fear. Any hand that would reach for a whip, however,”—he turned his gaze toward Burke—“will find itself bitten off.”
By now, they reached the gates of the Free City. A quartet of young women in white cloaks, their faces shadowed by large hoods, approached cautiously.
One held out her hand and said, “Greetings, brothers,” then spotting Zeeky near the back of the long-wyrm she added, “and sister. Welcome to the Free City. Many among you appear injured. You shall all be healed.”
“We need to see the healer now,” said Bitterwood.
The woman pushed back her hood, looking sympathetic to Bitterwood’s need. She patiently explained, “The increase of supplicants in recent days is placing great demands upon the healer’s time. He only attends to those with the gravest needs. The rest of you will be cared for by his disciples, who will administer the dragonseed.”
“'Disciples' is a word with religious overtones,” said Hex. “Does this healer claim to be a god?”
The woman smiled gently. “He makes no claims to godhood. He says he is, instead, a servant to us all.”
“He’s the servant?” Hex asked, sounding skeptical.
Bitterwood sensed that Hex might be on the verge of a diatribe on the political implications of a servant/master relationship and decided to nip off the argument before it began.
“This boy has yellow-mouth,” said Bitterwood. “He may not survive the day. Can your healer save him?”
The woman approached the long-wyrm. She reached up and stroked Jeremiah’s sweat-beaded brow, frowning with concern. She said, “We shall take him to see the healer immediately. Give him to us.”
“I’ll carry him,” said Bitterwood. “I want to stay with him.”
“We’ll all stay with him,” Zeeky said.
The woman looked back toward her three companions. Some unspoken communication took place, ending with a nod by all four.
“Very well,” said the woman. “We’ll lead you to the healer. Dismount and we’ll tend to your steed, seeing that it has water and food . . . though, I confess, I’m unfamiliar with this beast. What does it eat?”
“Pretty much anything,” said Zeeky, hopping down from her saddle. “Oats would be great. Don’t leave him alone around any small animals, though. He’ll gulp down a chicken before you can blink.”
Bitterwood was surprised that Zeeky was surrendering Skitter to the women. From her body language, Zeeky didn’t appear worried about their intentions. Bitterwood wasn’t as certain, though he couldn’t say why. There was nothing overtly sinister about these women. That only added to his sense that they were walking into a snake pit. But, if he had to walk into hell itself to save Jeremiah, he would. He slid down from his saddle as the others dismounted.
Hex extended his fore-talon to help Burke balance himself. Burke looked skeptical, then placed his hand on the claw and lowered himself to the ground.
“Thanks,” he said.
Skitter followed one of the women toward the stables as the first woman led the motley collection of men, sun-dragon, girl, and pig through the busy streets of the city. The scent of fresh-cut pine hung heavy in the air. Hammer blows echoed from all directions.
Burke limped more rapidly on his crutch until he was just behind the woman. “How are they feeding all these workers?”
“Our healer is also our provider,” said the woman. “I’ve witnessed him take a bag of grain, and pour it into an empty bag. Once that bag is full, another is brought, then another, then another. From a single bag, he may fill forty of the same size. There is no hunger here.”
“That’s what was said about the Free City when Blasphet ran it,” said Burke. “This city was sold as a sanctuary where all human needs would be met. But once everyone was inside the gates, the true plan was for it to become a mill of death.”
“You speak of the time when Blasphet was known as the Murder God.”
“Yes,” said Burke.
“Blasphet, the Murder God, is dead,” said the woman. “According to the healer, a new Murder God has taken his place.”
“A new Murder God?”
“Yes. The beast who murdered the Murder God. His unholy name is. . . , ” the woman paused, frowning, as if the name were sour on her tongue. When she finally spoke, her voice dripped with contempt. “He is known as the Death of All Dragons. He is called the Ghost Who Kills. His unholy name is Bitterwood.”
SHAY WALKED WITH BISCUIT on one side of him and Frost on the other. Biscuit looked disgusted as Frost stumbled on the steps of one of the nicer buildings Shay had seen in Dragon Forge, a stately two story house built of brick, with slate shingles and glass windows.
“This was Charkon’s residence,” said Biscuit.
“Ah,” said Shay. Charkon had been the boss of Dragon Forge. It made sense that an earth-dragon of his reputation would have a better home than the dragons who worked beneath him. It made sense, as well, that Ragnar should claim possession of the house. Shay guessed that, inside, he would find many of the spoils of war being used for Ragnar’s comfort.
Instead, when the door opened, pulled from within by the giant bodyguard Stonewall, Shay saw that the interior of the house was almost empty. The large central room had been stripped bare, with the only furnishing present being an iron cross forged from the blades of four swords leaning against a brick wall. Ragnar knelt before this cross, his head lowered so that his bushy mane touched the floor.
Stonewall stepped outside and closed the door behind him.
“This boy wants to see Ragnar,” said Frost. A slight belch punctuated his sentence.
“Ragnar’s praying,” Stonewall said. “He’s not to be disturbed. I saw your approach from the window.” Stonewall looked at Shay with a thoughtful gaze. “You’re the escaped slave who brought the books. I don’t believe I ever learned your name.”
“Shay. It’s important I talk to Ragnar.”
Stonewall shook his head. “I’m sorry. The prophet’s present conversation is with someone more important. He’s praying for divine assistance to deal with the rumors of yellow-mouth.”
“Rumors?” said Shay. “I thought there were people actually sick from the disease.”
“There was a single boy who vomited,” said Stonewall. “Bitterwood took him. We quarantined two dozen men who had contact with him. So far, there have been no symptoms.”
“Then why have the foundry fires died?” asked Shay. “You’re surrounded by dragons on all sides. I would run the foundry until every man in Dragon Forge had a gun, or even a dozen guns. From my vantage point, I spotted catapults ringing the city. It looks as if the dragons may be preparing an attack.”
“The foundry workers are damn cowards,” muttered Frost.
Biscuit ground his teeth loudly enough for Shay to hear. He grumbled, “No man wants to be seen in public if the next time he coughs he’s going to be thrown into the quarantine barracks—or the furnace.”
“Are you trying to start something?” Frost asked, his hand falling back to the modified gun on his belt. “Speak carefully. You still have one eye.” He hiccupped.
“Have you been drinking?” Stonewall asked before Biscuit could answer.
Frost turned pale. “Of course not. Ragnar forbids all alcohol.”
Shay said, “What happened to Burke? He could have managed an outbreak of disease. He wouldn’t have let the foundries shut down.”
Stonewall crossed his arms. “Burke also wouldn’t share his knowledge freely with his fellow men. His pride prevented him from telling Ragnar all his secrets. In his disbelief, he lacked a moral compass to guide him to the greater good. In the end, he killed a dozen men as he fled the city. He destroyed the southern gate, exposing us to the risk of attack; we’ve set up a barrier, but it’s impossible to describe the harm Burke has done to our cause.”
Shay clenched his fists. He wanted to scream at the stupidity of Stonewall’s words, but fought to keep his cool. “Don’t talk to me about sharing knowledge. I came here with books filled with information and ideas that could have helped launch a new human age. Ragnar took those books and flung them into the fire. Ragnar gave Burke every reason to be cautious about sharing what he knew.”
Stonewall said, “Ragnar threw only one book into the fire. He had me gather up the rest. I still have them. He forgot about them five minutes after we left the loft. The prophet has many things on his mind.”
“You have the books?”
“I’m a voracious reader. I was curious as to their contents,” said Stonewall. “The Drifting Isles are remote and lonely. Books are highly valued there.”
Shay was confused. It must have shown in his face, because Stonewall said, “You seem to think that because I’m a man of faith, I’m also a man of ignorance. It’s a prejudice that Burke shared, I’m afraid.”
“According to Chapelion, faith is the opposite of knowledge,” said Shay. “It’s difficult, I admit, to think that you can be well-read and still believe that Ragnar speaks directly with God.”
Frost let loose a low growl as his fingers fondled the butt of his gun. “You’re getting mighty close to blasphemy, boy.”
Stonewall’s eyes twinkled. He didn’t look offended by Shay’s argument. “You aren’t so different from me, Shay. You place your faith in books. You’ve read things written long ago and believe them, even though these events unfolded centuries before your birth, and there’s no direct evidence that they actually occurred. How am I any different? I’ve read a book that taught me that God chooses men from time to time as his prophets, to guide his people through periods of darkness. Ragnar is one of these men.”
Shay started to speak, but held his tongue. He was getting sidetracked from his main mission. Stonewall evidently mistook his pause as an invitation for further explanation. “Some force spared Ragnar when dragons slew his family. Some force gave him the gift of persuasion that has allowed a man so young to gather so many followers. Some force placed Ragnar at the Free City, where he helped defeat Albekizan and Kanst and Blasphet. This same guiding force led Ragnar to gather the refugees into an army and seize control of this fortress. You weren’t here to see him fight. With no armor, Ragnar plunges into the thick of battle and emerges with nothing but scratches. If you cannot accept this as evidence that he’s God’s chosen, then no evidence in the world will ever lead you to the truth.”
“He could also just be lucky,” said Shay. “I should have been killed a half dozen times in recent days. I’m alive more due to chance than to my own efforts. But I don’t regard a little luck as evidence that I’m one of God’s chosen. I’ve also had my share of misfortune.” He felt a cold, hard spot in his belly as he thought of Jandra.
“One of the books you brought spoke of an invisible hand that guides the economies of mankind,” said Stonewall. “I believe in an invisible hand that guides all men in all actions. Even you, Shay.”
Shay grimaced. He hadn’t come here to debate philosophy. “We’re wasting time,” he said. “I have to find Bitterwood, before the goddess finds him.”
“The goddess is only a false idol, Shay,” said Stonewall.
“This false idol almost killed me and she’s currently possessing Jandra, whose life means a great deal to me. I can’t stay here until Ragnar finishes talking to his invisible hand. I have a secret that can help you break the blockade.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“When we were in the kingdom of the goddess we found wings that let a man fly. I gave them to . . . to a friend to carry. I have six pairs, not counting my own. With them, you can outfly dragons. It’s how I got here. You could fly over the blockade in the dead of night, since I have a device for seeing in darkness as well.”
“Only witches see in the dark,” grumbled Frost. “I think Jandra’s enspelled you, boy.”
“Jandra’s not a witch,” said Shay.
“I know a witch when I see one.” Frost spat to punctuate his sentence.
“Shouldn’t you go somewhere to sleep off your goom?” asked Shay, finding Frost’s presence tiring.
While Frost looked hostile, Stonewall looked concerned. “Are you claiming to have flown? With wings? Shapeshifting is a sign of witchcraft.”
“I’m not shapeshifting,” said Shay. “They’re a machine.”
With a thought, he willed his wings to unfold. They unfurled, glinting silver in the sun, tinkling like a thousand tiny bells.
He smiled, expecting this to provide convincing proof for his argument.
Instantly, he realized the error of this assumption.
Frost yanked the short shotgun from his belt and held it inches from Shay’s face. The blacksmith’s bloodshot eyes narrowed as he squeezed the trigger. Shay flinched.
Nothing happened.
Biscuit leapt forward, tearing the gun from Frost’s fingers. He said, in a voice trembling with pent up anger, “A sober man wouldn’t have forgotten the safety.”
Frost looked at Biscuit, his mouth hanging slack, staring down the barrel of his own gun. Biscuit’s thumb flicked the safety.
Shay turned his face away as Biscuit pulled the trigger. In the flash and bang that followed, he almost didn’t see Stonewall leaping from the brick steps, drawing his sword.
With a thought, Shay launched thirty feet into the air in the half second it took Stonewall to land where he’d just stood.
Frost dropped to his knees. Half his head was missing. His body slumped forward, landing against Biscuit’s trousers. Biscuit snarled, “An eye for an eye you bastard!”
Stonewall was staring up at Shay. Shay hesitated. Was it too late for reason? Five seconds ago, they’d been talking civilly. How had events turned so sour so quickly?
There was a clang at his back as something bounced from the broad circle from which his wings unfolded. He spun, and an arrow suddenly jutted from the bag over his shoulder that held Jandra’s coat. A third arrow whizzed past his head, close enough he could feel the wind that trailed it.
It appeared the debate was over.
Shay turned his face skyward, then zoomed toward the blue above, swifter than arrows.
BISCUIT’S ONE GOOD EYE was full of hate as it glared at Stonewall. The man’s hands were trembling as he rammed the bag of shot he’d snatched from Frost’s belt into the barrel.
“Put the gun down,” said Stonewall.
“You might not have been with them,” Biscuit said. “But I know your hand was on the knife just as sure as Frost’s.”
“I’ve never tortured any man,” said Stonewall. “Had I known what Frost was capable of, I wouldn’t have told him my suspicions that you were Burke’s confidante. Put the gun down.”
“Not until I put down you and Ragnar and the rest of the monsters!”
Never once as Stonewall looked down the barrel of the gun did he fear death. Faith, however, wasn’t the reason for his confidence. Shay had escaped so swiftly he’d been difficult for the eye to follow. Biscuit was a stationary target.
The first arrow struck him in the shoulder of the arm that held the gun. As the gun fell to the dirt, two more arrows struck Biscuit in the back, and another jutted from his neck. By the time he hit the ground, he looked like a pin-cushion.
Stonewall shook his head, saddened by the loss of two fine blacksmiths. He was sad, as well, that Shay was gone. He’d enjoyed their discussion. Since leaving the Drifting Isles, he’d found precious little in the way of informed debate. Still, Shay’s wings were difficult to ignore. What spell had Jandra cast on him? Or could it be true? Were the wings simply machines?
The blood that flowed from Frost and Biscuit merged into a single pool. Stonewall stepped into this pool and picked up the handgun. It was a fairly clever invention. Was it Burke’s design? Or had Frost taken the initiative to modify the weapon on his own?
His musings were cut short as the door to the brick house opened. Ragnar stood on the stairs, dazed. The prophet’s forehead had a red dot from where he’d been pressing it against the floor. He didn’t appear to notice the two dead bodies on his doorstep.
“The Lord answered my prayers with a voice of thunder on a cloudless day,” said the prophet.
Stonewall started to mention the fight, but decided it might be blasphemous to imply the prophet had mistaken gunfire for the Lord’s voice.
“I have a message for the men,” said Ragnar. “Gather them. Everyone.”
“Even those under quarantine?”
“Everyone. Now.”
The hairy prophet spun on his heels and marched back into the house.
AN HOUR LATER, Stonewall had overseen the removal of the bodies. Straw had been spread to hide the blood that stained the hard-packed soil. The Mighty Men had gone from building to building, dragging men from their bunks and, in some cases, from beneath them. Two thousand men crowded onto the street before Ragnar’s house. At the front stood the men who’d been placed in quarantine. They were a sorry looking lot, disheveled and dirty, with oily hair and scraggy beards. They’d not been allowed near the baths since their confinement.
It was mid-afternoon. With the bright sun, the day was warm. It was the sort of winter day that promised that spring was near.
Soon, everyone in the fort was present, save for the men on the sky-wall team. They’d been boosted back to their full numbers. They made an impressive sight upon the walls.
The door to the brick house opened.
Ragnar stepped out, the cross of swords in his left hand. He slammed it onto the brick steps. The iron blades sang out like bells.
“There is no disease in Dragon Forge!” Ragnar shouted.
Stonewall furrowed his brow. There were whispers in the crowd.
“There is no disease in Dragon Forge!” Ragnar again cried out. “The Lord spoke to me in thunder! He said we have no reason for fear! Our righteous cause will not be brought low by illness. He shields us from plague and fever. Any who were sick are now healed by the power of our faith!”
Stonewall looked over the ragged men who’d come from the quarantine barracks. While none of them were the picture of health, none of them were incapacitated either. None even looked feverish, save for one of the younger men, a boy really. Stonewall felt as if he should know this boy’s name. At last, it hit him. This was Burr, the boy Jeremiah had vomited on. When he’d gone into the quarantine barracks, Burr had been a big lad, his face ruddy and plump. Now, his cheeks were pale and hollow. Could worry alone have produced this change?
“Every man is to return to his work when he leaves here,” said Ragnar. “Let the dragons tremble when they see the smoke rising from Dragon Forge once more. The archers on the walls report they’ve seen the movements of catapults. Their pitiful engines of war are nothing compared to our cannons! Tonight, we will demonstrate our power! I want all the cannons currently ready placed upon the walls. We begin our barrage of the blockade tonight!”
Stonewall cleared his throat. He leaned over to Ragnar and whispered, “Sir, there are only five spots along the wall that can support the biggest cannons. We’ve been working to reinforce the wall for more, but . . .”
Ragnar answered him by shouting to the crowd. “By nightfall, we will have fifty large cannons upon the wall. Every man here is rested and ready! Our task is clear! Our cause is just! Remember the Free City!”
The crowd cheered at these sacred words.
“Remember the Free City!”
Again they roared.
“Remember the Free City!”
Now even the sad looking men from the quarantine barracks pumped their fists in the air and shouted.
Save for Burr. The boy, already pale, grew paler still. His eyes rolled up into his head and he fell forward onto the brick steps at Ragnar’s feet.
The men closest to the Ragnar who’d witnessed the boy fall stopped shouting. Like a wave, the cries of war faded and confused, hissing whispers spread from the front of the crowd to the back.
“The boy is overcome with excitement!” Ragnar shouted. “There is no disease in Dragon Forge.”
Every man pushed away from Burr’s unconscious form, deeper back into the crowd, standing as if there was an unseen wall that wouldn’t allow them to be closer than twenty feet of the boy.
Stonewall stepped down and rolled the boy over. He felt as hot as a just-fired gun barrel. Steeling himself, Stonewall pushed back the boy’s lips. His gums were puss yellow.
From the man standing nearest, he heard the whisper, “Yellow-mouth!”
Ten seconds later, there was full bore panic through the streets. Men were shouting. There was a shrill cry of pain near the back of the crowd as a man was trampled.
“Be still!” Ragnar shouted. “Have faith! Remember the Free City! Remember the Free City!”
The screams of fear only grew louder as the crowd streamed away.
“There’s . . . there’s no disease in . . .” Ragnar’s voice trailed off as he looked toward the heavens. His fingers went limp and the iron cross slipped from his grasp.
Stonewall looked up as the bright sky dimmed.
The sky was full of rotting human corpses, flying over the walls of Dragon Forge in long, graceful arcs.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
* * *
THE PATH OF SCARS
ALTHOUGH IT WAS STILL LIGHT outside, the interior of the barn in which Bitterwood and his companions stood was full of flickering candles that gave the air the scent of tallow and beeswax. They waited in silence as the woman who’d led them to the barn knelt in front of a canvas-covered platform.
Bitterwood was growing impatient with the woman’s lengthy prayer. Jeremiah was heavy in his arms, but he didn’t dare put him down. He felt that, as long as he was holding the boy, he was holding onto the last spark of life that still glowed inside the child.
Hex had settled into a seated position. Bitterwood spotted the weakness in the giant dragon’s limbs. Normally, when he witnessed weakness in a dragon, it triggered the same instinct a dog feels when seeing a wounded rabbit. Now, Bitterwood felt something approaching sympathy for the sun-dragon. After cradling Jeremiah for so long, he no longer took any pleasure at seeing even a dragon suffer.
Burke joined Hex on the floor, as did Thorny. Vance and Zeeky were still on their feet, as was Poocher, who paced back and forth nervously.
“Can’t you make him sit still?” Bitterwood grumbled.
Zeeky shrugged. “This is the barn where he was penned up with the other animals the last time we were at the Free City. He remembers the smell of the place. Smells get him agitated.”
Poocher looked at her and grunted.
“For instance,” she said, “he smells a sun-dragon here.”
Bitterwood looked at Hex, who possessed the distinctive draconic odor of rotten fish.
“I mean he smells a second sun-dragon,” said Zeeky.
Before they could discuss this further, a throng of young women in white robes, their faces hidden by hoods, filed into the barn. They quickly lined the walls.
Bitterwood was assessing their potential threat when Vance, Burke, and Thorny all gasped. Hex’s scales suddenly bristled. Poocher squealed. Bitterwood turned to the canvas platform and found Blasphet seated before him, not twenty feet distant. Hovering a few inches above Blasphet’s ebony brow was a glowing circlet of silver he knew well: Jandra’s tiara.
Blasphet eyed him with an unblinking gaze. The great beast’s mouth opened as he said, “The light is better than when we first met, oh Ghost Who Kills.” He narrowed his eyes. “You’re shorter than I remembered.”
Bitterwood dropped to one knee before Blasphet. He leaned forward and carefully placed Jeremiah onto the straw-covered floor. He stroked the boy’s cheek to brush the hair from his face. He turned his head toward Hex, who looked dumbfounded by Blasphet’s sudden appearance. Vance, too, was standing slack-jawed, oblivious to Burke and Thorny, who were trying to stand.
The only ones nearby who still had their wits about them were Zeeky and Poocher. With the bristles along his spine raised like little spears, and his head tilted forward to turn his small tusks into weapons, Poocher looked ready for battle.
“Protect the boy,” he said.
When he rose, all his gentle, fatherly instincts were gone. His bow was in his hand as if it had always been there. He plucked an arrow from his quiver with as little thought as he gave to commanding the beat of his heart.
Blasphet rose, his serpentine neck snaking toward the beams of the loft. The light from the tiara cast shadows down his torso. “Put down your bow. There’s no need—”
Before he could finish his sentence, Bitterwood fired. The arrow raced straight toward Blasphet’s eye. A full foot from its target, a gleaming tomahawk flashed across its path, knocking it away. Bitterwood didn’t pause to ponder its source. He already had another arrow aimed. With a zzzmmm, his second arrow flew, flashing toward the black beast’s gut.
With a speed that was difficult for even his eyes to follow, one of the white-robed disciples leapt into the arrow’s path, her slender arm whipping out. She caught the shaft in mid-flight. Her hood fell back, revealing a woman with deeply-tanned skin and jet black hair.
“Stop!” Burke shouted.
Bitterwood had no intention of stopping. He’d been caught off guard by the impressive reflexes of Blasphet’s protector, but now that he was aware of her, she could be neutralized. His third arrow targeted her, on a trajectory that wouldn’t hit Blasphet. As expected, she leapt from the arrow’s path, landing with a roll that would bring her back to her feet. Bitterwood already had another arrow nocked. She was reaching her feet when he let the arrow fly, aimed at Blasphet’s heart.
A sword appeared in the woman’s hand as if by magic. She threw the sword into the arrow’s path, so that the razor sharp edge of the blade bisected the thorn-tip of the arrow. The wobbling twin shards of arrow that continued past bounced harmlessly from Blasphet’s scales. The woman somersaulted across the front of the platform and landed with her hand outstretched. The sword she had thrown fell into it.
Bitterwood narrowed his eyes. The woman looked at him with a calm gaze. There was something familiar about her. She moved like the mechanical men he’d fought, Hezekiah and Gabriel, ancient engines designed to look human.
The woman held an upturned palm toward Bitterwood and crooked her fingers, as if daring him to attack. Bitterwood took careful aim, intending to take that dare.
A steel crutch whacked him across the side of his face, knocking him off balance. Stars danced before his eyes and he stumbled. His ears rang, but not from the blow. Instead, Burke was inches from his ear, shouting at the top of his lungs.
“I said stop!” Burke grabbed Bitterwood by the collar and pulled their faces together. “That’s Anza!”
“Anza?” Bitterwood said, casting a glance back at the woman. Now he knew why she’d seemed familiar. He’d only met her briefly during their escape from the Dragon Palace. He hadn’t recognized her without her black buckskins. Her hair hung loosely around her face instead of being pulled back in a severe braid.
“There’s no need for violence,” said Blasphet in his smooth, well-mannered voice, as he lowered himself back down to a seated position. “I hold no grudge against you, Bitterwood.”
“Who are you really?” Bitterwood growled. “I killed Blasphet. You can’t be the real Murder God.”
“Indeed,” said Blasphet. “You brought an end to my reign as the Murder God. You are the Ghost who Kills, the Death of All Dragons. You, Bitterwood, are the true Murder God.”
Bitterwood felt as if he’d slipped into a nightmare. It was the only explanation. Even if Blasphet had survived, how could he be talking? His anger faded into confusion. “I ate your tongue.”
“How appropriate,” said Blasphet. “Devouring the remains of a defeated foe is a way of taking on their power.”
“It was only dinner,” said Bitterwood, shaking his head.
Hex said, “This is why the valkyries never found your body, uncle. Once more, you’ve made an impressive escape.”
“No!” Bitterwood protested. “He had no heartbeat! He wasn’t breathing. When I sawed his tongue out, he didn’t even flinch.”
Blasphet nodded. “All true. I’ve lived many years with the threat of execution over my head. I long ago developed a poison that would plunge me into a state indistinguishable from death. Colobi found me and administered the antidote only moments after you departed. We limped away from the Nest. My wounds were grievous. You butchered me most effectively.”
“You . . . weren’t dead?” Bitterwood found this difficult to believe, despite the evidence before him.
“I was as close to death as any mortal being may come. As the poison spread within me, I felt as if I were falling from my body, into a great, unending nothingness. I have been to the abyss, Bitterwood. What I found there changed me. When Colobi revived me, I returned to a world where every breath was agony. And yet, I now bear witness to the fact that one painful gasp is far, far sweeter than the nothingness of death. I left the dark tunnel repenting my wicked ways, vowing never to cause harm to a fellow being. I have turned my intellect, once so enamored with murder, to the protection and improvement of life.”
Hex shook his head as Blasphet spoke. “You’ll forgive me if I’m skeptical, uncle.”
“Judge me by my deeds,” said Blasphet. “Look around you. I give sight to the blind. I allow the lame to walk. I feed the hungry and clothe the poor. When I designed the Free City, the false promise spread that it would be a paradise where all needs were met. Now, I intend to keep that promise. All who seek comfort will find it.”
Hex’s eyes focused on the tiara above Blasphet’s head. “How did you come to be in possession of Jandra’s tiara?” he asked. “I’ve experienced her healing touch. I know that its power would be sufficient to regrow your tongue.”
“When I returned to my temple with Colobi, the sisters who stayed behind presented me with treasures they had collected during their raids on the Dragon Palace. Among their gifts was this tiara. I recognized it instantly. I’d long studied Vendevorex and Jandra, suspecting their headgear might be the source of their abilities. I placed it on my brow . . . and felt nothing. The device was lifeless.”
“Obviously, you figured out how to activate it,” said Hex.
“That was due to another looted treasure,” said Blasphet. “The sisters had stolen Vendevorex’s corpse before they freed me from my confinement in the dungeon. I’d long wanted to study Vendevorex to find out if his magic was, indeed, the result of his skull-cap, or perhaps flowed from some strange mutation. I hoped his body would reveal his secrets. Alas, I was occupied with the plot to destroy the Nest, and had little time to perform a dissection. When I returned from the Nest, with my change of heart, I regarded dissecting Vendevorex in a different light. Desecrating his remains further seemed distasteful. I went to the morgue where I had laid his body upon a slab. I discovered, to my amazement, that his body hadn’t decayed since. Indeed, he showed signs of continued life. The broken and twisted bones of his wings looked straight and whole once more.”
Bitterwood watched Anza carefully as Blasphet told his story. She, in turn, watched him. Burke still held his collar. Bitterwood glanced toward the tiara floating like a halo above Blasphet. He needed this to save Jeremiah. Burke would never forgive him if he hurt Anza. But what choice did he have? Blasphet possessed poisons that would alter the mind. Anza must be under the influence of such a drug.
Blasphet continued his tale: “I leaned close to the wizard’s body, listening for a breath. I heard nothing. I placed my head on his chest to detect a heartbeat. Not a single sound stirred beneath his azure scales. Yet, as I concentrated, the tiara, which I still wore, began to glow faintly. I slowly grew aware of a multitude of microscopic machines permeating Vendevorex’s body. These invisible constructs whispered pleas for my guidance. They had reversed his decay, repairing him from the cellular level up, yet lacked the initiative to restore the spark of life. The more I concentrated, the more clearly I understood the whispers of the machines.”
Hex rose on his shaky legs. “So. You owe your new-found abilities to a tiara you admit to stealing and to a corpse you admit you planned to desecrate. I’m a friend of the true owner of the tiara. Jandra was haunted by the mystery of Vendevorex’s missing body. If you’re truly an honorable being now, you’ll give me the tiara.”
Blasphet sagged as he shook his head mournfully. “I cannot defend the actions of my previous self. The dragon I was died in the darkness, slain by the hands of the true Murder God. The dragon who limped out of that tunnel, and now stands before you, is a reborn being. Possession of this tiara is my greatest hope for repairing the evil I’ve done.”
“You slew eight hundred valkyries,” said Hex. “No amount of good deeds can balance this villainy.”
Burke still had his hands on Bitterwood’s shirt. He’d been glancing back and forth between Bitterwood and Anza. Increasingly, his eyes were upon his daughter. Finally, he asked, softly, “Are you all right, Anza? Why are you protecting this monster?”
“Fah-der,” she said, in slow, halting syllable. “Dis drak-on haz . . .” She paused, her mouth open, a look of intense concentration in her eyes. She uttered the final words of her thought carefully, in syllables that were more on the mark. “He . . . healed . . . me.”
Burke’s hand went slack and dropped from Bitterwood’s collar. “You can talk?”
“Yas,” she said, nodding for emphasis.
“Your daughter suffered from a calcified tumor near her vocal chords,” said Blasphet. “I removed it, repairing the damaged nerves and reviving atrophied muscles. She is still training her new voice. In time, she will speak as well as any other human.”
Anza pursed her lips once more. “He . . . can heal . . . you.”
Burke’s crutch slipped from his fingers. He dropped to the floor in a motion that was half falling, half sitting. He held his hands in his head as he whispered, on the verge of tears, “All my life, I’ve had dreams that you could talk to me.” He let out a long slow breath. “I trust Anza. Let Blasphet heal Jeremiah.”
“You’re insane!” Bitterwood said.
“No he’s not,” said Vance, stepping up. “I ate the dragonseed and it cured me. Let Blasphet help Jeremiah.”
Bitterwood furrowed his brow. This was, in a way, such an obvious thing to try. Why had his first approach to this problem been to kill Blasphet and take the tiara? Would there ever be a problem in his life he wouldn’t attempt to fix by killing something? He shook his head, disgusted that he was having these doubts, especially here, in the Free City. Blasphet was a monster. Was he the only sane person in the room?
Before he could decide on a course of action, Thorny walked toward the huge black dragon, holding his gnarled hands before him. “If you’ve done right by Anza, I’ll trust you. Can you fix my hands?”
“Of course,” said Blasphet. He raked his fore-talon along his chest. His feathery scales were bunched into small polyps. He plucked one free, and held it toward Thorny.
“The seeds grow from your body?” Burke asked.
“Yes,” said Blasphet. “They are full of the same tiny machines that swam in Vendevorex’s blood. They now thrive within me. When you ingest the seed, the microscopic engines will spread through your body, seeking out damage and repairing it.”
Bitterwood felt nauseated as Thorny bent his head down to Blasphet’s talon and took the seed between his lips. Thorny swallowed as he stood up. He looked down at his hands as he asked, “How long will it take to work?”
“Unguided, the machines need several hours to analyze your body for flaws,” said Blasphet. “I can guide them more quickly. My . . . familiarity . . . with corpses has left me well prepared as a healer. I know what all the bones in a healthy human hand should look like. I know how thick the cartilage between them should be, and where the tendons should attach. If you choose to have me guide the process, there will be a certain level of pain involved.”
“I’ve not had a moment free of pain in thirty years,” said Thorny. “Do it.”
“As you wish,” said Blasphet. He fixed his gaze upon Thorny’s hands. Thorny suddenly drew a sharp breath and dropped to his knees, leaning against the canvas-covered platform.
Around the room, the white-robed disciples began to sing as Thorny cried out in incoherent, babbling agony. His fingers twitched and writhed. Even Anza’s gaze was drawn to the sight of Thorny’s useless, knotted claws changing into something that looked like healthy hands.
Bitterwood knew this was the moment. He reached over his shoulder, his fingers brushing against the leafy end of a fresh arrow. Before he could pluck it from the quiver, a small hand touched him on the hip. He looked down and found Zeeky looking up at him.
Beneath the din of the singing and Thorny’s screams, she said, “Let him help Jeremiah.”
Bitterwood drew the arrow.
“If Jeremiah dies, you’ll never forgive yourself,” said Zeeky.
Bitterwood clenched his jaw. Every instinct wanted to place the arrow against his bowstring. However, just as Burke trusted Anza, Bitterwood trusted Zeeky. He’d been friendless for twenty years. This mysterious little girl had liked and trusted him from the moment they’d met. He wanted her approval more than he wanted Blasphet’s death. With a sigh, he returned the arrow to his quiver.
The song of the disciples fell off and Thorny stopped screaming. The old man breathed heavily, his face dripping tears. He stared at his restored hands, opening and closing them slowly.
He wiped his cheeks. He pursed his lips tightly and took a long, calming breath through his nose. He grabbed the edge of the platform and supported his weight on his hands as he stood. He looked up at Blasphet.
“Thank you,” he whispered, his voice raspy from screaming.
“You’re welcome,” said Blasphet. “The dragonseed will continue to work, slowly restoring further infirmities. Soon, you’ll eat your meals with a full set of teeth once more. And your overall health will improve as the damage that alcohol has done to your liver is reversed.”
“Will I be young again?” asked Thorny.
“No,” said Blasphet. “Age is not a disease. You will, however, be strong and healthy. A well-maintained human body should last nearly a century. See to it that you are careful in your habits, and you will at least feel young.”
As Thorny nodded and walked away, Blasphet looked at Hex. “How about you, nephew? I see that you’ve suffered trauma to your brain. Will you allow me to restore you?”
Hex scowled. “Uncle, if you attempt to alter my brain with your invisible machines, I’ll alter your brain with my jaws.”
“So be it. I understand the reason for your scorn.” He then looked to Burke. “You, human, have seen the good I’ve done for your daughter. Will you let me make you whole? Life has left you with many scars.”
Burke stared down at his missing leg. He lifted his hand and traced the three scars that marred his cheek. Bitterwood could tell from the way the machinist held his body that the blisters beneath his arm were still a source of pain. When Burke inhaled to answer, Bitterwood knew Burke, too, would accept Blasphet’s help.
“No,” said Burke.
“No?” said Blasphet.
“No?” said Anza. She walked toward him, kneeling to look into his eyes. “Fadder, he can fex yuh leg.” Her words were more difficult to follow when she tried to speak quickly.
“I believe he can,” said Burke. “But I lost my leg due to a tactical error; I didn’t use sufficient armor on my war machine. And, these scars . . . I’ve had these scars on my cheek since the battle of Conyers. Every time I’ve looked into a mirror for the last twenty years, I’m reminded of all the men who died because they believed I could lead them to victory.”
Anza shook her head as she listened to her father’s words.
“I don’t regret my bad memories,” he said, taking her hand. “I can’t claim they’ve left me wiser, but they define me. These scars, Anza, they aren’t flaws. They’re part of me. Erasing my scars is like erasing my life.”
Anza nodded, her dark eyes full of understanding. She helped her father rise again on his one good leg. Vance handed Burke his crutch.
Blasphet turned toward Bitterwood.
“The boy at your feet is dying from yellow-mouth,” he said. “With your permission, I shall heal him.”
Bitterwood clenched his fists as he turned away, unable to look at Blasphet. He gazed at the candles guttering among the rafters, and at the thin rays of a declining sun that poked through the gaps in the barn wall. He saw dust dancing in that light, gleaming like tiny flecks of snow. Jandra had said that all her magic came from dust. Hezekiah had taught him that man came from dust, and returned to it. His shoulders sagged. There were mysteries in this world far beyond his grasp.
“Save him,” he whispered, walking toward the door they’d entered.
He didn’t know if he was doing the right thing, despite Zeeky’s reassurance. He needed to step outside and get some fresh air to clear his thoughts. When he pushed open the door, he stepped onto a broad avenue where men and dragons were crowded together, all looking toward the western sky. He shielded his eyes as he, too, looked toward the sunset and discovered an angel. A winged human was plainly visible as a silhouette against the red sky. The entity drifted down toward the Free City. Bitterwood tensed. Was this another of the goddess’s machines, like Gabriel? What was its connection to Blasphet?
He reached for an arrow. The flying figure altered his descent slightly, now plainly heading for the ground where Bitterwood stood.
A voice called out, “Bitterwood! I didn’t expect to find you here!”
Bitterwood squinted. “Shay?”
Shay flapped his wings and he slowed to a halt a few yards before Bitterwood, hovering several inches above the ground. The wind stirred the folds of Bitterwood’s cloak. “I’m here to find Hex. I didn’t expect to find you. And who are all these people?”
“Worshippers of Blasphet,” said Bitterwood.
“The Murder God?” Shay asked, looking around at the crowd that gathered to gawk at him. “I expected his followers to look more . . . sinister.”
“He’s renounced the title of Murder God,” said Bitterwood.
“Can you do that?” Shay sounded perplexed. “Just decide one day you’re no longer a god?”
Bitterwood shrugged. “Who makes the rules?”
“Is Hex here?”
“He’s inside with Burke and the others,” said Bitterwood. “We all arrived together.”
“Burke?” Shay ran his fingers through hair. His orange locks were disheveled and tangled to an absurd degree, as if he’d spent time inside a tornado. “I can’t believe it! I was told he was dead.”
“Death is apparently not as permanent as it used to be,” said Bitterwood.
“This is good fortune. I needed some luck after the last few days. Did Hex tell you about Jandra?”
“Some,” said Bitterwood. “We haven’t been together long. He failed to mention you’d sprouted wings.”
Shay glanced back at his silvery appendages, as if he was almost surprised to find them there. He stretched them out and gave them a gentle shake. The metallic feathers chimed softly. “You like them? You’re in luck. I have more of these in Hex’s bag.”
Just then, Burke limped out the door, supported by Anza. They both stopped in their tracks as they followed the gaze of the crowd upward.
“Hallo, Sheh,” said Anza.
Shay’s eyes widened. “You can talk?”
Burke said, dryly, “I think the more surprising development here is that you can fly.”
Shay grinned; then just as swiftly, his grin vanished.
“Burke, Dragon Forge is in trouble. There’s an outbreak of yellow-mouth. Or, at least, there’s fear of an outbreak. The foundry has come to a standstill. The walls were barely manned.”
Burke shook his head. “I’m sorry to hear that. But it’s not my problem anymore.”
Shay’s eyes flashed with the same rage Bitterwood had witnessed when he’d announced he’d set fire to the library. “Not your problem?” Shay shouted. “Dragon Forge promised the rebirth of the Human Age. The revolution was the light of a new human dawn, the hope of the slave! You were the brains that made it possible!”
“I may have been the brains, but Ragnar was the heart. And that heart was corrupted. The two of us never trusted each other. We were doomed from the start.”
“You have to become the heart as well as the brains,” said Shay. “You know you have the dream to make men free once more!”
Burke sighed. “I’ve already caused too many people to die.”
Shay made several exasperated grunts as he tried to find the words to respond to this. “Wha . . . but . . . it’s not your fault people have died fighting to take Dragon Forge! You’re not a king, pressing slaves into service. Those men at Dragon Forge were volunteers. Everyone who died, died for a cause. Giving up now means they’ll have died in vain.”
Anza nodded. “Lissen ta hem.”
Burke raised an eyebrow. “You agree? I thought you were a pacifist now that you were worshipping Blasphet.”
Anza cast off her white robe, revealing the weapon-studded buckskin beneath. She drew her sword and said, “Ah ahm a waryor. Ah belif in de cause.”
“You’re a warrior because I robbed you of a normal life,” said Burke. “I had no right to turn you into a weapon. All those years, Blasphet gathered young women around him and taught them to kill. They called him a monster. How much more of a monster am I to do the same thing to my own daughter?”
“Father,” she said, slowly, carefully. “I . . . don’t . . . want . . . a normal . . . life. Ah am . . . not a muh-sheen. Ah am your daughter. Ah love . . . my life.”
“You should hate me,” Burke whispered.
Anza pressed her lips into a thin, straight line. The muscles in her jaws flinched as worked out the next movements of her mouth in her head.
“You can use your hand signals to talk if it’s easier,” said Burke.
She frowned. It was obvious, from her expression, that she was determined to make the muscle of her tongue obey her will with the same precision that commanded all her other muscles.
“I love you, Father,” she said, slowly and deliberately. “I’m happy . . . to fight . . . because I fight for you.”
“Thank you,” he whispered.
Anza returned his gaze with intense seriousness. “We must fight . . . for Drak-on Forge.”
Burke nodded. He straightened his shoulders. He looked toward Bitterwood. “How quickly can Skitter carry us back to Dragon Forge?”
Shay said, “Not as fast as wings will carry us. I’ve got more of these in Hex’s bag.”
Burke nodded, then jerked his head up, as if he suddenly remembered the reason he came out to the street in the first place. “Bant, Jeremiah’s awake.”
Bitterwood stepped out of the crowded street back into the candlelit barn, leaving Shay to fill in Burke on what he’d discovered at Dragon Forge. Jeremiah was sitting up now. The corpse-like pall that had gripped him was gone; his cheeks had color again. Zeeky sat beside him, her arms wrapped around him, hugging him tightly. Poocher was next to him also; Jeremiah had one hand on the pig’s neck and was scratching him behind the ears. The big pig looked content.
Bitterwood walked toward Jeremiah. Before he could reach the boy, however, a vertical rainbow appeared in the air in the center of the barn. Several of Blasphet’s followers gasped at the strange apparition.
A woman, dressed in a gown that resembled the red scales of a sun-dragon, appeared. She had a silver helmet atop her head. Bitterwood recognized her instantly.
“Jandra?” he said.
Jandra smiled as she spotted him. “Bant!” she said, sounding genuinely pleased to see him. She turned her head and said, even more joyfully, “Hex! Zeeky! Poocher! You’re all here!”
Hex snaked his head toward the woman. At first, the swiftness of the motion led Bitterwood to think he was attacking her. Instead, he stopped inches from her face and sniffed, his nostrils flaring. Her hair fluttered as he inhaled as deeply as his dragon lungs could muster. He stared into her eyes, and she stared back.
He exhaled slowly and said, “It smells like you. But, of course, with the goddess in your body, I don’t know that I could tell a difference.”
“Sometimes you have to trust your nose,” said Jandra. “You saw me fighting to regain control. I won. I’ve pushed the goddess out of my brain at last.”
Hex looked skeptical. “Jandra didn’t know how to form an underspace gate.”
“I do now,” said Jandra. “I got rid of Jazz’s personality, not her memories. I’ve learned something amazing while I’ve been away. I’ve been to Atlantis.”
The hair raised on the back of Bitterwood’s neck. He’d encountered Atlanteans before. The technology Jazz had used came from there. Jazz had been his most dangerous fight, ever. It was difficult to imagine a whole city of people with her power.
Jandra continued, “Now that I’ve been there, I have to go back. I need allies. I plan to destroy the city, and I don’t know if I can do it alone.”
“Why would you want to destroy the city?” asked Hex.
Bitterwood was more puzzled by something else. “How did you know we would be here?”
“Jazz could track her nanites in your quiver, and now so can I,” said Jandra. “Speaking of nanites, I see my original genie has a new owner.” She looked at Blasphet. She didn’t look particularly concerned by his presence. “And who’s using Vendevorex’s genie?”
“The genie I buried?” Hex asked.
“It’s not buried any more,” said Jandra. “It’s here, and it’s in use. I can detect its radio pulses.”
Her eyes fixed on seemingly empty air beside Blasphet. “Come out. If you can use the genie well enough to make yourself invisible, we should talk.”
For a moment, nothing happened, and then a calm voice said, “Very well.”
The air beside Blasphet cracked as an unseen mirror began to vibrate. The silvery barrier broke into a shower of sparks and dust that fell to the earth in a perfect circle.
Standing within that circle was a sky-dragon wearing a skull cap. He spread his dark blue wings, which were studded with diamonds that twinkled like stars. He stared at Jandra with golden eyes that glowed as if small suns were hidden behind them.
“Greetings,” he said, taking a bow. He straightened up and looked around the room. “Some of you are no doubt wondering why I’m no longer dead.”
Vendevorex, Master of the Invisible, had always appreciated the value of a dramatic entrance.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
* * *
THE GATE TO ATLANTIS
THE MOMENT JANDRA APPEARED, the voices from the crystal orb Zeeky carried in the cotton satchel slung over her shoulder began to howl. She couldn’t believe that everyone in the room didn’t hear them. Yet, the only reaction was from Poocher, who tilted his head and fixed his eyes on the bag. He rose from sitting on his haunches and stepped away from Jeremiah, who’d been petting him. The hair along his back once more stood in bristles as he faced Jandra.
Zeeky reached out and placed a hand on his muscular shoulder. “Not yet,” she whispered. The pig looked at her with an expression approaching pleading.
“I know,” Zeeky whispered, squatting down to his side. “You want to see some action. I promise, you’ll get your chance soon.”
As they spoke, the shower of sparks caught her eyes. A sky-dragon with a silver skull cap and starry wings stood next to Blasphet, bowing as he greeted the room. She recognized him as Vendevorex from the battle of the Free City—the dragon Jandra thought of as her father.
Bitterwood stood next to her and Jeremiah, but had his attention on Vendevorex. He grumbled, “Doesn’t anyone stay dead anymore?”
“It’s a pleasure to see you as well,” said the sky-dragon.
Jandra crossed her arms. Zeeky knew this wasn’t the body language of a daughter reuniting with her father. Jandra said, “So that we can hurry things along and get back to my news, let me fill everyone in on what’s happened.”
“Please do,” said Hex.
Jandra looked at Vendevorex and said, “You died, but with your nanites already programmed to repair your wounds. Unguided after your skull cap was removed, they kept your body in a state of cellular stasis until Blasphet revived it. But he couldn’t have restored your mind, could he? Somehow, he brought you back in contact with your old skull cap—the one Hex stole from me.”
“And buried here in this barn,” said Hex.
“When I brought Vendevorex to the Free City, he was a soulless shell,” Blasphet said. “He possessed all the motions of life—he breathed on his own, and if you gave him water, he would swallow—but he was completely devoid of will. I hoped that, as my understanding of my new abilities grew, I might one day restore his mind. Yet, when I brought him into this barn, he slowly began to recover on his own. At first, he possessed no memories, but within days he was fully restored.”
Jandra nodded. “That’s because you’d brought his body into the control range of his old genie. The device possessed a map of his brain at the time of his death, and guided the nanites in reconstructing Vendevorex’s personality.”
“How can you know all of this?” Hex asked Jandra.
“It’s simple enough to put together,” Jandra said. “Obvious, really.”
“Your powers of deduction are impressive,” said Vendevorex. “I was planning to find you soon. I know that my death must have caused you a great deal of emotional stress.”
“Oh,” said Jandra, nodding. “Totally.”
Vendevorex narrowed his eyes.
Jandra uncrossed her arms. “Now that everybody’s up to speed, let’s focus on me again.” She waved her hand in the air and a flat white disk of spinning light formed before her. Quickly, the light took on the shape of a green island surrounded by a bright blue ocean. The spires of impossibly tall buildings thrust up from the greenery.
“This is Atlantis,” said Jandra. “It’s a city of six billion people, who all have the same technology used by the goddess. They made the genies Vendevorex and I—and now Blasphet—draw our powers from. These people have powers best described as godlike—but, in one special way, they possess a weakness that leaves them exceedingly vulnerable to attack.”
Blasphet craned his long black neck toward the image of the island for a better look. “Why would you wish to attack such a place? Think of the good I’ve accomplished with my limited understanding of their tools. If they shared their secrets, we could end all suffering.”
“But they don’t share,” said Vendevorex. “They guard their secrets jealously. When Atlantis first came to earth, it decreed that anyone who wanted to experience its bounty would have to live upon its shores. Anyone who didn’t would lose access to its miracles.”
“Why?” asked Blasphet. “Why possess such power if you don’t intend to use it?”
“At the time, the world had gone over the precipice of environmental collapse,” said Jandra. “Vast swathes of the ocean were dead zones. The world was experiencing a mass extinction that rivaled the disappearance of the dinosaurs. The cause was human civilization. The goddess was clever enough to constrain civilization to this remote, artificial island. She allowed the continents to return to a state of wildness, or near wildness. Atlantis provided a way for her to cut out the cancer of humanity so that the body of the earth could heal itself.”
Vendevorex scowled. “This meshes with the story I was told, though with somewhat different motivations attributed to the goddess.”
“That’s because, while I was in Atlantis, I discovered you were a pawn,” Jandra said. “You were given your genie by a woman named Cassie, who was Jazz’s sister and lifelong rival. Cassie wanted you to spread the technology among dragons, so that Atlantis would regain its awareness of the outside world and wipe out dragon-kind. Cassie views dragons as biological contaminants—leftover relics of genetic engineering that don’t belong in the ecosphere.”
“It’s fortunate I didn’t behave as expected.”
As Jandra and Vendevorex talked, Bitterwood crouched next to Zeeky. He whispered, “Is that really Jandra?”
“It’s her body,” said Zeeky. “But not her mind. Right now, if you kill Jazz, you’ll kill Jandra.”
“I’m willing to make that sacrifice,” whispered Bitterwood. “You saw what the goddess can do.”
Zeeky shook her head. “Jandra’s still alive inside her. We can save her.”
“How?”
Zeeky motioned for Bitterwood to pay attention to Jandra/Jazz once more.
“So, here’s the plan,” said Jandra. “Hex, Bitterwood, and Blasphet: you all have a passion for breaking things. I want you to help me break Atlantis. We can steal the wonders there and share them with everyone. Vendevorex, I wasn’t expecting you, but you’ll be useful as well. Once I trigger the jammer, you’ll be one of the few minds on earth that will be able use the Atlantean tech to its full potential.”
“So you know their weakness,” said Vendevorex.
“Yes,” said Jandra. “This is why you had me study all those books on chemistry and physics. If I want to make an antidote to a poison, I need to understand the physical properties of the molecule I need to counteract it. I have this knowledge for the same reason you and Jazz did—I spent years with my nose buried in books memorizing a lot of boring stuff.”
“This is also why Blasphet adapted so quickly to the genie,” said Vendevorex. “He’s spent decades studying the workings of the body and the chemistry of countless poisons.”
“Unlike the Atlanteans who haven’t had to study anything for the last thousand years,” said Jandra. “They have instant access to the city mind, a repository of all shared knowledge. They don’t need to memorize the chemical and physical changes needed to turn water into wine. They don’t even need to remember their own names. Whenever they want to know something, they ask the city. If they were cut off from the city mind, they’d be helpless.”
“The city mind is too sophisticated for simple radio jamming, however,” said Vendevorex.
“Wrong,” said Jandra. “The goddess developed algorithms for jamming signals that will cripple the Atlantean network. The city mind will be able to crack the code in a matter of minutes, but we aren’t going to give it minutes. Are you with me?”
Hex nodded. “Jandra, you have my promise I won’t let you out of my sight.”
Zeeky could tell from the sound of his voice that Hex suspected the woman before him was more Jazz than Jandra.
“I knew I could count on you.” She looked toward Bitterwood. “How about you?”
Before Bitterwood could speak, Zeeky blurted out, “He’ll go. I will too.”
Bitterwood jerked his head toward her. “No,” he said. “I’ll go if you wish, but I’m not taking you and Jeremiah into a battle with gods.”
Zeeky shrugged. “Okay,” she said. Bitterwood frowned at her easy agreement.
Jandra, meanwhile, had turned to face Blasphet. “I assume I can count on you? Killing a city is certainly worthy work for a Murder God.”
“No,” said Blasphet.
“No?”
“I’ll never again act to harm another living being.”
Jandra sighed as she motioned toward the model city constructed from light. It bubbled away. She said, “I don’t know who you’re trying to fool with this good guy act, but you weren’t part of my original plan anyway.”
Vendevorex said, “I shall go. My familiarity with Atlantis could prove useful.”
Jandra nodded. “Good enough. Let’s roll.”
She traced a half circle in the air and a rainbow formed in the wake of her motion, slowly opening into a yawning void.
“Next stop, Atlantis,” she said, stepping toward the gate.
Suddenly, a man shouted, “Wait!”
It was Shay, sporting silver wings, floating in the doorway next to Burke. His wings folded behind him as he dropped to the ground and ran toward Jandra.
Jandra flinched as Shay threw his arms around her. “You’re back!” he cried, hugging her with all his might. She awkwardly lifted her arms to pat his back.
“Yeah,” she said, pushing away from him. “But, as much as I’d like to catch up, I’m kind of busy right now. I have a city I need to go wreck.”
“Jandra?” Shay asked, sounding confused. “It is you, right?”
“Of course,” she said, smiling. “I pushed Jazz out of my brain. But, you know me. I’m always rushing off on some new mission.”
“Then I’m coming with you,” said Shay.
“I don’t know that that’s a good idea. You’re not really the warrior type. Bitterwood and Hex are more the firepower I need.”
Poocher snorted indignantly. Zeeky knew he felt slighted not to be included on the list of great warriors present.
“Shay,” said Burke, laying his hand on the red-headed man’s shoulder. “I know your reunion with Jandra is important, but if we can get the items you mentioned, I’d appreciate it. I’ve been away from Dragon Forge too long.”
“Of course,” said Shay. “Hex, do you still have your pack?”
Hex nodded, placing the large leather bag onto the straw-covered floor. Shay opened it and pulled out several silver disks like the one that sat between his shoulder blades.
“Stick these on your back and think about flying. You’ll sprout wings. I have six more sets,” Shay said. “That’s enough for you and Anza, plus Vance and Thorny if they want to go with you.”
“And me,” said Jeremiah.
All eyes turned toward the twelve-year-old. He stood up from where he’d been sitting. He pulled out a knife that had been tucked into his belt. “This is Vulpine’s knife. It’s not his only weapon here. He gave me yellow-mouth so that I’d make everyone at Dragon Forge sick. If you’re going back, I want to come. I want to take a big handful of the dragonseed back to heal anyone who got ill because of me.”
“Boy, I didn’t drag you all this way to heal you so that you could go off and get yourself killed,” said Bitterwood. “Let someone else take back the dragonseed.”
“You’re going off to fight in a city of gods. Zeeky’s stood up to dragons and angels. If my younger sister can fight these battles, so can I.”
“I don’t want Zeeky fighting these battles,” said Bitterwood. “But your sister has powers. She can control the minds of animals. She can talk to ghosts and see the future.”
Zeeky didn’t think Bitterwood described what she could do correctly, but she held her tongue. She knew exactly how the next ten minutes were going to play out. In ten minutes, she would follow Bitterwood through the underspace gate to Atlantis. That’s where her knowledge of the future ended. Whatever waited in Atlantis, the voices either couldn’t see, or wouldn’t say.
Jeremiah walked over to the disks and picked one up. “You’re right. Zeeky was born with powers. She’s the one who could talk to animals. She once talked a bear out of eating our grandma.” He stuck the disk on his back. He scrunched up his face, as if he were about to sneeze. Whatever mental signal he sent the disk worked. Silver wings unfolded from his shoulders, flashing in the candlelight.
“I should at least have wings,” he said, as his feet lifted from the ground.
Zeeky had to admit, the wings looked good on him.
Bitterwood, however, wasn’t convinced. “Jeremiah, you ran when the long-wyrms raided your village. You ran from the battle at Dead Skunk Hole. Why are you suddenly so brave?”
Jeremiah gave Bitterwood a serious look. “I heard Blasphet tell you how it feels to die. It’s the same way I felt fifteen minutes ago, before he healed me. As horrible as death feels, it’s not as bad as being afraid. It’s time I grew up.”
Vance butted in. “There are other rebels his age at the fort.”
Bitterwood clenched his jaw. Zeeky placed her hand on his fist. “Let him go,” she said.
“Will he be alright?”
“Yes,” she said, though she didn’t know his fate beyond the next few minutes. But he wasn’t going to be killed in that small window of time, so it wasn’t really a lie.
Vance and Thorny took their wings and Anza grabbed a disk for both herself and her father. In the aftermath, only one disk remained.
With an excited snort, Poocher trotted up, staring at Shay with a look somewhere between pleading and demanding.
Burke looked curious. “Would they even work for him?”
“I don’t see how,” said Shay. “They’re controlled by thought.”
“Hey!” Zeeky snapped. “Poocher thinks! He’s as smart as you, just in different ways. Can you find edible roots by sniffing around? He’s not even a year old and I bet he could survive alone in the woods better than you. Don’t tell me he doesn’t think.”
Shay looked suitably chastised. “Fine. It can’t hurt to try.”
He sat the silver disk between Poocher’s shoulder blades. The pig turned around in a circle, as if he were trying to see the disk on his back, which his fat neck wouldn’t allow. After his third revolution, he closed his eyes and scrunched up his snout. His wings unfolded. He floated off the ground, looking smug.
Everyone in the room knew there was something that needed to be said. But not even Hex, who’d never shown any fear of an obvious joke, dared say it.
BURKE SOARED into the night sky. Shay led the way, shouting out advice on how to control speed, how to maneuver, and how to hover. Burke found most of the advice unnecessary. The wings responded to thought. He was good at thought.
It felt wonderful, slipping free of gravity, taking the weight off his exhausted leg and the pressure off his aching armpit. He experienced a sense of something approaching deja-vu—it was as if he had flown before. It felt perfectly natural. Just as he could feel the ghost of his missing leg, he now felt a different sensation: the presence of phantom wings that spread from his shoulders and occupied his new metal limbs. He, like most people, had experienced dreams of flying. What did it mean? Why did he feel so at home in the sky? Was it feedback? Since his thoughts guided the wings, did the wings somehow affect his mind? Or was there some deeper mystery at work here? The dragons believed in a myth that the world had once been ruled by angels who were then overthrown by dragons. His people believed the myth was a metaphor for dragons overthrowing humans. But, what if the myth was true? What if mankind had once possessed wings?
As comfortable as he felt in the air, Jeremiah and Anza looked even more at home. They were zooming around like sparrows at play, flitting about in tight loops that Burke doubted he’d have the stomach to attempt.
Vance looked stable in the air, though he avoided the daredevil antics of Anza and Jeremiah. Poocher floated without flapping his wings, as if he were some oversized black and white balloon. The pig didn’t look nervous, but he no longer looked as cocky as he had earlier now that they were hundreds of feet off the ground. Thorny was the only member of their group who looked frightened. His newly restored hands were held out stiffly to each side, as if he was balancing himself on unseen stair rails.
Shay said, “I flew here in about two hours. I think the wings could go faster, but the wind takes your breath away. Also, in daylight, it was easy to follow the Forge Road. You’ll probably need to fly slower so you won’t lose it.”
Poocher snorted. Shay looked at him, and saw the silver visor sitting on his snout. Shay could see in the dark with his visor; he supposed Poocher could too. He took the visor from his eyes and handed it to Burke. “Wear these. You won’t lose the road then. The others can follow you. And, you may as well have this too.” He loosened the long leather holster than held his shotgun and ammo. “It doesn’t sound like it’s going to be much more effective than a pea-shooter where I’m going.”
Burke took the visor and the gun. He’d given Thorny the shotgun he’d fled Dragon Forge with now that he had working fingers again, so the additional firepower was welcome. “You’re going to follow the others to Atlantis?”
Shay nodded, looking apologetic. “As much as I want to fight for Dragon Forge, my heart lies with Jandra. I’m afraid she’s still possessed by the goddess.”
“And what if she is?” said Burke. “How will you free her?”
Shay placed his hand on the hilt of the angel sword. “I don’t know if she can be freed. If she can’t, I have the only weapon that can hurt her.”
“Understood,” said Burke. “I’d make the same choice.”
Shay floated over to Thorny. He slipped his satchel off and said, “You’re a man who knows the importance of books. I found these in the kingdom of the goddess. They aren’t interesting reading on their own, but they provide a key to understanding a lot of the books that survived from the Human Age. Try not to let them get around any open flames, okay?”
Thorny took the bag. “When all this is over and you get back to Dragon Forge to start your school, count me in as one of the teachers.”
“Thanks,” said Shay. He looked at the barn down below. “I should go. You all have a revolution to save.”
“You’re a good man, Shay,” said Burke. “We won’t let you down.”
SHAY SWOOPED BACK toward the barn. Now that the sun had set, the night was biting cold, with a steady wind blowing from the north. Despite this, the streets were full of men, women, children, and earth-dragons dressed in white, crowding together, watching as he came to a gentle landing on the packed earth of the street.
Someone in the crowd said, “Our healer denies his divinity, but who else would be visited by angels?” There was a general murmur of agreement.
Shay knew nothing of Blasphet save that he was a mass murderer of both men and dragons. He didn’t like the idea that his presence might somehow be helping Blasphet’s reputation. For the moment, however, he had bigger things to worry about.
Within the barn, the underspace gate was still open. Jandra, Hex, and Bitterwood were gone, as was Jandra’s mentor, Vendevorex. Skitter, the long-wyrm, was now in the barn, his copper-scales reflecting the various hues of the rainbow. Zeeky sat alone upon his back, cross-legged, with a glass orb roughly the size of a baby’s head perched in her lap. The surface of the orb reflected the shimmering rainbow edges of the gate. Zeeky didn’t take her eyes off the orb as Shay walked toward her.
“We’re at the end,” she said. “After we go through the gate, I don’t know the future.”
Having lived his life so far without knowing the future, Shay didn’t feel as nervous as Zeeky sounded. He wondered how Skitter had slipped into the barn without him noticing. He must have been more preoccupied with getting Burke and the others on their way than he thought.
Zeeky said, “You know that Jazz is still in control of Jandra.”
“I know,” said Shay. “When she wasn’t coated in silver any more, I had a flicker of hope that Jandra was back, but knew it was too good to be true. But, I can’t just give up. Is there no way to save her?”
“I don’t have any idea. The villagers won’t tell me. They’ve stopped using words. All I hear are howls of rage. They want vengeance against the goddess.”
Shay grew closer. In addition to the rainbow reflected on the surface, there was a tiny rainbow floating inside the orb. When he’d first met Zeeky, he’d been skeptical of her claims that she could hear the voices of ghosts predicting the future. Now that he had wings and a flaming sword, he found it difficult to be skeptical of almost anything.
“I don’t understand how this works,” he said. “How can people be trapped inside this glass ball? Even if they are, how can they see anything other that what’s right here around us?”
“The ball looks solid,” said Zeeky. “But, it’s not, really. Touch it.”
Shay moved his hand toward the glassy surface. His fingers stopped as they encountered a pressure. It reminded him of the magnets that Chapelion had kept for study. Turned one direction, the magnets would pull toward one another. But, if you flipped one of the magnets and tried to force them together, they wouldn’t touch. Some unseen force held them apart. The orb produced a similar sensation on his finger tips.
“There’s a whole world inside this ball,” said Zeeky. “In underspace, people exist as pure thought, ghosts without bodies, forever looking out at the world. Past, present and future are all visible. The villagers tell me that, even though they don’t have bodies, the things they imagine become real inside the void. It’s like they’re gods, creating a new world with their minds.” She looked up at him. “Gods don’t like to be trapped. If they could get out, they’d punish Jazz.”
Shay looked at the gate to Atlantis. The black rip in reality yawned like an open mouth. “If they’re in underspace, can’t they get out through that portal?”
“No,” said Zeeky. “The goddess has trapped this sliver of underspace in the orb. It’s like a loop of space folded in on itself. Until this ball is broken, they can’t get out. Jazz said nothing on earth can hurt it.”
“Really?” asked Shay, his hand falling to the hilt of the angel sword. “Mind if I give it a try?”
Zeeky handed him the orb. “Be my guest.”
The ball was strangely heavy for something that wasn’t solid. He squeezed it with both hands; it was hard as stone. Shay sat the orb on the floor and pulled out his sword, willing it to burst into flames. Skitter jerked backwards as a hot wind washed across the room.
The white-robed women around the room stepped toward him, looking highly alert. Blasphet, who had been watching attentively, said, “Have a care. I’m committed to non-violence, but my followers are zealous in defending me.”
“Lucky for me I’m not planning to attack you,” Shay said, as he willed the blade to white hot intensity. Smoke rose from the frayed edges of his coat sleeve. The hilt of the sword protected his hand, but the air was so hot he could barely breathe. Gritting his teeth, he took a powerful swing at the orb.
The sword bounced off. Needles of pain shot up his wrist from the force of the blow.
Feeling dizzy from holding his breath, he lowered the heat of the blade back to a dull cherry red. The air swirled around him as the temperature dropped. He frowned as he looked down at the orb. The straw around it was burning, and there was a black, glassy gouge on the earth beside it where his sword had hit. The orb wasn’t even scratched.
He stamped out the straw, and then picked up the orb.
“That was my best shot,” he said. “Could Skitter bite it open?”
“I’m pretty sure he can’t,” said Zeeky. “And if he swallowed it, it might take weeks until it, um, came out.”
Shay nodded. “Maybe there’s something in Atlantis that can free them. I should go. I need to chase after Jandra and the others. I mean, Jazz and the others.”
“I’m coming with you,” said Zeeky, uncrossing her legs and taking on a more traditional mounted position astride her saddle. “Bitterwood is probably already fighting the Atlanteans. Let’s hope we find Jazz before they finish the job.”
“You’re right. Once she no longer needs Bitterwood and Hex, she’ll kill them.” He offered her the orb.
She shook her head. “This is the last part of the future they told me. They said you would carry them through the gate.”
Shay frowned. If the fortune-telling ghosts had seen that he would be taking them through the gate, had they seen Jazz possessing Jandra? If so, why hadn’t Zeeky warned him? All of this might have been avoided. But, he decided it was the wrong moment to confront Zeeky on this. He placed the orb into the last bag he carried, Jandra’s backpack, resting it on top of her coat. He ran his finger along the silky fabric. Though it was smudged with soot from their work digging up Jazz’s heart, it still had the smell of the crystal clear pool beneath the waterfall.
His heart caught in his throat at the memory.
He willed the sword to bright yellow flame once more and held it toward the portal. The void within the rainbow devoured the light, revealing nothing, not even shadows. He breathed in slowly through his nostrils, staring into the darkness. Even his bones felt cold, despite the heat of the sword.
Leaping into the unknown was the job of heroes. He was only a skinny former slave with an aching heart and unusually crisp handwriting. It was just as well he didn’t know the future. Closing his eyes, he leapt. The last thing he heard before the void swallowed him was Skitter clattering at his heels.
CHAPTER THIRTY
* * *
PARLOR TRICKS
HAVING BEEN THROUGH an underspace portal before, Hex was braced for the disturbing sensation of nothingness that enveloped him as he stepped into the gate. Blasphet’s description of death as feeling as if he was falling from his own body echoed the experience, though not fully. For the briefest flicker of time, Hex simply ceased to exist, and all his senses ended.
When he emerged on the other side, the first sense to return was touch. He stepped into air that was positively balmy. It was night; he stood in a well-manicured garden full of statues, male and female nudes of exquisite perfection, their skin and hair crafted from precious metals, gold and platinum and palladium. Bright pink and white flowers filled large terra-cotta pots, lending a sweet scent above the sea breeze that swirled gently around him. In the center of the garden was a fountain made of glass with a central spike taller than Hex. Water poured from a large golden disk atop the spike in an unbroken circle and fell in a shimmering column to the pool below. Goldfish that looked crafted from actual gold darted about in the softly lit pool.
Beside him, Bitterwood tilted his head upward, then higher, then higher still. They were surrounded by towers that rose until they vanished among the stars that shimmered in the cloudless sky.
When he looked down, he found Vendevorex and Jandra standing on the broad glass rim of the pool. She said, “Gentlemen, if you’re done gawking at the architecture, we need to get to work. The second I start construction of the antenna, the city mind will know something is happening. We need to get you ready for the fight.”
“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” said Bitterwood.
Jandra smirked. “Your thorn-tipped shafts aren’t going to scratch the guards here in Atlantis. You need an upgrade. Draw an arrow.”
Bitterwood frowned. Hex sensed that the hunter didn’t like being ordered around so brusquely. Bitterwood was here for the same reason he was; not to fight the city, but to stay close to Jandra. He was almost certain that Jazz was the controlling personality within her. That last sliver of almost was enough to keep him from lunging out and snapping her skull between his jaws while he still had the strength. On his empty stomach, he felt every muscle in his body trembling.
Bitterwood drew an arrow from his quiver and stared at the tip, perplexed. The shaft now ended in a tiny rainbow, with an almost invisible spot of black at the point.
“Now when you draw an arrow from the quiver, it will be capped with an electromagnetic field encompassing an underspace gate only a millimeter across,” Jandra explained. “This tip can carve through any matter it encounters and send it on a one way trip to the Mare Ingenii.”
“Where’s that?” asked Bitterwood.
“The far side of the moon. There’s a city there now. If you shot Hex with that arrow, some moon man would no doubt be mystified as to why a long spaghetti-shaped strip of dragon entrails had fallen on him.”
“Spaghetti?” asked Bitterwood.
“Moving on,” said Jandra, turning to Hex. “You’ve suffered brain damage. It’s slowing you down, and I don’t have time to fix it. Luckily, I have a sort of whole body crutch you’ll find useful.”
Hex shook his head. Jandra might be about to put underspace gates on the tips of his teeth, a prospect he found worrisome. “No thank you. I’ve fought with more severe injuries than this.” He hadn’t.
“This really isn’t a situation where you get to choose to accept my help or not,” said Jandra, casting her gaze toward the statues. Suddenly, the gold that coated them began to drip to the ground, exposing naked flesh beneath. Around the garden, men and women fell to their hands and knees gasping as the nanite shells that supported them flowed into a large golden river that snaked toward Hex. Hex flapped his wings and hopped backwards, avoiding the liquid metal.
He landed in an even larger pool of gold. Flecks of the cold metal splashed onto his belly and wings. Instantly, they began to slither and expand, coating his scales. He flicked his wings sharply to fling the metal off, to no avail. The gold crept upward. He craned his neck and held his breath as it reached his jaws. He instinctively closed his eyes as the liquid metal washed over his face. When he opened his eyes, he was completely encased in a flawless sheet of gold.
“Gold seems ill-suited for armor, daughter,” said Vendevorex. “It’s too soft, and too heavy to allow him to move freely.”
“Gold is merely an aesthetic component,” said Jandra. “The armor actually incorporates several different elements, including titanium. There aren’t many things that are going to be able to cut through it. The added weight is offset by the exoskeleton’s power, which will multiply Hex’s strength by a factor of ten.”
Hex spread his wings. She was telling the truth. He didn’t notice any additional weight. He still didn’t feel good, but he no longer felt as if he were about to collapse.
He looked around at the score of men and women who lay on the ground, groaning in agony. Some of the statues still stood, unaffected by Jandra’s spell.
“Were they prisoners of the shells?” he asked.
“No. The statue act is a kind of art. They stand out here for years at a time. Visitors to the garden try to figure out the real statues from the living ones. They’re like very, very, very slow and focused mimes.”
“Why are they in pain?”
“Severe nanite withdrawal,” said Jandra. “The city knows we’re here by the way. Heads up.”
Hex looked toward the sky. The stars were blotted out by an army of onrushing angels.
“Keep them out of my hair,” said Jandra. “I’ve got an antenna to build.”
BITTERWOOD KNEW he was being manipulated into this fight. He pondered Zeeky’s counsel that Jandra could be saved. He placed his new arrow against his bowstring. If the shafts were as powerful as Jazz said they were, would they slay even her?
Unfortunately, this wasn’t a moment for contemplation. A throng of marble angels swooped toward him. Despite their wings, they were objects explicitly out of place in the sky. They appeared carved from polished marble, too heavy to do anything but plummet.
If these creatures were like Gabriel or Hezekiah, the danger they represented through their sheer numbers made them more of a threat than the goddess for the moment. Yet, the angels weren’t bearing any obvious weapons. Their faces were placid, devoid of emotion. They looked as if they were here to investigate, not to fight.
Yet, against foes this powerful, the element of surprise was something Bitterwood couldn’t afford to lose. As so often happened in his battles, he would draw first blood . . . though he doubted they had blood. A rainbow-tipped arrow launched from his bowstring in a glowing streak, punching into the brow of the nearest angel. The winged statue lost control of its flight, its body wracked with spasms as it dropped, crashing onto the granite tiles that surrounded the fountain, sending a shower of gravel and dust skyward.
The other angels instantly halted their descent, their eyes narrowing as they turned their gaze to Bitterwood, assessing the threat. Bitterwood needed no time to think. A second arrow raced skyward, then a third, then a fourth, his bow singing a song of one-note staccato plucks. Three more angels dropped from the sky, silently, with no sign of pain on their faces. They crashed into the ground, shattering.
A strong wind suddenly swept over Bitterwood as Hex beat his wings, launching himself at the angels. They were only a hundred feet overhead, barely two body lengths for the giant dragon. They had no time to focus on him before he grabbed the first angel in his toothy jaws. He whipped his head about, tossing the angel into his nearest brethren. The wings of both shattered from the impact and they plummeted.
It had been almost twenty years since the first time Bitterwood had shot a sky-dragon in flight and watched it fall to earth. Watching the angels fall, he felt the same pulse of adrenaline wash through him. He didn’t know if he was on the right side in this battle. He didn’t know if Jazz was manipulating him into an act of unspeakable evil here in the city of gods.
Mere moments ago, all he had wanted was to save Jeremiah and take him and Zeeky far away, to a place where war was only a distant whisper, to live in peace as something almost a family. He had wanted to put his life as a killer behind him. Yet, as he watched his opponents fall from the sky, all these desires faded, washed away by the battle lust that surged through his veins. He targeted the next angel with a feeling approaching glee, and let his arrow fly.
JAZZ PAID NO ATTENTION to the throng of angels. Her experience with the two warriors at her back left her confident that the next sixty seconds would pass in relative quiet. She clapped her hands and the water falling into the pool trickled to a halt. The golden disk atop the fountain would make an excellent conductor for her transmitter.
She needed to concentrate. She allowed the shell of light that clung to her like her third skin to fade away, revealing her second skin, the silver genie that was affixed to Jandra’s pores. It had been an obvious mistake to wear her genie in such a compact form inside her old body. Balling it up like that had left it vulnerable to Gabriel’s sword. By spreading it out along the full surface of her new body, she had a greater chance that, should any part of it be damaged, the rest of it would survive. Her personality was still mostly located within the computer memory of the genie. Once all the excitement was over, she’d spend a few days relaxing on the beach, soaking up some sun, and rewiring the synapses of her new brain so that it would be truly her own.
Threads of silver shot from her fingers and wrapped around the glass spire at the center of the fountain, twining upward around it, sinking into the gold at the top, etching elaborate maps across its surface.
An angel crashed into the fountain on the other side and the glass rim shattered. The pool water surged out the new opening, leaving goldfish flopping about beneath her. She didn’t mind that she was about to kill or cripple six billion people, but she felt bad that the fish had to suffer.
She was vaguely aware that Vendevorex was standing right beside her. She was a little perplexed as to what she should do with him. He wasn’t part of her plan. If she’d killed him back in the barn, it would have made her Jandra act less convincing. On the other hand, Hex, Bitterwood, and all the others were recent acquaintances according to Jandra’s memories. They were easy to fool. Vendevorex had known Jandra her whole life. Was he buying her act? She’d called him by his full name earlier, which was a slip up. Jandra had a more affectionate term for him.
“Ven,” she said. “The key to talk to your nanites once the pulse is activated is 17351. It’s about twenty seconds in coming. Since you’re not doing anything in the meantime, could you save the goldfish?”
Vendevorex nodded. He swept his wing over the shattered pool with a dramatic flourish, sending out a shower of silver dust. The shards of glass began to dance, hopping and popping until they formed bowls around the gasping fish. He closed his fore-talon, and the water that clung to the bottom of the pool rose in a mist. He opened his talon, and the water poured down in precise rain clouds, filling the fishbowls.
If Jazz had known he’d complete the task so efficiently, she wouldn’t have shared the key. Not that it was important. Vendevorex might have been a wizard among more primitive minds, but he was little more frightening than a birthday party magician to her. He could push a few molecules around, bend a little light, and knit together a bad cut. Parlor tricks compared to the technology’s full potential. Jazz configured the last circuit.
“Omega,” she whispered, activating the signal. Instantly, the angels remaining in the air exploded into clouds of dust.
Seconds later, a howl that could have come from the depths of hell itself echoed through the city, as six billion souls that had felt the touch of a shared mind for a millennium suddenly found themselves alone with their own thoughts.
In the rain of dust, it was impossible to see more than ten feet. Hex and Bitterwood couldn’t see her right now. Jazz turned to Vendevorex. She twisted the electromagnetic field around her fingers as she once more opened the razor thin underspace gate that would form a rainbow blade. “Thanks for helping with the goldfish. Now, no hard feelings, I’m going to kill you.”
She slashed the blade across his throat. She waited, watching for his neck to slide from his shoulders. His eyes, rather than rolling back into his head, glared at her with a stern look of disapproval.
He said, with a voice unmarred by trachea severing, “You’ve taken something from my daughter. It’s time you give it back.”
The underspace blade was so sharp that perhaps the surface tension of the water in his cells was holding his neck. Jazz stretched her silver-plated fingers forward to give his head a nudge and knock it loose.
Her fingers passed through thin air.
Her feet were suddenly locked in place as the thick glass rim of the fountain began to climb up her legs. She went blind as twin phosphorous flares erupted inches from her face. A dragon’s fore-talon fell upon her shoulder from behind.
Parlor tricks.
FROM THE MOMENT she’d stepped from the rainbow gate, Vendevorex had suspected that Jazz was the mind animating the body of Jandra. When he’d come back into contact with his genie, he’d discovered something curious: Nearly a month of Jandra’s recent memories were stored within the device, recorded during the time Jandra had worn his genie. Jandra apparently hadn’t discovered this was a function of the device, since she hadn’t encoded her memories so that other users couldn’t access them. Thus, he knew in great detail the events of Jandra’s life from the moment she’d put on his skull cap to the moment that Hex had ripped the genie from Jandra’s spine. He knew who Jazz was, and the threat she represented.
He wondered if Jazz was aware of the threat he represented.
The ground beneath them rumbled as an earthquake wracked the island. He had no time to ponder the cause.
By now, the glass of the fountain had climbed to Jazz’s waist, immobilizing the lower half of her body. Jazz twisted her neck around, trying to see him, but it wouldn’t have mattered if she’d swiveled her head in a complete circle. With the flares before her eyes, she couldn’t see a thing. He fashioned a long staff of glass with a head in the shape of his fore-talon, and lowered it to her shoulder. As anticipated, she whipped her arm over her back, stabbing the rainbow blade into the space where he should have been standing in order to touch her. He dropped the staff and leapt forward, grabbing her wrist, pushing it against her back so that the impossibly sharp sword cut away a thin slice of the nanite shell along her spine, exposing Jandra’s skin.
He needed both his talons to control the blade as she struggled to free herself. He bent his serpentine neck forward and caught the torn edge of the silver shell with his teeth, peeling it out from her skin. Then, though it would cost him his powers, he willed his genie to reconfigure itself, turning into a stream of silver liquid that raced down his scaly snout and leapt onto the patch of skin he’d exposed.
Instantly, the flares vanished. He leapt back, flapping his wings, getting out of the reach of the blade. The glass around Jazz’s legs cracked and shattered, as Jazz overpowered his unguided nanites.
Jazz spun around, her face distorted with rage. “Flying won’t protect you, you bastard,” she snarled.
Before Vendevorex could fly higher, the glass of the shattered fountain reshaped itself into an enormous hand that reached up and plucked him from the sky. The fingers closed upon his ribs with an unearthly swiftness and pressure. The sound of snapping bones reached his ears a fraction of a second before the bolts of pain.
Suddenly, Jazz shouted out, “No! Noooo!”
The glass hand went slack. Vendevorex lost awareness as he tumbled into the flowers below.
SHAY FELT AN ODD SENSATION in his wings, a new sense he hadn’t known he possessed until this moment. There was an unseen wave of energy in the air as he emerged through the gate, and his wings tingled with each pulse.
His arrival was badly timed. He seemed to be in the middle of an earthquake. The air was thick with dust. The ground beneath him shook violently. Yet, instead of buildings toppling, the opposite was happening. A structure was rising from the earth nearby. He recognized it from the books he’d studied as a Greek temple, with walls formed by gleaming white columns of marble. In scale, it rivaled the Dragon Palace. Within its shadowy confines, a giant man, two hundred feet tall, glared out. He wore a shimmering toga and sported a thick white beard and a mane of long white hair. He carried a trident, like the image of the god Poseidon.
The god did not look happy.
Thunder rumbled through the air, loud enough to rattle Shay’s teeth. It took a second to realize the thunder formed words: “Who dares silence the voices of my children?”
A golden dragon that bore some resemblance to Hex darted through the air toward the god. In scale, it was like an eagle attacking a bear. The god lifted his hand in a dismissive swat. The golden beast flew off in a streak and smashed into one of the impossibly tall towers. The force drove the dragon through the wall. Shay couldn’t see if he emerged from the other side.
Skitter slithered from the gate beside him. Zeeky craned her neck toward the god’s angry face. She sighed. “I guess I’d better go talk to him.”
“Talk to who?” Shay asked.
“Him,” said Zeeky, pointing to the giant.
“Him?”
Zeeky nodded. “I can talk to pretty much anyone. It’s my gift.”
By now, the dust was starting to settle. Jazz stood beside a large spire topped with a golden disk. The granite-tiled walkway she stood on was sopping wet. For some reason, she was surrounded by hundreds of goldfish bowls.
Jazz looked as if she were dancing. Her skin was silver once more. She was whipping back and forth, her silver hair flying, raising her hands over her shoulders to claw at her back.
Shay rushed toward her and raised his sword to strike. Yet, as he neared, he realized Jazz wasn’t dancing. There was something moving beneath the silver shell that coated her back, and she was trying to claw it off.
“Get out!” Jazz screamed. Or was it Jandra?
Knowing he might forever regret his decision, he swung his angel sword. The flat of the blade smacked squarely across Jazz’s ear. The force of the blow tore the sword from his grasp and sent him spinning through the air.
When he stabilized, he turned to see the results of his blow. The silver-shelled woman stared at him. She didn’t look injured.
“Shay,” she said, in an utterly neutral tone. “Thanks for helping me focus.”
“Jandra?” he asked.
“Guess again,” she said. She turned her back to him and slammed her foot down onto the hilt of the flaming sword. In the center of her back there was a bulge. It looked almost like a woman’s face, crisscrossed with chains. Jazz looked up at the Atlantean god, who glowered down at her.
“To answer your earlier question,” she shouted to the giant, “I dare!”
The god shook his head slowly, as if pitying her. He crouched and reached toward Jazz with his impossibly huge hand.
“You no doubt thought I’d attempt to crack the jamming code of your signal,” the god said, his thunderous voice causing the flowers of the bushes to tremble. “A more elegant solution is simply to destroy your antenna.”
The god’s fingers closed upon the golden disk.
Instantly his fingers vanished, then his arm, then his torso and shoulders and head. Shay was again aware of a tremendous surge of energy in the air.
“Sucker,” said Jazz. “I knew you could still control the nanites you were in contact with, since you could transmit your commands through physical connections. Touching the disk gave me access to these physical connections. I’ve knocked you back to your core form. And now, I’m going to flush you.”
Shay had no idea what had happened, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t good. From his vantage point in the air, he could see into the giant temple. Where the god had stood, there was now a small, naked, white-haired boy, perhaps no older than five, slumped on the ground. He looked dazed.
Jazz suddenly appeared next to the boy, even though she also continued to stand by the fountain. The Jazz by the fountain looked down, as if the boy was standing right at her feet, and said, “Underspace gates have so many uses.” The boy looked up at the Jazz in the temple, a frightened look in his eyes. “Traveling to the moon in a blink is one. Disposing of unwanted gods in the reaches of interstellar space is another.”
She snapped her fingers. A perfectly circular rainbow appeared around the boots of the Jazz standing in the temple. A black pit opened beneath her, expanding outward. The white-haired boy opened his mouth as if he were screaming, but Shay couldn’t hear him. The boy tried to crawl away, but made little progress. The only sound coming from the temple was a terrible howl of wind. The circle expanded ever outward. Shay was tugged toward the temple by a sucking wind. The black circle was now fifty feet across, and stars shimmered in its depths.
The flowers in the courtyard beneath him all leaned in the direction of the yawning pit. The boy’s desperately grasping hands found no purchase on the marble. He splayed his body out, searching for any handhold, as his small form was dragged by the air rushing to the gaping void.
Shay ground his teeth and tilted toward the temple. The boy would reach the edge in mere seconds. Could he fly fast enough to save him?
Before he could find out, there was a flash of copper as Skitter raced up the steps at the side of the temple. Zeeky leaned down from her saddle, extending her hand. The boy’s legs tilted over the side of the space pit and he closed his hand around Zeeky’s.
The force ripped Zeeky from her saddle. Skitter slid to a halt on the polished marble floor, whipping his head around, snapping his mighty jaws shut on the back of Zeeky’s tunic as she, too, tilted over the edge of the space pit. Skitter’s claws left scratch marks in the marble as the wind caught him. The boy dangled from Zeeky’s grasp as she dangled from Skitter’s jaws.
“Oh, the suspense,” said Jazz, giggling.
Skitter’s first pair of claws slipped over the edge, then the second. There was a flutter of dark motion in the shadows at the rear of the temple. Shay’s heart leapt as he realized it was Bitterwood’s cloak. The archer was perched in a tree on the other side of the temple, his legs securely wrapped around a branch to resist the wind. He glared at the Jazz over the black pit.
He let an arrow fly.
It sliced straight through Jazz’s head and kept flying, burying itself to its leafy feathers in a marble column beyond.
The Jazz near the fishbowls winced. “Ooh, that would have stung. Good thing Ven wasn’t the only one who knew parlor tricks.”
The way Jazz turned her head as she spoke drew Shay’s eyes. She was looking at the fallen body of a sky-dragon who was tangled in the twisted branches of a thorny bush. He couldn’t tell if the dragon was breathing.
Jazz began to twitch.
“Calm down,” she growled.
The face on her back bulged out further, its mouth opening to scream, “Vennnn!”
Jazz closed her fists and clenched her jaw, concentrating to push pack Jandra’s ghost.
Shay was torn. Should he attack Jazz again? Last time, physical pain had helped her focus. He decided to rescue Zeeky. But when he looked back to the temple, he saw a long bright pink rope tied to the tree where Bitterwood had stood. The hunter himself was gone, but the rope stretched in a straight line to the edge of the pit, where Skitter had his claws wrapped around it. The giant beast had inched himself out of the void, dragging Zeeky, who still held the boy. They were only feet from the pit, and the wind was beating them mercilessly. Still, for the moment, they were safe.
A physical attack on the goddess hadn’t done him any good. Could an emotional appeal make a difference?
He dropped from the sky, coming to rest before Jazz, who had her eyes closed. The turmoil on her face was gone. She looked almost peaceful.
“Jandra,” said Shay, barely a yard from Jazz’s face.
Jazz opened one eye to glare at him.
“Remember Lizard,” said Shay.
Jazz fell to her knees as a howl rose from the face on her back.
HEX PICKED HIMSELF UP from the sandy beach where he’d come to rest. He was astonished to find he had no broken bones. There were scratches on his golden shell from his flight through the buildings, but no cuts or gouges. Just how tough was this armor?
He tried to flap his wings, but found he didn’t have the strength to lift into the air. The fault wasn’t his golden shell. He was still too weak from having had nothing to eat or drink. Jandra—or was it Jazz?—had said the shell would multiply his strength by ten. Unfortunately, ten times nothing was nothing.
He limped back into the city of towers. All around him, men and women in exotic hues wandered around, looking dazed. Many had simply collapsed where they stood, staring into the night sky, paralyzed by fear. He could hear the cries of men and women rising from unseen chambers beneath the earth as the lights of the city fell dark.
He came to a fountain. He lowered his jaws to drink, then halted, focused on the strangeness of seeing his countenance in gold. His green eyes weren’t coated by the metal. He opened his mouth. His teeth were covered, but the metal stopped just inside this gums. His tongue was unprotected, still purple and raw.
He didn’t care about the pain. He thrust his snout into the water and gulped until he’d had his fill. When he lifted his head once more, he heard a howling sound, like wind rushing through a cave. The flowers in the garden around him fluttered as the breeze picked up.
With his belly full of water, he felt even more sluggish than before. Yet, he couldn’t afford this weakness. He, more than anyone, was responsible for Jandra’s condition. This meant he, more than anyone, was now responsible for the fate of the world.
Digging into the deep reservoir of strength that only guilt can provide, he beat his golden wings and took to the air. Quickly, he gained his bearings. He could see the temple in the distance, though he couldn’t tell what was happening in its shadowy interior. As he weaved his way among the towers, he soon spotted the silver form of Jazz, down on her knees beside the shattered fountain. A winged man stood before her. One of the angels?
He dove closer and realized it was Shay. He was talking to Jazz. Jazz was shaking her head. Her silver shell was bubbling up on her back. What was happening? He had only seconds to decide on a course of action. He knew his strength would fail any moment.
Shay’s eyes grew wide as he saw Hex.
Jazz looked over her shoulder at him.
Hex made his decision. Just before his jaws clamped down onto Jazz’s silvery body, he realized that the bulge on her back looked a bit like a woman’s face.
He dug his teeth into Jazz with all his might. It sounded as if two voices screamed inside his mouth. He spread his wings to come to a halt before he crashed into the columns of the temple. He stumbled as he hit the ground. The wind at his back was like a hurricane. He tumbled and rolled, losing his grip on the silver woman. He bounced up the steps of the temple, pushed by the incredible wind. He dug his golden claws into the polished marble as he continued to slide. He craned his neck and saw Skitter struggling to keep from being pulled into an enormous black pit over which a second Jazz stood.
While his golden shell was stronger, and his claws were sharper, his metallic scales did lack one important quality: friction. Nothing he did halted his slide toward the void.
A sharp pain punched into his left wing. He came to a sudden and complete halt. He looked toward the source of the pain.
One of Bitterwood’s arrows jutted from his wing. Half the shaft was buried in the marble floor. The force that tugged on him would no doubt have torn his ordinary flesh, but the golden shell held firm against the arrow. He was pinned.
“Take her down!” Hex growled.
Somehow, even above the howl of wind, he suspected the Murder God heard his prayer.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
* * *
LOST CITY
THE SILVER-SHELLED WOMAN at the foot of the temple steps rose on wobbly legs. Deep, ugly puncture wounds seeped dark blood from both sides of her rib cage. Shay approached her carefully, having retrieved the angel sword. Yellow flames reflected on her metal cheeks as she stared at him with eyes full of murder.
“She killed Lizard,” said Shay.
The woman’s left eye twitched.
“N-nice t-try,” she said, wiping her silver lips with a bloodied hand. “But your f-friend’s attack put me back in the d-driver’s seat.”
“She killed Vendevorex,” said Shay, though he wasn’t certain this was true.
Jazz’s silver skin literally crawled as is it crept over her wounds.
“A-attacking me . . . only reinforces . . . the defensive programs in my genie.” She sounded winded. She grew more stable on her feet as she took a long, slow breath. “I’m the living embodiment of the concept that whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger. I’ve silenced Jandra forever. I’ve flushed Atlantis into orbit around Proxima Centauri. You can’t win this, Shay. Do you think they call me goddess because I have a fabulous body? This is my world now.”
Shay willed the flames of the angel sword even brighter. “You’ve been beaten before.”
“You want to sword fight?” Jazz giggled. A rainbow sword grew in her left hand. She planted her black boots in a fighting stance. “Let’s do this thing!”
Shay gripped his sword with a sweaty hand. He watched Jazz’s face intently. He had to know. “Remember Lizard!” he pleaded.
“I remember,” she said, as a smile played upon her lips. “His neck made the most satisfying snap when I twisted it.”
Shay lunged. The goddess leapt.
There was a flurry of motion that Shay found difficult to understand. He felt suddenly light-headed. He looked down. His sword was lying at his feet. His right hand was still wrapped around the hilt.
“You might be worse at this than anyone I’ve ever seen,” said Jazz.
Shay grabbed the stump of his wrist with his left hand, pinching off the blood flow.
“You might not have got the memo that my sword can cut through anything,” said Jazz, as Shay dropped to his knees. “Still want to fight?”
He shook his head mournfully. “I never wanted to fight you,” he said. He looked into Jazz’s eyes, into whatever tiny echo of Jandra remained, “I love you.”
Jazz’s left eye twitched shut. Her head twisted until it pressed against her shoulders. Her lips trembled as she whispered, “I love you too.”
Seconds later, she screamed, “ShutupshutupSHUTUP!”
“Nooooo!” a second voice howled from her back.
“If you like him so much, we’ll keep the head!” Jazz snarled. She lunged forward once more, swinging her rainbow sword in a powerful arc.
Shay fell backwards, pulling Jandra’s pack off his shoulder with his left hand. He let go as the sword sliced through the bag. He prayed it would slice open the impenetrable crystal ball within it. When the severed pack fell to the ground, the only thing to tumble out was Jandra’s blue silk coat.
Above the roar of wind came the howl of ghosts.
Jazz was plucked from her feet by an unseen hand and thrown into the temple. Shay clamped the severed veins of his wrist shut again and rose on wobbling legs to follow her.
Jazz bounced across the marble floor, sliding past Hex’s sprawling golden form. Her face and shoulders were no longer silver. The shell coating her skin was being peeled away by invisible fingers.
“Shay!” Jandra screamed as she was sucked toward the pit.
Shay didn’t need his hands to use the wings. He shot forward, letting go of his bloodied stump, reaching out with his left hand. Her right hand closed around it. He tried to lift off, but the wind was too strong and he felt too light-headed as even more of blood gushed from his wrist.
Jandra looked at him, fear and confusion in her eyes as they continued to slide toward the pit. Her feet went over the edge, then her body. He clamped onto her hand with all his dwindling strength as his arm and shoulder slid over the edge.
They suddenly halted. Shay felt pressure on the tip of his left wing. He looked and saw that Hex had snagged his wing with his hind-talon, piercing the metal feathers with a single golden claw.
The ghosts continued to howl around him, even louder than the wind.
Below him were stars. The cold within the pit was far worse than any winter. Jandra looked up at him. The silver skull cap that Vendevorex had worn had crawled onto her brow. She reached out and grabbed the stump of his right hand. There was a sizzling sound and the bleeding stopped.
The ghosts slowly fell silent. They’d had their chance to tear Jazz free from Jandra and banish her into the far reaches of space.
And they’d failed.
A silver-skinned woman, an exact duplicate of Jandra, had the metal nails of her left hand sunk deep into the flesh of Jandra’s calf. Her eyes were utterly empty. It was the hollow shell of Jazz’s genie, still clinging to her new body. She swung her right arm up and sank it into the flesh of Jandra’s thigh.
Tears welled in Jandra’s eyes as the goddess clawed further up her body. The hollow woman pulled the nails of her left hand free and swung them higher, sinking them into the dimples that sat at the base of Jandra’s spine.
Jandra screamed as the goddess advanced another foot.
“I’m sorry,” Jandra cried, as she let go of Shay’s stump. Her fingers loosened in his left hand. He squeezed with every fiber of muscle remaining to hold on to her.
“Let go!” she begged. “We can’t let her climb back!”
The shell’s hollow eyes gazed at Shay. Its lips curled into a smirk.
He turned away. He knew he would save the world if he let Jandra go. He knew that she was willing to make this sacrifice. But he couldn’t release her, and he couldn’t meet her gaze to let her know this.
He saw, as he glanced across the pit, that Skitter and Zeeky were safely out of the temple, clinging to the trees.
The goddess sank her claws into Jandra’s shoulders.
He couldn’t let the Goddess back into the world.
He couldn’t let go of Jandra.
His wings responded to his thoughts.
So he told the wings to let him go.
As the hyperfriction field between his shoulders shut off, he was sucked over the edge. A rough-knuckled hand brushed his neck as it closed around the collar of his coat.
A white-hot flaming sword thrust down, sinking to the hilt between the goddess’s empty eyes. The goddess hissed as her body began to twist and warp, distorted by the sun-like flame within her. Her hands pulled free of Jandra’s shoulders.
She fell the length of Jandra’s body, catching Jandra’s right boot with hands tipped with tentacles instead of fingers. She dangled there as she swung her arm to climb again.
Jandra kicked down with her left boot, planting the blow on the hilt of the sword, shattering what remained of Jazz’s face as the weapon sank deeper into the hollow of her body. The silvery tentacles loosened and Jazz tumbled free, limp and lifeless, trailing smoke.
As Jazz fell, her silvery form folded in on itself, looking less like a woman, and more like a heart pierced by a flaming sword. It fell, further and further, until the white hot flame of the sword dimmed in the thinning air. At last, the speck of her heart was lost in the yawning darkness.
Shay finally looked up. He was dangling in the grip of Bitterwood, who had a bright pink rope tied around his waist.
Jandra shouted above the wind, “Bant, as always, your timing is flawless.”
Shay pulled Jandra closer as some force pulled the rope upward. They were locked in an embrace when they passed back over the lip of the pit onto the marble floor.
“I don’t suppose you know how to close that hole, do you?” Bitterwood asked Jandra as they reached the marble pillar to which the other end of the rope was tied.
“Not a clue,” said Jandra.
They climbed down the temple steps. There was a disturbingly large pool of red fluid where Shay’s severed hand rested. Beside this was Jandra’s bag. Shay was now more dizzy than he’d ever been in his life. Jandra’s arm around him was the only thing keeping him on his feet. He dropped to his knees as they reached her bag.
He picked up Jandra’s coat. She was naked save for her boots and her silver skull cap. Silver, he thought, really wasn’t a good color on her.
“I kept this for you,” he whispered. But as he tried to hand the coat to her, he fainted, tumbling face first into the pool of his own blood.
JANDRA WASN’T WEARING her skull cap when his eyes opened again. Her hair looked freshly washed. She was dressed in a tight-fitting green velvet gown decorated with elaborate patterns of yellow lace. She smiled gently at him. It was mid-day, judging from the light.
“How long was I asleep?” he asked, raising his hands to rub his eyes. He stopped in mid rub. He opened his eyes and stared at two unscarred hands.
“You’re really good at this magic stuff,” he said.
She shook her head. “You can thank Vendevorex. I gave him back the skull cap. It had been his far longer than it had been mine. He’s much more experienced. I’m good with it, but he really is magic. He stitched your hand back on without any scars.”
Shay sat up. He was in a large bed with white cotton linens in a room with large open windows draped with sheer curtains that fluttered in the breeze. He could hear waves crashing in the distance. The air smelled of salt.
“I’m glad he wasn’t dead,” said Shay.
“Just banged up,” said Jandra. “I could never have escaped Jazz’s control if he hadn’t put my genie back in contact with my nervous system.” She leaned down and gave him a brief, soft kiss on his brow. “I definitely couldn’t have escaped if you hadn’t been there to fight for me.”
“Some angry ghosts helped,” said Shay. “Bitterwood also played a significant role.”
Jandra grinned slyly. “One day, when we tell our children this story, we can emphasize the parts that make you look good.”
“Our children?” Shay asked. “Are you . . . um. . . ?”
“No, silly,” she said, rolling her eyes. “But one day. You’re the first man who’s ever made me feel joyous that I’m human. You’re the one I want to spend my life with.”
“Are you certain?” he asked.
“You held on to me when I begged you to let me go,” she said. “Who else could there ever be?”
They started to kiss, but halted when someone nearby cleared his throat.
Vendevorex, Master of the Invisible, stood by the bed.
“I’m sorry to disturb you,” he said. “I wanted to check in on the patient.”
Shay held up his hand. “Good as new.” He stopped to feel his pulse. “I guess you found all my blood, too.”
“It was easier to grow new blood,” said Vendevorex. “Your marrow is quite healthy.”
“Didn’t you have a hole to outer space to close?” Jandra asked.
“Done,” said Vendevorex.
“You know how to open and close underspace gates?” asked Shay.
“Not yet,” said Vendevorex, shaking his head. “I do know how to reconfigure the molecules of the roof of a marble temple into a ball with a radius larger than that of the gate. It makes an efficient plug. The earth is no longer in immediate danger of having its atmosphere sucked into orbit around another star.”
“That’s good news,” said Shay, though he hadn’t realized that was a danger until just now.
“Weren’t you going to check on the boy that Zeeky rescued?”
Vendevorex tilted his head to the side. “Daughter, are you anxious to have me leave?”
She smirked. “Possibly.”
“I’ll go,” he said. “You can open the gift later.” The air shimmered and he disappeared.
“Is he gone?”
“I don’t know,” said Jandra. “He’s really good at this invisibility stuff.”
“I’m gone,” said Vendevorex from the hall.
“Now for that kiss,” said Jandra.
Shay leaned forward. But, as he closed his eyes he noticed a bright blue box sitting on the bed by his feet. It hadn’t been there a moment ago.
“Now what?” asked Jandra, her face only inches from his, looking perturbed that he wasn’t focused on her.
“That must be the gift he mentioned.”
Jandra picked up the box and lifted its lid. Inside was a silver skull cap, a duplicate of Vendevorex’s own.
“Do me a favor,” he said. “Change it to different color when you wear it. I don’t want to see silver against your skin for a long time.”
“Oh,” she said, lifting the hair at the back of her neck and twisting so he could see the upper part of her back. A strip of silver metal ran along her spine, into her hair, where it clung to her scalp like a three fingered claw. The silver turned to jade before his eyes. “Done,” she said.
“You’re already wearing a genie?” he asked, puzzled.
“Ven’s genie has always had the power to spawn new ones. He’s simply been cautious in sharing.”
“Then whose. . . ?”
Jandra lifted the skullcap from the box. “It’s your genie, Shay.”
Shay took the skullcap, staring at his reflection. His hair was a hopeless mess.
There was a note in the box. “Thank you for saving my daughter,” it read. “Study hard in case you need to do so again.”
“He has nice penmanship,” said Shay. He shook his head. “I adjusted to the wings, but I don’t know if I’m ready to learn magic.”
Jandra took the skullcap from his hands and set it back in the box.
“Learning magic can wait,” she whispered. “Making magic is the order of the moment.”
Her lips brushed against his. He closed his eyes.
And then there was magic.
VENDEVOREX FLOATED DOWN to the fishbowl garden. The fish, he noted, were still doing well. Jazz’s antenna was dismantled, spread on the ground before the young boy who studied the pieces with ancient eyes. He was dressed in a white toga torn from the scraps of a larger garment.
Zeeky sat near him on the lip of a large flowerpot. Skitter foraged at a nearby tree, ravenously devouring the ripe avocados that weighed down the branches.
The boy looked up as Vendevorex’s shadow fell over him.
“The jamming signal is gone,” said Vendevorex.
“Yes,” said the boy.
“But you still can’t communicate with the nanites that populate the city?”
“No,” said the boy. He looked toward the towering spires. “I can no longer hear the voices of my children.” He looked back at the dismantled antennae. “I don’t know how she managed it, but she’s locked the parts of my mind that would let me talk to all the pieces of myself.”
“What are you?” Vendevorex asked.
The boy smiled. “I’m Atlantis, of course.”
Zeeky shook her head. “He knows who you are. He’s asking what you are.” Vendevorex looked at the girl. She shrugged. “I’m good at understanding what folks are really talking about.”
Atlantis swept his hands across the garden, toward the spires, then gazed toward the ocean. “I am all that you see. I am the city.”
“Again,” said Vendevorex. “I’m aware of that. Cassie told me you weren’t from earth.”
“Not from this earth,” said Atlantis.
“That’s an odd word to emphasize.”
“There a many, many earths. More are created with every tick of the clock. Underspace is the medium in which these infinite earths float, each existing in a slightly different space than the others. You can’t be blamed for not knowing. The earths are separated by dimensional membranes. Under ordinary circumstances, the only evidence of the other universes is their gravitational bleed. They create the illusion that there’s far more matter in a universe than there truly is.”
“I take it that these dimensional membranes can be crossed,” said Vendevorex.
“Yes. The technology of this earth would have required eons to develop it, however. I come from an earth where the dinosaurs never died. They evolved into a tool-using civilization fifty million years before the clever apes of this world learned to master fire.”
“You don’t look like a highly advanced dinosaur,” said Vendevorex.
“No,” said Atlantis. “I arrived here as a seed. A tiny nugget of intelligence wrapped in a shell of nanites, programmed to serve the race of beings that had designed me, colonizers of other realities. I didn’t find the race I was programmed to serve, however. Instead, the first intelligent being I encountered was a human. I sampled his genetic code and constructed this body in his image. I gleaned the myth of Atlantis from his memories. I was programmed to serve others in perfect altruism, providing for every need. So I allowed the children of this world to share in the bounty of my abilities.”
“I’m not certain that your children have thrived under your guidance,” said Vendevorex.
The boy’s forehead wrinkled. “How can you say they haven’t thrived? They’re immortal, or at least they were. They had no reason to fear hunger or thirst or heat or cold, until I was crippled by the goddess.”
“The fact that you have a city of six billion people who’ve forgotten how to feed themselves, or sew a garment, or start a fire, is rather convincing evidence that you’ve done your children a disservice.”
Atlantis frowned. “It’s all I know how to do. It’s true, perhaps, that unlimited altruism has not been as successful an advancement strategy for humans as it was for the quinveris.”
“The quinveris?”
“The race that long ago created my kind. You know them as earth-dragons.”
Vendevorex was puzzled by this revelation. Earth-dragons could, plausibly, be evolved dinosaurs. They definitely weren’t part of the genetically engineered lineage that had produced sky-dragons and earth-dragons. But, as a race, they hardly seemed advanced enough to create the miraculous technology Atlantis commanded. However, if the quinveris had relied on this technology for millions of years, was it possible that their minds had devolved? Were they near-sighted, cannibalistic dullards when stripped of their technology?
“There are earth-dragons on the planet now,” said Vendevorex. “Why didn’t you assist them instead of humans?”
“Because they weren’t here when I arrived. I was drawn to this world by a false signal. I arrived at the correct place, but almost a century earlier than my coordinates indicated. I didn’t know this; I thought I’d arrived on the wrong world, with no way of turning back. By the time the quinveris colonizers arrived, I was already imprinted on humanity.”
Vendevorex shook his head. As clever as he was, he couldn’t begin to fathom time travel. “How is it possible to arrive a hundred years ahead of schedule?”
The boy’s white toga slipped on his shoulder as he shrugged. “I got lost.”
“He’s the lost city of Atlantis,” said Zeeky.
Vendevorex knew the girl had said the words innocently. She didn’t possess the cultural background to understand the joke. Vendevorex turned and said, “I’ll leave you to your work.”
“Thank you,” said Atlantis.
He walked away. Zeeky hopped down from the planter and followed him. When they were far out of the range of the boy’s hearing, she whispered, “You’re figuring out if you should kill him.”
Vendevorex looked down at the strange little blonde girl. As Shay was recovering, Jandra had filled him in somewhat on the powers of perception that had resulted from the goddess’s genetic engineering.
“This is a curious notion,” he said.
“You’re afraid of what might happen if he gets his powers back. You think mankind—and dragonkind—are going to be better off without him. You already know how to use his tools. You think you can teach folks to use these tools in a less dangerous way.”
Vendevorex stopped. “You know a lot for a girl whose main claim to fame up to now was an ability to talk to pigs.”
“I was born with some gifts,” she said. “When I was a captive, Jazz gave me others.” She bit her lip after she said that. “Don’t tell Jandra. She’ll be worried.”
“Should she be worried?”
“No,” said Zeeky. “Jazz was a bad woman. I’m a nice girl.”
“I see. As a nice girl, tell me your opinion. Should I kill Atlantis?”
“Could you?” she asked.
He clenched his jaw and took a long breath. He knew she wasn’t asking if he had the ability. She was asking if he had the coolness of thought to take the life of a being who had reverted, in appearance at least, to a five-year-old child.
“Yes,” he said.
“Will you try to help the people here with their new lives?”
“Of course.”
“Bitterwood wouldn’t,” she said.
“Did you have this talk with him?”
“No. I don’t want him to have to make this kind of choice. He’s been nice to me. He’s really brave. But I’ve watched his face when he’s sleeping. He doesn’t need any more bad dreams.”
“You should go find him now,” said Vendevorex. “I have other matters to attend to.”
“I don’t think you do,” she said.
He stared at her.
“You don’t have to go back,” she said.
“We both know what’s at stake,” he said.
“You don’t need to do anything,” she said.
“If I don’t, who will?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know.” She shook her head slowly and started to walk again, with her hands clasped behind her back. “All I know is, if you don’t watch a long-wyrm every minute, it’s likely to eat just about anything.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
* * *
MORNING MEDICINE
ANZA LED THE WAY as they came in low and fast from the east, the rising sun at their backs. Burke watched her with pride as she moved confidently through the air like some mythic creature.
Burke followed closely behind his daughter with Vance and Jeremiah flanking him. Far behind, almost hidden against the brightening horizon, Poocher and Thorny were mere specks. Burke didn’t care about leaving the pig behind, but felt bad for Thorny, who complained that when they flew too fast he couldn’t breathe. The flight that Shay had made in two hours had taken them all night. Still, that was far swifter than Burke had imagined possible.
Dragon Forge lay before them, the rust-mound surrounding it glittering beneath a sheen of morning frost. The trees beneath them were stunted parodies of healthy forests. Burke wondered if they suffered from a lack of light due to the brown clouds that normally hung over the area, or if trees no more enjoyed breathing smoke than men did. If he continued to run the foundry after this morning, he’d already thought of several improvements to the furnaces and smokestacks that would allow them to operate more efficiently. His intent was to make the atmosphere within the fort healthier; perhaps the forest would enjoy the benefit as well.
A mile from the town, they passed over the ring of encamped dragons enforcing the blockade. Several catapults had been brought into range. He wondered why Ragnar hadn’t used the cannons to discourage this. The big guns had a far greater range than any catapult.
Below, a few bleary-eyed earth-dragons stood near a blue silk tent. He recognized the tent style as the work of the valkyries. The earth-dragons looked up, squinting, shielding their eyes as if trying to make sense of what they were seeing. He wasn’t terribly worried. Earth-dragons were notoriously near-sighted. They probably would be mistaken for sky-dragons.
With the wind in his ears, Burke barely heard their shouts. He grimaced. Perhaps they hadn’t been mistaken for sky-dragons. He saw the flap of a tent flutter open and a lone valkyrie poke her head out, craning her neck skyward. She looked only half awake, but alert enough to have thought to have put on her helmet.
Suddenly, the valkyrie’s eyes popped open.
He hoped that Thorny and Poocher would be okay if the sky-dragon managed to summon her sisters to the air, but there was no time to slow down. The walls of the fortress were approaching fast. He scanned the battlements, looking for any sign that the sky-wall archers had seen them. He looked again, his heart sinking. No archers had seen him because none were on the walls. No living man could be seen anywhere within the city.
The same could not be said of dead ones.
As the walls flashed beneath them, he saw a severed human head in a state of advanced decay sitting on the wooden walkway inside the battlement, gazing up with crow-plucked eyes. All around the roof tops were other remains, legs and arms and torsos, along with whole bodies wedged up against chimneys or dangling limply from rain gutters.
His first instinct was that they were too late. The rebels had already been slaughtered. Logic kicked in and he understood what the catapults had been used for. The rain of corpses had been meant to soften up the rebels for an attack yet to come.
Again, he wondered why the cannons hadn’t been used. Even before he left, the big guns had been rolling off the production line. By now, the construction needed to mount them on the walls should have been completed. Had Ragnar not read any of his battle plans?
Anza tilted her feet down, her long braid trailing behind her as she dropped toward the broad lip of the well at the center of town. She seemed to be going too fast, but in the final seconds her speed dropped as if a net had caught her, and she lighted on the stone rim as gently as a fallen leaf. Burke hadn’t told her of the fate Shanna had suffered at the well, and the well made an inviting target for landing, given its central location and the way it rose up like a stage from the packed earth surrounding it.
Vance and Jeremiah landed beside her. Burke drifted down and then stopped, hovering above the center of the well. He nearly gagged at a human ribcage caught in the bucket that dangled a few yards down the shaft. Rats crawled over the tatters of its desiccated flesh. He hoped a lucky shot had placed it there. They were in trouble if the dragons possessed catapult marksmen capable of intentionally scoring a bulls-eye on the well. He didn’t point it out to the others, who were looking around the city. There were more than enough horrors to gaze upon.
“Why hasn’t anybody pulled those corpses from the roofs?” Vance asked, as he looked around the abandoned streets. “Where is everyone?”
Burke held the shotgun Shay had given him over his head. “Let’s find out,” he said, pulling the trigger. The bang echoed through the empty streets.
Seconds later, a few guards appeared along the city’s walls. Had they been sleeping? He counted only seven. This, compared to the hundreds that should be at their posts.
Up and down the street doors creaked open. Shadowy faces with wide eyes peeked out. Slowly, voices began to call back and forth.
“Burke!” someone yelled.
“Burke,” others echoed.
“Burke’s ghost!” a voice shouted.
Burke grimaced. Convincing men he wasn’t dead while floating a yard above the well could be tricky. But he still wasn’t planning to land. He patiently reloaded the shotgun. Anza folded her wings back into the disk and drew her tomahawks. She stood in a stance that was both relaxed and impatient. Men began to cautiously step into the streets.
Vance followed her lead. He folded up his wings and drew his sky-wall bow, placing an arrow against the string and waiting, watching. Beside him Jeremiah drew Vulpine’s knife, but kept his wings spread wide.
A moment behind them, Poocher and Thorny drifted down from the sky. Poocher let out a small grunt; all four of his cleft hooves touched the rim of his well at once. He stood next to Jeremiah. The pig also left his wings open. Burke wondered if he knew how to close them.
Thorny folded his wings in while his feet were still a foot above the well. He let out a loud “oof” as he landed. He looked up at Burke and said, “I’m your friend, and I’d die for you, but I’ll be damned if I’m ever going to fly for you again. I’m giving my wings to Bitterwood next chance I get.”
“I don’t think he needs them,” said Burke as he finished loading the shotgun.
“No man needs these things,” Thorny grumbled.
“Is it my imagination, or are you in a bad mood?”
“I feel like a cranky baby. Sixty is too old to be teething again.” To show what he meant, he pulled back his lips and revealed his gums. Where once there had been more gaps than teeth, there were now freshly minted chompers, ten times whiter than the old teeth that surrounded them.
By now, the square around the well was filling. The crowd was full of men shouting Burke’s name—not cheering him, or greeting him: merely announcing his presence to others.
Burke looked down the avenue to the red brick house at the end.
He clenched his jaw as the door opened.
VULPINE WAS IN THE HABIT of waking at dawn. In the quietness of the morning, he pondered the words he’d said to Balikan only a few weeks before. The world was in no danger of running out of days, or years. Yet, Vulpine was keenly aware that he was not the world. His body possessed a sluggishness in the chill of the morning that reminded him that his youth had long since vanished.
His kettle whistled upon the small oil burner. He picked it up, welcoming the warmth of the wire handle in his stiff fore-talon. He poured the oily brown contents into a tin cup. He sniffed it, savoring the complex sharpness of the odor. The soup was a mix of shaved barks, roots, and organs. The bark of the willow tree was especially bitter, but there was no questioning that it soothed the aching of his muscles. The root of the sassafras offset the bitterness somewhat with a medicinal tang and a touch of sweetness that prodded his thoughts into clarity on cool mornings. Alligator testicles, dried and powdered, ensured his continued virility and gave the whole mix a musky bouquet and salty aftertaste.
He crouched by a low table and sipped his morning medicine, reading the letter that had been delivered yesterday by Chapelion’s messengers. He ground his teeth at Chapelion’s incompetence. More of the aerial guard had abandoned the palace. Some new charismatic prophet had apparently established a base in the Free City and was drawing a following of both humans and dragons. Worse, Cragg, the beastialist who had inherited Rorg’s abode, had announced that his tribe was seceding from the rest of the kingdom. There were reports that Verteniel, who oversaw the coastal abode that included the Isle of Horses, was prepared to do the same. This had always been the true danger of the empty throne—not that the other sun-dragons would try to conquer the kingdom, but that they would simply decide they could manage the affairs of their own small fiefdoms better without the interference of a king.
Faced with all this bad news, he welcomed the interruption when Sagen pushed aside the flap to his tent.
“Sir? May I speak with you?”
“Please come in,” said Vulpine. He motioned toward the kettle. “May I offer you a cup of my daily elixir?”
Sagen’s nose wrinkled as he contemplated the oily fluid.
“I promise it grows on you,” said Vulpine.
“Breakfast can wait. I was awakened with news only moments ago. I felt it was important that I consult with you at once. There’s been . . . activity . . . at Dragon Forge,” said Sagen, sounding hesitant in his choice of words.
“So they’ve poked their heads out again after yesterday’s bombardment?”
The skin around Sagen’s eyes bunched up as if he were pondering how to say his next sentence. “There are reports that the blockade has been breached, sir.”
Vulpine sighed. “Let me guess. The earth-dragons got so twisted on goom they fell asleep at their posts and let more refugees into the fort.”
“No sir,” said Sagen. “It was breached by the air. By angels.”
Vulpine tilted his head, not quite certain he’d heard this correctly. “Angels,” Vulpine said calmly. “Men with wings.”
Sagen nodded. “And a pig.”
“A pig?”
“Yes sir.”
“With wings?”
“Yes sir.”
Vulpine closed his eyes and rubbed his brow with his fore-talon. His scales felt especially dry this morning. Sagen, as a product of his bloodline, was designed to be among the most sane and intelligent dragons who’d ever flown above the earth. He was certain his son wasn’t deranged. So, angels. And why not? He’d never believed in their reality, but the Ballad of Belpantheron spoke of them, and there had reportedly been an angel who'd come to the defense of the Nest during the recent nastiness with Blasphet. Perhaps that angel still lingered in the area, along with a friend or two.
“How many?” he asked, opening his eyes.
“Counting the pig?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“Six. The pig, a woman, and four men, ranging in age from a boy to a wizened old man.”
Vulpine took a sip of the hot elixir. He swished it around on his tongue for a moment, allowing the heat in his mouth a few extra seconds to warm his brain.
“Who reported the sighting?”
“Arifiel.”
“Ah,” said Vulpine. He didn’t especially like the female, but she’d shown no tendency toward exaggeration or fantasy.
“Her sighting was confirmed by a score of earth-dragons, though given the weakness of their vision I’m not certain we can give much credence there.”
“The word of Arifiel is enough,” Vulpine said. “It’s an odd development, I’ll grant you, but we’ll manage it. I’m familiar enough with human mythology to know they associate angels with death. Perhaps they’re harbingers that the end is near.”
“Is the end near, sir?” asked Sagen. “Many of the guard have noticed the lack of activity within the fort in recent days. The walls are practically undefended. We could be at the town center within minutes. Why must we tarry?”
Vulpine started to mention the wheeled-bows and the guns as good reasons, but held his tongue. He looked at the correspondence before him. Had he miscalculated the greater danger? He thought he was keeping chaos from spreading by containing Dragon Forge. But what if, by focusing on the few square miles of earth within the circle of the blockade, he was ignoring the greater danger at his back? What if they won Dragon Forge, but lost the kingdom?
“Summon Arifiel and Sawface,” said Vulpine. “Let us hold a council of war.”
“Why Sawface? You know his opinion. He will want to charge the walls of the city and rip the limbs from every living thing he encounters.”
“True,” said Vulpine. “And I’m intrigued to see if I can find any reason to argue against his doing so. Have them here in five minutes. I’m going to take a quick flight to survey the area.”
Vulpine sat his tin cup onto the table, gazing at the gray and brown dregs at the bottom. His medicine looked no better than it tasted.
A CROWD OF AT LEAST a thousand men surrounded the well, their eyes fixed upon Burke. Most had rags covering their mouths and noses. The stench of rot and sewage grew as the morning sun climbed above the eastern wall. Steam rose from the skin of a corpse on a nearby roof.
No one said a word. Ragnar, prophet of the lord, was approaching.
Ragnar looked particularly wild this morning. His mane of black hair and chest-length beard clung to his leathery skin in oily, tangled locks. He carried the cross he’d had welded together from swords before him in both hands. The whites of the prophet’s eyes glowed in the dark shadows beneath his bushy brow.
The crowd parted as Ragnar stalked forward. Behind him was Stonewall, also armed. He carried a mace and a heavy steel shield that Burke recognized instantly. It was one of the armored plates from the Angry Beetle. The giant wore a vest of chainmail and a steel helmet that covered most of his skull, but left his eyes and mouth exposed. Burke expected to see hate in Stonewall’s eyes after their rather abrupt parting of ways. Instead, Stonewall looked more worried than vengeful.
Behind Ragnar were two more Mighty Men, Joab and Adino. They, too, wore chainmail vests and helmets, but carried flintlock shotguns. Burke felt a mixture of pride and consternation when he realized that the guns were both double-barreled and incorporated the back loading design he’d created for the Angry Beetle’s weaponry. This meant someone had found and decoded his notes, or else extrapolated cleverly from the plans he’d already shared. His pride came not because the weapons were ones he’d designed, but from the realization that he wasn’t the only smart man in the fort. These rebels who surrounded him were good men, brave, and clever. It would be an honor to die by their side in battle.
Of course, dying by their side had never worried him. Dying at their hands was what kept him awake at night.
The crowd drew back even further as Ragnar marched within a yard of the well. He glared up at Burke, studying him closely. The prophet’s beefy hands squeezed tightly around the cross.
A thick vein beside the prophet’s left eyebrow pulsed strongly enough that Burke could count the big man’s heartbeats. Ragnar’s mouth opened. Burke braced himself, certain that he was about to be condemned as a witch or a devil.
Instead, the prophet asked in a voice that was little more than a whisper, “Are you dead?”
Thorny glanced up at Burke, his eyebrows raised. The question had taken him by surprise as well.
Before Burke could answer, Ragnar continued, eying Jeremiah. “This was the boy sick with yellow-mouth.”
Jeremiah nodded. “I’m not sick anymore,” he said.
The hairy man studied Vance’s face, then Thorny’s.
“These were the men who fled town,” he said, quietly. “You perished in the explosion.”
Now Jeremiah, Vance, and even Poocher were looking to Burke to see what he would say next. Only Anza didn’t look at him; she kept her eyes fixed firmly on the Mighty Men with the guns. For the moment, Burke felt bulletproof.
He shook his head. “We aren’t dead,” he said, firmly, making certain the crowd heard his words. “I know I could play upon your superstitions and claim we’re specters, or angels. I could claim it was God who healed our wounds and gave us wings of silver. But these are all lies. I’m a man who values truth.
“Our presence here has nothing to do with gods or magic. The wings that hold me in the air are machines, better machines than I know how to build. Jeremiah’s yellow-mouth was fixed by machines, tiny ones, smaller than I can design. Vance can see because of them; Anza can talk. Thorny had lost most of his teeth over the years. Smile for the crowd, Thorny.” Thorny gave a broad grin to the men who stood before him, displaying his restored choppers.
Ragnar’s face twisted into a snarl. “Witchcraft explains all these things.”
“Witchcraft explains a lot of things,” said Burke, again speaking loudly enough for the crowd to hear. “It can explain how black powder ignites and pushes lead balls from an iron tube. You can explain how fire changes some rocks into metals by chalking it up as magic. And if you need to understand why crops sometimes fail, or why some men die in battle and others don’t, or why plague besieges a city, it doesn’t take a lot of thought. You can explain it all as the will of God.”
He swept his gaze across the crowd, at the countless eyes fixed upon him. “All of these explanations have one thing in common,” he said. “They’re wrong.”
“Blasphemer!” Ragnar barked. His knuckles turned white as he gripped his cross more tightly. He looked coiled to spring.
Anza shifted her stance, maintaining her look of casual readiness. Ragnar glared at her. “I do not fear your daughter,” the prophet growled.
Joab and Adino lifted their guns to their shoulders, taking aim. Burke crossed his arms and patiently waited for Ragnar to make his move.
The prophet’s eyes smoldered like droplets of molten steel. “Fly away,” Ragnar said. “You are five against thousands.”
Burke wondered who he wasn’t counting. The pig? Jeremiah? It was time to find out if the prophet’s math was fundamentally flawed.
“Perhaps it’s the four of you against thousands,” said Burke.
The prophet’s mouth twitched.
Burked looked at the crowd. “I’m not here to take command of this fort by violence. I didn’t come here for revenge against Ragnar, or to inspire you with wonderful words of how your struggle is part of God’s plan. I’m here to offer to lead you in a struggle that’s far more selfish in nature. I want to one day plant a garden on land I’ve plowed without some dragon king claiming the harvest. I want my grandchildren to live in a world where they won’t be sold as slaves or hunted as prey. I want freedom. I’m willing to die by your side to earn it.”
Ragnar looked at the crowd. His voice boomed like thunder: “Do not listen to this devil! Freedom is not the cause! We do not make war for land or riches! We fight for a greater glory! We are created in God’s image, and the wrath of God is great and righteous! We struggle against serpents! We are the light in a world of darkness! Together, we will drive the dragons into the sea! Remember the Free City! Remember the Free City!”
As always, the utterance of these words was followed immediately by their repetition. Yet, it wasn’t the crowd that cried out the words: it was the echo of Ragnar’s own voice bouncing from the stone wall of the foundry behind Burke.
The crowd was silent. Some men watched Ragnar carefully, even fearfully. Some looked at Burke with the same fearful eyes. Others looked at the ground, as if they wished they were someplace else.
“You heard the man. He offers you wrath. He offers you a holy struggle. He offers you the promise of a wise and knowing God who will bring you victory in battle.” Burke slowly shook his head. “If you follow me, no higher power will guide us. If we have a hope of winning, it will be because we go to war with better weapons and better tactics than our enemies. I was miserly with my knowledge before. Now, I vow to teach all I know to anyone who listens. I cannot offer you a god. I can only give you machines. The choice is yours.”
“This isn’t a democracy!” Ragnar snapped.
Stonewall placed his hand on the prophet’s hairy shoulder. The holy man jerked his head toward his bodyguard. “Respectfully, sir,” said Stonewall, his voice calm, almost gentle, “why isn’t it?”
VULPINE HIMSELF had surveyed the fort and witnessed the winged men who stood near the well. He even spotted the pig. Though he kept his distance, he was certain the boy with wings was Jeremiah. He didn’t know what to make of this. The timing was right; the boy could be dead by now. But he wasn’t quite ready to accept the validity of human mythology regarding the afterlife. He was certain there was a logical explanation for the newcomers’ wings. He was confident he could solve the mystery if he could examine their corpses.
It looked as if the entire population of the rebels had massed around the central square. They were, he thought, a wretched looking lot, standing around with hunched shoulders and sagging heads. No doubt few men wanted to look up when the roofs were thick with corpses.
Thus, when the council of war was called, there was little time wasted in debate.
These men were bent. It was time to break them.
He stood by Sagen at the northern catapults as the sun inched higher in the sky. There was a pile of human bodies in various stages of decay nearby. The smell should have been horrible; save for buzzards and insects, there were no beasts that found the stench of rotten flesh appealing. Yet, Vulpine had been in the presence of so many corpses over the years, he was surprised to find that he barely noticed the odor. It was like the restorative tea he drank each morning; he’d grown so accustomed to the scent he sometimes forgot that others might find it unpleasant.
Beside the corpse pile was a larger heap of rusted scrap metal, salvaged from the gleaner mounds. Vulpine went to this mound and picked up a short shaft of iron about an inch in diameter. He couldn’t begin to guess its former purpose. No matter. It was shrapnel now.
“Have you ever thought much about the year?” asked Vulpine. Sagen looked bewildered by the question. “Why do we number the years as we do? The earth is incomprehensibly older than eleven centuries. Do you ever contemplate the empires that rose and fell and vanished with barely a trace?”
“Occasionally, sir.”
Vulpine dropped the scrap of iron and picked up a much bigger, heavier piece. It was an open box with rounded corners, mostly white, about two feet wide and a foot deep; the steel at its core was coated by a thin glaze of ceramic to protect it from rust. The glaze had failed. There was a hole in the bottom he could have stuck his snout through, and bubbles along the rim showed that the iron beneath the glaze had succumbed to rust in numerous spots. Still, it was a hefty object, mostly intact despite having been buried in the ground for centuries.
“The archeologists at the College of Spires would weep if they saw what we were about to do to these treasures,” he said.
Sagen shrugged. “They strike me more as trash than treasure.”
“They read trash as if it were a book.” He rotated the white box in his hands. It weighed at least twenty pounds. The glaze on the interior had been crafted with greater care than the glaze on the outside. “No doubt, they would unravel the function this object served, long ago.”
“I heard two of the guards debating this very artifact, sir,” said Sagen. “They concluded it was a sink.”
“Hmm,” said Sagen, tossing the object back onto the pile. “That seems plausible. All that matters, I suppose, is that it will leave a nice dent in the skull of anyone it hits.”
“I think a human would need an especially thick skull to only suffer a dent,” said Sagen.
Vulpine looked across the rolling hills, over the jagged ravines carved into the red clay by erosion, to the fort beyond. “I want every scrap to land in the square. They’re packed in so thick we’ll kill half of them with our initial salvo. Sawface and his Wasters are ready to lead the charge. Let’s finish this. We had breakfast in our tents. We’ll cook our lunch in the furnaces of the foundry.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
* * *
FREEFALL
BEFORE BURKE COULD SAY another word, Ragnar gripped the cross of swords with both hands and swung it with an angry grunt. Stonewall lifted his heavy steel shield to catch the blow with a loud CLANG.
Stonewall looked anguished as he gazed into the prophet’s eyes. “Sir, I don’t want to hurt you,” the giant man said.
The wild-haired prophet released an incoherent cry of rage, spinning around, clearing a broad circle as men jumped back to avoid the arc traced by the sharp-edged cross.
The giant raised his mace and blocked the weapon again.
Anza glanced at Burke. Burke nodded. She leapt from the wall, raising her sword overhead as she dove at Ragnar’s back.
A fraction of a second before she reached him, a large rusty cylinder that Burke recognized as the piston of an ancient engine flashed down from the sky and caught Anza on her left shoulder. The blow spun her in the air. Her sword flew from her grasp as she crashed into the center of Ragnar’s back.
The broad-shouldered prophet barely flinched from the impact.
An instant later, the entire crowd began to scream. Countless bits of random metal, ranging in size from fingers to fists, rained down on them. Burke’s heart froze as a hundred men dropped, victims of the falling debris.
“Don’t panic!” he shouted, praying he could be heard above the din. “Don’t panic! Grab the injured and carry them! Everyone into the foundry!”
With its sturdy brick walls, the foundry could withstand anything the dragons cared to throw at them.
Ragnar looked down at Anza, sprawled at his feet. “See the evil you have brought upon us with your blasphemy! The Lord strikes down all unbelievers!”
At that moment, a big white square of ceramic-glazed steel slammed into the back of the prophet’s shaggy skull, bouncing off. The prophet’s eyes narrowed as he remained on his feet. The sink clanged on the hard-packed earth behind him.
The look of perpetual rage on the prophet’s face vanished as his brow and jaw went slack. His eyes rolled up into his head and he dropped to his knees, falling forward over Anza’s legs. Anza kicked herself free and sprang to her feet, clutching her limp left arm with her right hand.
Panic spread through the crowd like a wave, even though the initial volley from the catapult was spent. The skies were empty for the moment.
Burke fired his shotgun into the air. “Listen to me!” he screamed so loudly he was certain he tore something in his throat.
Stonewall leapt over Ragnar to stand on the lip of the well. He shouted with a voice that rivaled the fallen prophet in both volume and authority: “Pay attention!” To Burke’s great relief, it worked. The crowd turned their eyes toward Stonewall.
“You heard the man,” said the giant. “Everyone into the foundry. Carry the wounded. No one gets left behind.”
Anza looked up. “Fadder!” she shouted.
More shrapnel was darkening the sky.
“Take cover!” Burke barked out, though there was precious little cover to be had in the middle of the town square. The men nearest the foundry peeled off, vanishing into its shadowy reaches. Jeremiah flew toward the foundry and Poocher darted after him. Vance shot skyward, and Thorny hopped down and pressed himself against the wall of the well. Stonewall held up his shield like a giant umbrella.
Anza grabbed her fallen sword with her good arm and leapt into the air, her wings unfolding, as the second volley smashed into the crowd. Sparks flew as a large rusty bolt ricocheted from Anza’s wings. She flashed toward Stonewall and pressed herself against him, pushing him over a few inches. Stonewall let out a loud grunt as a fist-sized chunk of scrap banged off his shield.
Men dove into any doorway available. Anguished howls of pain rose from those struck by the falling metal.
Luck alone spared Burke. “The foundry! The foundry! You’ll be safe in the foundry!”
More men began to run for its darkened interior.
Stonewall looked up as the rain of metal died off. “What about the defenders on the walls?” Almost simultaneously, Vance, fifty yards above, shouted, “The earth-dragons are charging the gates!”
“Get the men off the walls,” said Burke. “Let the dragons in.”
“Come down from the walls!” Stonewall shouted. “Everyone into the foundry!”
“You too, Vance,” said Burke. “Get down here.”
“Someone has to go stop those catapults,” said Vance.
“You won’t stop them with a bow and arrows,” said Burke. He glanced at Anza. “Despite what you’re thinking, you won’t stop them with a sword.”
She grimaced.
Joab leaned over Ragnar’s form. “He’s still breathing!”
“Get him into the foundry. We only have a minute before the next volley.”
“Seconds,” Vance shouted down. “Here it comes!”
Burke didn’t look at the sky. Instead, he shouted, “Take cover!” and he, too, darted for the foundry. As he zoomed toward it, he saw that the normally shadowy interior was bright as day. He remembered that the visor he wore allowed him to see in darkness.
He hovered above the crowed huddled into the foundry. “You men in back!” he shouted. “Get into the store room and bring out every gun you can. I know some of you have been trained in how to use them. I’m sorry more of you haven’t. If we live through this, I promise that every single one of you will be given a gun and taught to use it.”
“I’ve already got a gun!” a man shouted.
“Me too,” echoed at least a dozen others.
Burke nodded.
Vance and Anza drew up beside him in the air.
“I could . . . break . . . a cat-uh-polt,” she said, sounding out her words carefully as she held up her sword.
“I have no doubt you could do real damage to one if you got up close,” said Burke. “But you’re not getting up close. You and Vance are going wipe out the catapults from the air. Thorny, too.”
Thorny shook his head. “I can’t fly again, Burke. I’m just not built for it.” He reached behind his back and pulled the silver disk free.
“Give it to Stonewall,” Burke said.
Stonewall was just entering the open door of the foundry. He carried two fallen men over his shoulders, and was helping a third man limp along on a bleeding leg.
“These are the same sorts of wings Shay used,” said Stonewall, eying the disk he was offered. “Is he with you?”
“He had business elsewhere,” said Burke. “You’re now drafted to the air team.”
“I don’t—”
“You’ll figure it out. The wings respond to thought. You seem good at thinking.”
Stonewall placed the men he carried onto the ground. Thorny handed him the silver disk.
“Get the doors closed,” Burke snapped as metal once again rained down onto the streets outside. He felt sick at all the bodies left behind. Aside from the dead and dying, the square was now empty.
Suddenly, the ground beneath them trembled as a loud WHOOM! rang from the northern gate.
“Battering ram,” said Stonewall.
“Hammer,” said Burke, remembering the beast that had broken the bridge.
Jeremiah moved among the wounded men and offered them the dragonseeds. Burke could think of no rational reason he should be afraid of the seeds, but he still couldn’t help but wonder if this was all part of some greater scheme of Blasphet’s. It was a bad moment to be having doubts.
Guns were handed out from the door in the back of the room that ran to the warehouse. Below him, the men gazed up with hopeful eyes.
“Gentlemen,” he said, as a second WHOOM! rose from the northern gate, “Let’s go over the plan.”
“There’s a plan?” asked Vance.
Burke allowed himself a small grin. “There’s always a plan.”
SAWFACE STRUCK THE NORTHERN GATE a second time, with a shout that would have made an ox-dog flee with its tail between its legs. He didn’t like to have to hit things a second time. It made him angry.
The gate tore from its hinges and fell, raising a cloud of dust.
The earth-dragons at his back let up a loud cheer.
“RRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAA!” Sawface jumped onto the fallen gate and charged.
He ran down the central avenue toward the well. The footfalls of the army he led sounded like thunder. It enraged him that there were no living humans visible, only hundreds of freshly slain bodies still bleeding in the dust.
“GRRRRRRREEEAAAA!” he cried out, as he smashed his hammer down onto the stone lip of the well. The wall shattered, sending shards of stone heavenward. He swung around and banged the shattered wall with his thick tail and watched as a long section of it tumbled into the black pit of the well. The collapse of the well brought him no satisfaction. He needed blood! He needed to see the fear in a man’s eyes in the second before he crushed his skull!
On the second floor of the foundry, a window swung open. A short man with a wispy mustache fired an arrow that whistled toward Sawface. It landed at the exact tip of his boney snout, quivering between his nostrils.
Sawface tore the arrow free and charged the foundry. He slammed his hammer into the brick wall. Cracks ran up the mortar to the window where the man stood.
“Idiot,” the man called down. “Too dumb to use the door.”
“RRRRRAAAAAAAAUUUUUHHHH!” screamed Sawface. The mammal dared taunt him! He spun around and looked into the eyes of the earth-dragon immediately behind him. The soldier was half his size, heavily armored in plates of thick steel. He snatched the soldier by the arm and said, “BRING HIM TO ME!”
He threw the soldier with all his strength at the window.
The man who taunted him turned pale and jumped back into the room.
The earth-dragon smashed into the wall a foot below the window with a loud crash, then dropped back to the earth at Sawface’s feet. Blood poured from his mouth.
“EEERRRRRRAAAAAAAAGGAA!” Sawface screamed as he spun back to face the soldiers behind him. As one, they all jumped back a full yard. They stared at him with wide eyes.
“GAAAAAHHRRRR!” he cried out as he barreled toward them. The soldiers parted, and then quickly closed in behind him as he ran around the side of the foundry toward the great central doors. He swung his hammer with every fiber of rage he could muster. The double doors flew apart in a spray of splinters.
He leapt into the darkness beyond, halting for the briefest second as his eyes adjusted to the dim light. He was hungry to find a target as quickly as possible. Behind him, he heard the clatter and clang of his Wasters as they, too, paused at the door.
Before him was a wall of men, at least a hundred, crouched down on their knees, pointing rods of iron at him.
Behind them were a hundred more men standing, also pointing iron rods. He recognized these pieces of metal. They were the bang sticks that had killed so many of his brothers at the battle near the river.
Above the twin rows was a man with wings.
“Now,” said the man.
Sawface heard the SNICK of two hundred pieces of flint striking steel in unison. He heard the SSSSS and saw the dancing sparks as ten-score flash-pans sizzled to life.
“Raaar?” he whispered.
THE THUNDEROUS REPORT deafened Burke, but the visor protected him from the flash. He saw in crystal clarity the heavy iron head of Sawface’s hammer drop through the pink mist where the beast had just stood. The anvil-shaped metal bounced in curious silence next to the claw prints on the stone floor.
Beyond, dozens of earth-dragons writhed in agony as their horrified companions looked on. The sky-wall team must have heard the guns go off—for that matter, the men on the moon must have heard the gun go off. But it was the sky-wall team that poured to the windows and roof and began to fire arrows into the dragons in the street. The arrows flew so rapidly they looked like flashes of light in Burke’s visor. Above the ringing in his ears, he began to faintly hear the familiar song of the bows—zing zing zing zing zing!
The earth dragons screamed as a single chorus. Never before had Burke heard such music.
In thirty seconds, it was over. Not a single earth-dragon on the street outside the foundry was left alive.
“The sky-dragons will see this,” Burke shouted. “They’re free to use the catapults again. Bombers! Go!”
VULPINE LIFTED HIS HEAD as he heard a thunder similar to the one that accompanied the explosion at the bridge.
Sagen said, “Did the humans have a second war machine?”
“Possibly,” said Vulpine. “It sounds as if this one fared no better than the first.”
Seconds later, wisps of white smoke rose into the air near the foundry.
Odd. With an explosion of this size, he would have expected black smoke.
He looked up at the sky-dragon spotters high overhead. All had their necks craned toward the city as they rode the wind. Suddenly, one broke off and dove toward them. It was a member of the aerial guard. The sky-dragon spread his wings fifty feet above the ground and parachuted to a halt on the red-clay earth by the catapult. “The earth-dragons have been massacred!”
“What?” said Vulpine, finding the dragon’s exaggeration amusing. “In the three minutes since they knocked open the gate?”
The dragon shook his head. “In the thirty seconds after they reached the foundry.”
“Are they in retreat?”
The sky-dragon sounded angry. “I mean, sir, that every last earth-dragon that followed Sawface has been killed.”
Vulpine’s voice caught in his throat. In the distance, he spotted the angels shooting into the air, straight up, one, two, three, four, five of them. They rose at an impossible speed until they vanished in the bright sky above.
Arifiel, who was with them at the command post, turned and said, “As of now, the valkyries are no longer part of this mission.”
“What?” asked Vulpine.
“Has age dulled your ears?” Arifiel asked. “An angel came to the defense of the Nest. I’m alive because that angel saved me after I’d been badly burned. I was uncomfortable this morning when I saw the angels. They look different from the one who saved me, but their wings are the same. Now, the angels have come to the defense of Dragon Forge.”
“And it’s your duty to fight them!” said Vulpine.
“No, sir,” said Arifiel. “A valkyrie’s first loyalty is to the Nest. The Nest survives due to angelic intervention. Now, they have chosen to defend Dragon Forge. I don’t know what their purpose is. But there are mysterious forces at work here, and I don’t intend to leave those forces angry at the Nest.”
“Arifiel!” said Sagen. “Such cowardice!”
“It’s not cowardice that guides my judgment,” said Arifiel. “It’s—”
She never finished her sentence.
Vulpine’s jaws closed around her throat quicker than she could react. He felt her swallow against his tongue. He whipped his head violently to the side, tearing away her windpipe.
She dropped to the ground, dying; bright red blood surged from the long rip in her pale blue throat. Vulpine spit away the bits of scaly hide that clung to his teeth.
“You’re now in command of the valkyries,” Vulpine said to Sagen.
Sagen looked pale as he stared at his father’s bloody mouth.
“What if she’s right?” Sagen asked. “What if there are forces at work here we don’t understand?”
Vulpine’s anger welled. “Of course there are forces here we don’t understand! Wars unfold in a great fog, and any dragon who thinks he can see the grand picture is a fool!” He shook his head. “As I have been a fool,” he whispered.
“Sir?”
“From the start, I’ve been advised to simply burn Dragon Forge and build a new foundry on the ash pile.” He sighed. “In my arrogance, I believed I could control events to produce a more favorable outcome. I should have known better, Sagen. I should have known that the world is bigger than any one dragon can fathom.”
“No one could have foreseen the intervention of angels,” said Sagen.
“It’s not angels that plague us,” said Vulpine. He was certain of this, despite the evidence of his own eyes. “It’s our unknown genius within the walls of Dragon Forge. All this time, I thought we had the luxury of waiting them out, as disease and dwindling resources depleted them. In truth, they were waiting us out . . . no doubt he calculated that the great empire Albekizan commanded would unravel before their food was exhausted.”
At his feet, Arifiel convulsed briefly before her body went completely slack. Blood stopped spurting from her throat and slowed to an ooze.
“I learn from my mistakes,” said Vulpine. “Load the catapults with oil and pitch. We may not eat lunch in the foundries, but it’s not to late to roast our dinner upon the coals of the—”
Before he could finish, there was a clap of thunder from the southern side of the fort. He looked up and saw black smoke rising from the hill where the southern catapults had been stationed. An instant later, the ground beneath their claws trembled as if a giant fist had struck the earth.
He followed the trail of black smoke upward and spotted the five angels a mile above. “Load the catapults quickly,” said Vulpine, kneeling to pick up Arifiel’s spear.
“Where are you going?” Sagen asked as his father spread his wings and jumped into the sky, catching the spear in his hind-talons.
“I’m going to kill the angels,” said Vulpine.
“YOU HAD TO HIT IT,” said Jeremiah. His voice sounded odd. His ears were still ringing from the simultaneous firing of the rifles. Bombing the catapults below hadn’t helped things.
They were up so high that Jeremiah was certain, had it been night, he could have tested his theory that Vulpine had carried him high enough to touch the moon. Even though the sun was out, the wind was piercing cold. He held the torch of oil-soaked rags closer, grateful for the heat.
Poocher hung beside him in the air. The pig was draped with a dozen quivers of arrows. Vance hovered nearby, sky-wall bow at the ready, eyeing the thick black smoke beneath them for any signs of dragons.
“I’m pretty sure you destroyed it,” Stonewall said to Anza. Anza was about thirty feet down, tilted out parallel to the ground, studying the brief flashes of the dragon encampment that could be seen through the smoke. Stonewall was almost directly above her. He looked as at home in the air as Jeremiah felt. Except for Thorny, everyone who used the wings liked them. Jeremiah wondered if the wings did something to his mind to make him feel less afraid.
Stonewall was dragging a net filled with eight twenty-pound kegs of gunpowder. They’d already used two kegs. Anza’s job was to pull them from the net and figure out the right spot to drop them from to hit the catapults. Jeremiah’s job was to light the fuses. Vance was to protect them from any dragons who tried to reach them, and Poocher’s job was to make sure he didn’t run out of arrows.
Finally, Anza nodded and gave a thumbs up.
“West,” she said, swinging around and darting off.
“West it is,” said Vance.
The southern catapults had been taken completely unaware. They weren’t going to be as lucky at the western station. There were at least thirty sky-dragons climbing toward them, straining to match their height. Jeremiah wondered if Vulpine was among them. It was hard to tell sky-dragons apart. They were all about the same size and color. Still, he didn’t see any of them carrying whips.
They closed in swiftly on the thirty dragons. Jeremiah was a little nervous, but Vance said, “They carry spears, but they can’t throw them far. They normally use them when they dive at people. We can be a few yards from them and not be in any real danger.”
“I’d prefer not to test that theory,” said Stonewall.
The dragons were now a hundred yards away and closing.
Vance lifted his bow. He began to fire, and dragons began to drop. Jeremiah eyed the dragons nervously as they grew ever closer. Poocher, too, focused his attention on the wall of enemies that approached.
Anza temporarily had her hands free, so she reached for her throwing knives.
Stonewall said, “Shouldn’t we climb higher?”
“You guys are too nervous,” said Vance, as his bow continued to sing.
As he reached the last arrow in his quiver, a dozen dragons were in freefall. The survivors wheeled, fleeing for their lives. He turned toward Poocher and grabbed a fresh quiver.
Jeremiah noticed how Vance’s face went slack as he looked back. Before Jeremiah could turn his head, a blue shadow flashed across the corner of his vision. A long slender spear caught Vance dead in the center of his chest and pushed through. The impact of the weapon through his shoulder blades popped his wings off cleanly.
The sky-dragon who’d killed Vance released the spear in his hind-talons and snatched the loose wings from the air. He swooped up higher, flapping his wings to pause for a moment as he looked down to study the device.
A long whip of tan leather hung from the slavecatcher’s belt.
“Vulpine!” cried Jeremiah.
Perhaps it was only a reflection of the silver wings, but Vulpine’s eyes twinkled as he gazed at the boy. “A true angel wouldn’t need machines to fly,” said the slavecatcher.
ANZA HURLED HER THROWING KNIVES at Vulpine, folded her body, and shot into a dive. Vulpine kicked up with the silver wings still in his hind claws and knocked the blades away. It was too late to save Vance, she knew, as she shot toward his body. But the skywall bow was caught in his limp fingers. If they were swarmed again, she would need it.
Vance’s eyes were still open. He seemed to smile contentedly as she reached out, snatching the bow and jerking it away.
She slung the bow over her shoulder, which still throbbed terribly from the earlier catapult attack. If the blow had caught her on the ground instead of in the air, it would likely have broken her bones instead of merely bruising her.
She shot back toward the battle above. Poocher was being ignored by Vulpine at the moment, so the supply of arrows weren’t in imminent danger. She could give her full attention to Vulpine.
Unfortunately, Jeremiah decided to give Vulpine his full attention first. He charged the slavecatcher, lashing out with his torch. Anza’s battle-trained eyes could instantly see what was to come next.
Vulpine released the silver wings he carried and kicked out, knocking the torch from Jeremiah’s grasp. The slavecatcher caught Jeremiah’s slender throat in his left hind-talon.
With his right hind-talon, he caught the upper edge of Jeremiah’s wings near the shoulder. He pulled, tearing Jeremiah free of his wings. The slavecatcher dropped the wings, which tumbled away in the wind.
Then, he let go of Jeremiah.
VULPINE SMILED as the giant man released of the net of barrels he carried and dove to save the boy. He was now alone in the sky with the pig—an absurd figure barely worth his attention—and the girl, who he’d seen in action at Burke’s Tavern.
She rose in the air on her silver wings. Steel tomahawks dropped into her hands. He could tell as he studied her that her left arm was injured. She was more graceful in the air than her companions, but Vulpine had seven decades more experience in aerial combat.
She threw the tomahawks. The one from her left hand went wide of its mark. He caught the second one in his hind-talon.
“Care to try again?” he taunted as he glided in an arc around her. She did possess one mild advantage—she could hover. Vulpine had to keep moving to maintain flight.
In his experience, humans wore their thoughts on their faces. He often knew their next actions before they did. This woman was different. As she watched him move, her face grew blank, utterly devoid of emotion.
Suddenly, she shot toward him with an impossible burst of speed. Her right hand moved toward her shoulder and came back holding a razor sharp sword.
He twisted his torso, allowing the blade to slip into the thin flesh of his wing just beyond his ribs. It stung, but there were no major nerves or arteries there. He swiveled his jaws around and clamped them down onto her wings. The metal made his tongue tingle. With his hind-talon, he grabbed her ankle and jerked.
It took no more than a tenth of second to strip her of her wings.
She fell, still with the look of utter dispassion on her features.
She reached out and caught the looped whip on his belt with her right hand. Her sudden weight tugged him down. He beat his wings to regain his balance. A knife appeared in her left hand. She thrust it over her head, sinking it into the center of his breastbone.
If this had been her good hand, Vulpine knew he would be dead. As it was, the blade caught in the bone. Pain radiated through his whole body, but the blow wasn’t fatal.
“A good effort,” he said, craning his neck toward her. “I suspect you might have won on the ground.” He snapped his jaws onto her cheeks, sinking his teeth down until they rested on her skull. She let go of both the blade and his whip, and reached for his mouth. Her hands never reached their target.
He opened his jaws and gravity claimed her. As she slipped into freefall he saw, at last, fear flash into her eyes.
It was a most satisfying sight.
“So much for the angels,” he said. “Where’s the damned pig?”
There was a grunt at his back.
He craned his neck and saw the black and white beast gliding along behind him, his snout only inches from the tip of Vulpine’s tail.
“You’ll do nicely for dinner,” said Vulpine.
The pig snorted. With the barest boost of speed, he shot forward the final inches.
Vulpine winced as the pig’s jaws clamped down on the last vertebrae in his tail.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
* * *
DAWN OF A GOLDEN AGE
VULPINE’S TAIL WAS STRETCHED straight as an arrow. He kicked, trying to reach the beast that held him, but his tail was much longer than his legs. He beat his wings harder. The bones along his spine popped. The pig simply wasn’t flying as fast as he.
It finally occurred to him that if he slowed down, he would have the slack needed to reach the pig.
It occurred to the pig at the same instant to fold up the silver wings that held him aloft.
Vulpine was yanked from the sky as swiftly as if he had an anchor tied to him. His head whipped skyward as he dropped. In the space where he’d just been, several of his feather-scales floated in the air. He spread his wings, straining desperately to control their descent. They were falling toward Dragon Forge.
ON THE WALLS of Dragon Forge, Burke paid no attention to the battle overhead. He knew Anza and Vance could handle anything that was thrown at them, and would keep Jeremiah and Poocher safe. Instead, he focused his attention on the spy-owl. The catapults to the south were nothing but splinters. To the east and west, the dragons milled about in confusion, unsure of their orders.
The northern catapult didn’t suffer from this lack of guidance. Here, the catapults were being loaded with barrels of pitch and oil. They were still a minute or two away from being able to fire, however. More than enough time to aim the cannon his men had just mounted on the wall.
ANZA SPREAD HER ARMS, turning to face the ground as she fell. The wind was like a giant invisible hand that held her in the sky. Of course, since the ground was racing nearer, the giant invisible hand wasn’t doing a very good job.
The river was too far to reach. There were no convenient hay piles in sight. The sky-dragons who’d filled the sky earlier had gone into retreat.
She sighed. The world beneath her was beautiful. True, the hills around Dragon Forge were covered with decaying corpses and barren red earth cut through with deep gullies. The trees were twisted and stunted, and the whole area was so polluted it was as if giant buckets of ash had been dumped. But in her heart, she knew she would miss this world terribly.
A long, muscular arm wrapped around her waist. Her descent came to a sudden halt as Stonewall’s momentum carried her parallel to the earth. She looked across at Jeremiah, who gave her a weak wave. She looked up into the gleaming eyes of her rescuer.
“I didn’t mind catching Jeremiah, and I don’t mind catching you, but I can’t make any promises about the pig.”
She nodded.
“You’re brave,” he said, as he wheeled to the north. “You didn’t scream when you fell.”
She smirked. The thought had never even crossed her mind.
IT TOOK ALL THE STRENGTH left in Vulpine’s wings to guide their fall toward the northern catapults. The pig still dangled from his tail, forcing his spine perfectly perpendicular to the earth. His wings were spread into twin parachutes, giving him some control, though they were still going to hit the ground hard. At least the pig would hit first.
He saw Sagen next to the loaded catapults, gawking at the odd sight of his father and the pig.
Vulpine was too winded to call out for assistance. No matter. When they hit the ground, he’d make short work of his portly tormentor.
There was a loud boom at his back. He couldn’t turn his head to see the source of the whistling noise as it raced through the air toward him, then past him.
A black steel ball trailed smoke toward the catapult where Sagen waited. It landed at the base of the wooden war engine.
There was a flash of light and heat, and a clap of noise that made his teeth rattle. Dirt and smoke was thrown into the sky. Vulpine raced ever closer to where his son had been.
There was nothing left atop the hill but a smoking crater.
Before he could change his direction, he plunged into the smoke. Suddenly, the weight on his tail vanished, and the pig let out a loud squeal. Vulpine tried to flap his wings but the ground turned out to be only inches below him. He crashed onto the burning earth, rolling to a halt against a broad, splintered beam that had once been the arm of the catapult.
His left wing felt broken. He flapped his right wing to try to clear the smoky air.
Something moved in the smoke before him.
The pig?
It drew closer.
Jeremiah.
The boy held Vulpine’s knife in his hand.
“We saw where you fell,” he said.
Vulpine rose up, supporting his weight against the beam as he unlooped his whip. He coughed as the smoke choked him.
“That knife’s too dangerous for you to play with, boy,” said Vulpine. He flipped the whip back over his shoulder, intending to bring it forward and strike the knife away. At the far reach of his back stroke, the whip snagged and yanked from his grasp. He looked over his shoulder and saw the giant who’d dived to save the boy standing behind him, the braided leather wrapped in his enormous fist.
He turned back to face the boy.
Only now the dark-haired girl was in front of him. She had twin rows of puncture wounds along both cheeks that painted long stripes of blood down her face.
Unlike her earlier blankness, this time she smiled.
“We’re . . . on . . . the . . . ground,” she whispered. Her right hand closed around the knife still jutting from his breastbone. He trembled as she pulled the blade free.
BURKE WATCHED THE DRAMA unfold in his spy-owl, frustrated by the smoke that obscured his sight. He let out a slow sigh of relief as Anza limped from the cloud. Jeremiah followed close behind, with Poocher trotting along beside him. The pig was covered in soot and had somehow lost all of the quivers that had been draped over him, along with his visor and the wings.
Finally, Stonewall stumbled out of the cloud. He had a large blue bundle tossed over his shoulder. Burke dialed the spy-owl to its sharpest focus and saw a limp sky-dragon, its jaws bound with what looked like a whip.
Burke stood up, stretching his shoulders. He’d folded up his wings after carrying the spy-owl onto the wall. The wings were so big, he’d been worried he might accidentally knock someone over the battlements. He grabbed his crutch and turned around.
Ragnar stood behind him. “I’ve killed five men to reach you,” the prophet whispered. The big man wasn’t carrying any weapons, but his chest was matted with blood. His hands shot out and grabbed Burke by the throat.
Burke’s eyes bulged as the hairy man squeezed.
“Dragon Forge is mine!” the prophet hissed.
Behind Ragnar came the sound of rushing footsteps. The prophet turned his head just in time to see a large leather satchel swung at him. There was an explosion of paper as the bag caught the prophet across his face and ripped at the seams. Books flew everywhere. The prophet’s fingers slipped from Burke’s throat and the hairy man tumbled over the edge of the wall.
Burke looked down, wincing at the noise Ragnar’s body made as it hit the ground.
Thorny knelt where the prophet had stood seconds before. He picked up remains of a very large book.
“The Oxford English Dictionary,” said Thorny. Loose pages fluttered out of the ancient binding. “Shay’s going to have a fit when he sees what I’ve done to it.”
Burke put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “He’ll understand,” said Burke. “He brought these books here because he thought that knowledge in the hands of mankind could strike a blow for freedom. You’ve simply taken the concept to a higher level.”
THE WEEKS PASSED in relative quiet. With the blockade broken, it didn’t take long for supplies to trickle back into the fort along with the news. The Dragon Palace remained empty after Chapelion had abandoned it and returned to the College of Spires, taking the remnants of the aerial guard with him. Albekizan’s kingdom split apart at the seams as the patchwork quilt of fiefdoms he’d stitched together through decades of war came unraveled.
Among the news, there was one thread that remained constant: the story of a golden dragon who flew from castle to castle announcing himself the anti-king. He demanded no taxes or soldiers; he declared no law save for one: any dragon who dared to declare himself king beyond the border of his own small world could count on the golden dragon as a mortal enemy.
It was a warm spring day when the rifles began to bark out along the walls. Burke stood up on his newly-fashioned spring driven leg and walked to the window. Floating toward the center of town, landing near the rebuilt well, was a golden beast the size and shape of a sun-dragon. Sparks flew from the creature’s hide as rifle balls bounced off its golden shell.
The glass in the window next to Burke shattered into a thousand pieces as a stray ball struck it. He stepped to the freshly opened window and shouted, “Hold your fire!”
Instantly, the order was relayed from man to man, “Hold your fire! Burke says hold your fire!” A moment later, all guns fell silent.
Burke walked to the elevator and rode it down into the foundry. The rumble of work carried on as usual. The machinery in the foundry was so loud that the workers hadn’t heard the commotion on the streets.
Burke stepped out into the bright sunlight. As his eyes adjusted, he saw that the flowers in the window boxes on the building across the way were blooming. Now that more women had arrived, Dragon Forge looked less like a fort and more like a town.
He walked toward the dragon, who gazed at him with emerald eyes that shimmered amidst the gold.
“Burke,” said the dragon. “You’re looking fit.”
Burke supposed he was. Some bit of good fortune had spared him from coming down with yellow-mouth, and in the weeks since he’d taken command of the fort he’d been sleeping well. Victory had a pleasant affect upon his constitution.
He shielded his eyes with his hands as he studied the gleaming dragon. “You’re looking particularly robust yourself,” said Burke.
“You recognize me?” asked the dragon.
“Hex,” said Burke. “Bitterwood told me about your new look.”
“Bitterwood has been here?”
“He’s been here almost two weeks. He and Zeeky and Jeremiah took over an abandoned farm about five miles downriver. Once Shay and Jandra set up their school, he wants the children to learn to read and write.”
“It’s difficult to imagine Bitterwood behind a plow,” said Hex.
“He won’t be behind one for long,” said Burke. “He had me design a plow harness for Skitter. With the speed of that beast, I imagine he’ll get his fields done in a few hours.”
Hex nodded slowly, as if savoring the image.
“You aren’t here to catch up on old times,” said Burke.
“True,” said Hex.
“You’ve come back from Atlantis as some sort of superdragon. You’re strong enough to pull down a castle with your bare talons, I hear.”
“The twists of fate have been kind to me.”
“And now you’re here to lay down the law as the new king.”
“I shall never be king,” said Hex.
“You’re laying down rules. You’re enforcing those rules with violence. It strikes me as kingly behavior.”
“I have only one rule, Burke. I have explained it to all the sun-dragons. Now I’ll explain it to you. If you send an army from this fort and attempt to seize neighboring land by force, you will find me opposing you. The age when disputes are settled by armies is at an end. There is nothing else that I care about.”
“You used to care about ending slavery,” said Burke.
“True. I still hope that slavery will end. But I’m keenly aware it would be possible for me to abuse my newfound power. In the end, I decided that enforcing a single law was all I could trust of myself.”
“Even one rule has a way of growing,” said Burke. “One day you’ll realize that the world is too big for you to be everywhere at once. You’ll decide to raise your own army, and you’ll tax all the kingdoms where you keep the peace, because, after all, it’s for our own benefit. Why shouldn’t we bear the cost?”
“Your genius is no match for your cynicism, Burke.”
Burke turned away. He saw Anza and Stonewall on the fortress wall, with the big cannon rotated to target Hex. While he was curious to see what the gun would do against the shell, he was also happy that Hex was doing what he was doing, at least for now. He would never admit it to the big lizard, but maybe what the world needed right now was an all-powerful idealist to let things calm down for a few years.
He waved his fingers back and forth under his chin, signaling Anza not to fire. She frowned, crossing her arms.
Dirt swirled on the streets as Hex’s mighty wings beat down.
He watched as the mighty beast vanished over the eastern wall. He suspected Bitterwood was about to get company.
BITTERWOOD’S FARM was simple enough to spot from the air. Rows of fields plowed in perfect parallel lines radiated out for two or three acres from a simple log cabin. At the back of the cabin, the long-wyrm was curled up, napping.
There was a big gray barn near a stream, though it didn’t look as if it would stay gray for long. Jeremiah and Zeeky stood before it with big broad brushes in their hands and buckets of red paint at their feet. Poocher rooted about at the banks of the stream. He was the first to look up at the bright slivers of light that reflected from Hex’s shell and danced across the water before him.
The pig let out a sharp, short squeal and Zeeky and Jeremiah turned to face Hex. As he drifted to a landing, the figure of a man appeared in the barn door. Hex wondered for half a second who the old man was. His jaw slackened as the farmer stepped out into the light.
Hex had never seen Bitterwood without his cloak or the buckskin pants that clung to him like a second skin. Now, Bitterwood wore a pair of brown cotton overalls flecked with mud and dirt. His hair had been cropped close to his scalp. His skin was still leathery, but there was a subtle change in the man that Hex struggled to pinpoint. Finally, he understood.
Bitterwood was smiling.
“You still have the shell,” said Bitterwood.
“I wouldn’t know how to take it off it I wanted to,” said Hex.
“Vendevorex or Jandra could probably help you with that.”
“Vendevorex is going to stay in Atlantis to help teach the humans there how to survive in the absence of their god,” said Hex. “And who knows how long Jandra and Shay will spend on their honeymoon? There’s so much of the world they wish to see.”
“I hear tell you’ve been seeing a fair bit of the world yourself,” said Bitterwood. “The anti-king. I’m not certain I like the sound of it.”
Hex shrugged. “You aren’t in a position to judge me. You killed my father and brother. If I were a king, I’d demand justice. But I’m no king.”
“You’re a big golden bully, then,” said Bitterwood.
“And you’re the Murder God,” said Hex. “I would like to think, after the adventures we’ve shared, that we could call each other friends.”
Bitterwood’s frown returned. “I’ve never called any dragon friend,” he said.
“I’m your friend,” said Zeeky, coming up and placing her hand on Hex’s wing.
“Me too,” said Jeremiah. The boy had a big splotch of red paint on his cheek. Poocher trotted over and gave a gentle grunt as he set down next to Hex. The pig was a full-blown hog now, easily three hundred pounds.
“It’s three against one, Bant,” said Hex.
Bitterwood shook his head. “My feelings aren’t up for a vote.”
Hex sighed.
Bitterwood lowered his head, looking at the ground before him, weighing his thoughts. Finally, he said, “For what it’s worth, I don’t intend to kill you.”
Hex nodded. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“But if you ever do anything to hurt the folks in Dragon Forge, I won’t hesitate to finish you off,” Bitterwood continued. “I’ve hung up my bow. I didn’t bury it.”
“It might be interesting to see the tree that would grow if you did bury it, yes?”
Bitterwood didn’t grin at the joke. Instead, he had his eyes fixed on Hex’s jaws. “Did you know that the shell doesn’t cover the inside of your mouth?” he asked.
Hex clamped his jaws shut.
“I’ve got a barn to paint,” said Bitterwood.
“I’ve got a villain to bring to justice,” said Hex.
“That’s king talk,” said Bitterwood.
“I’ve always been aware of my fundamental contradictions,” said Hex, leaping into the air.
He glanced back down. It definitely wasn’t a trick of the light. Bitterwood grinned as he watched Hex fly away.
He flew downstream another five miles to the agreed upon meeting place. As he dropped toward the bank, he saw his companions lurking among the trees. They walked out as they saw him. Their blue scales were especially bright beneath the spring sun. All two hundred of the valkyries wore armor. He wondered if they would need it.
JANDRA KNELT on both knees as she placed the bouquet of yellow tulips in front of the rough stone pyramid. All along the valley, the rhododendrons bloomed, flecking the steep stony mountains with white. She carved the name “Lizard” into the largest stone with a flaming fingertip. She let the flame fade away and she stared at the word for a long, quiet moment.
“Even though I wasn’t in control, I could still feel the warmth of his scales under my fingers.”
Shay placed his hand on her shoulder.
“It’s not your fault,” he said.
She leaned her cheek against his arm. “I remember everything she did,” whispered Jandra. “Do you want to know what the worst of it was?”
“Tell me,” he said.
“She was so absolutely confident that she was right,” said Jandra. “She thought the world was broken, and only she had the wisdom and courage and power to fix it.”
Shay squeezed her shoulder. She knew he knew the significance of these words. “You’re nothing like her,” he said.
“I know,” said Jandra. “But I’ve been thinking a lot about her journey. She started with good intentions. It’s difficult to pinpoint the moment she went off the path from being a good person to being a monster.”
“Perhaps it was around the time she decided it was okay to kill people to get what she wanted.”
“I’ve killed,” said Jandra. “Long before I’d met her I’d killed both dragons and men.”
“You were acting to defend yourself and others,” said Shay.
“She was acting to save the world,” said Jandra.
She stood up, wiping the grit from her blue silk trousers. Shay already had his wings unfolded. He looked quite heroic in his red coat, with his shoulders pulled back. Vendevorex had repaired his muscles and scars. With the powers she commanded, she could have healed him herself . . . she could heal anyone and everyone. She could feed the hungry and give shelter to the homeless and strength to the weak.
“When we get back from the moon,” she said, “I’m going to take off my genie.”
Shay raised his eyebrow.
“I’ll still help you train to use yours,” she said.
“But—”
“I don’t know if I have Vendevorex’s level of self-restraint,” she said. “He’s always been sparing in the use of his abilities. He’s far more powerful than he lets on. I never understood why he didn’t do more good. For a while, I thought it was because he was afraid of the Atlanteans discovering he was using their technology. Now, I understand the truth—having been to Atlantis, he saw the effects of limitless altruism. Just because he has the power to fix the world’s problems doesn’t mean that it’s always right to do so.”
“You’re afraid you might do too much good for the world?”
“I still want to make the world better,” said Jandra. “But I want to do it following your vision. I want to help you start your school. We’ll give people the tools they need to solve their own problems. I don’t want people to become dependent on me.”
Shay smiled. “It’s a little late for that. I’m already dependent on you.” He lifted into the air and held his hand toward her. “Without you near, I suspect I’d wither away.”
“Flatterer.”
“It’s true,” he said. “I think it’s worth trying, by the way.”
“What’s worth trying?”
“When we get back, take off your genie for a year. I’ll take off mine, since I barely can use it anyway. We’ll discover if the world can last a year without our magic.”
She took his hand as her wings chimed out to their full length. She rose into the air until they were the same height.
“With you,” she said, “there will always be magic.”
They tilted toward each other. Their lips met gently in weightless bliss. Shay wrapped his arms around her waist as they drifted in the flower-scented breeze. They floated for what felt like eternity, as her fears and doubts melted away.
When he finally broke from the kiss, she gazed into his eyes.
There was a question she felt embarrassed to ask.
“What?” he whispered.
“After we put up the genies, we’re, um, keeping the wings, right?”
“Of course my angel,” he whispered, stroking her cheek as they climbed into the endless blue.
IT WAS NIGHTFALL when Hex reached the Free City. In the weeks since he’d visited the population had swelled, rivaling Richmond in size. He suspected that the people in Richmond were enjoying the economic boom of selling an endless stream of building supplies to their thriving neighbor.
They landed by the barn that served as Blasphet’s abode. A crowd of white-robed citizens gathered around him and the valkyries.
He noted with a certain satisfaction that humans outnumbered earth-dragons here fifty to one, and sky-dragons perhaps three-hundred to one. There were no sun-dragons to be seen. He wondered if this spoke to the differences in gullibility among the various species. Of course, it could also have reflected the degree to which the lives of the various races had been thrown into turmoil by the recent unrest.
The barn doors were open, allowing the warm spring breeze to flow through the place. The barn looked much as he left it, though the gate to Atlantis had been closed. Vendevorex had finally mastered that trick.
A silver mosquito landed on Hex’s gold-plated ear.
It buzzed in a perfect simulacrum of Vendevorex’s voice that only he could hear.
“I’ve been wondering when you would show up,” the mosquito said.
“Are you near?” Hex whispered.
“I’m still in Atlantis,” said Vendevorex. “There are machines here I need in order to do what you wish. But I have drones to serve as my eyes and ears.”
Hex nodded, hoping Vendevorex saw the gesture. He walked into the barn with the valkyries at his heels.
Blasphet was on his canvas-covered podium. He looked pleased by Hex’s arrival.
“You look worthy of worship, nephew,” said Blasphet.
“No, my lord, no,” whispered a robed woman near the black dragon’s feet. She sounded distressed.
“My followers find the thoughts of worshipping any other dragon stressful, I fear,” said Blasphet. “I believe it’s because, despite my most fervent protests, they believe I am a god.”
“You called yourself a god once,” said Hex. “And, as a god, you’re responsible for the deaths of eight-hundred-seventy-three valkyries, victims of your genocidal assault on the Nest.”
“You speak of deeds I performed before I was reborn,” said Blasphet.
“I speak of deeds for which you will be brought to justice. These valkyries are here to arrest you. You’re to be tried for your crimes before a council of learned dragons. Should they decide you are guilty of the assault upon the Nest, you will face execution.”
“I’ve already died for those crimes,” said Blasphet. “My sins were washed away in my own blood.”
“Perhaps this argument will impress your judges.”
The woman at his feet sprung up.
“No!” she shouted. “You cannot take him! He’s the life force of this city! He provides all food. He cures all ills. His wise counsel has united the races!”
“If his counsel is truly wise and you’ve learned from him, perhaps your city will thrive,” said Hex. “I won’t interfere with your development. If you’ve discovered a better path through life, I hope it spreads to all the corners of the earth. Blasphet, however, will be at the Nest.”
The woman clenched her fists. Blasphet placed his fore-talon on her shoulder.
“Colobi, you are dear to me. I know you would die to protect me. I do not ask for your life, however. Listen to my nephew. Follow my example. Spread my teachings. Serve the world.”
The woman looked up with tears in her eyes.
Blasphet sounded as if there were tears in his own voice as he said, “I ask that all of my children leave the room. I would have a moment of alone with our guests.”
The women who lined the walls glared as they filed out of the barn. The valkyrie at the back of the room drew the doors closed.
“Do you intend to come peacefully?”
“Of course,” said Blasphet. He sounded smug. “I cannot guarantee, however, that my followers will allow our safe passage. They can be . . . zealous.”
“We won’t be leaving through the door,” said Hex. “Vendevorex, it’s time.”
A circular rainbow opened in the air near the wall, yawning ever wider until it was large enough to swallow a sun-dragon.
“The Nest is on the other side,” said Hex.
“I suspected as much,” said the former Murder God. “I’ve been aware of the wizard’s bug for days now. My eyes and ears are much keener than they once were.”
“We know,” said Hex. He pointed at the portal. Half of the valkyries were already passing through the gate. “Follow them,” said Hex.
Blasphet rose. His eyes were creased with a look of satisfaction.
“Did you know that the humans have a myth?” he asked, just before he vanished into the gate.
Hex followed closely behind. They emerged in dim lamplight, in the dank, cool air of the Nest. They were in the thread room, the focal point of Blasphet’s slaughter here.
Blasphet finished his thought. “They speak of a healer who some called a god. When he was alive, he would answer all queries about his divinity with riddles. The authorities of his day killed him. When he rose from the dead, his followers knew without doubt what he truly was. His worship has survived the rise and fall of civilizations.”
“You won’t be rising from the dead, uncle.”
“Won’t I?” said Blasphet. “I helped guide Vendevorex back from death. Not that I think I will die, mind you. When I called myself the Murder God, all I had at my command were a few poisons. Now, I control all matter. The building blocks of the physical world are my playthings. With my knowledge and powers, I expect I will enjoy a very long life. I may even be immortal.”
Hex couldn’t help but notice the smugness in Blasphet’s voice. He said, “The valkyries will no doubt decide the span of your life. I suspect it may not be as long as you appear to think.”
“I have nothing to fear from the valkyries,” said Blasphet. “You won’t let them harm me.”
“Oh?” said Hex.
“Look at you,” Blasphet said. “Gleaming like some temple idol come to life. You’re an idealist, nephew. You want to make the world a better place. You dream you will be responsible for the dawn of a golden age.”
“Perhaps,” said Hex. “I assure you, no part of that dream includes you in it.”
“My disciples have carried my dragonseed far across this kingdom,” said Blasphet. “Twenty thousand and more have swallowed these small parts of my flesh. Some who’ve accepted my dragonseed are men you call friends.”
“What of it?” asked Hex.
The thread room was now cramped with valkyries.
“Should I die, a signal will spread through all the tiny machines that linger in the bodies of those who’ve partaken of my flesh. When my heartbeat stops, so will theirs. You’re a predictable do-gooder, Hex. You won’t sacrifice twenty-thousand to avenge the deaths of a few hundred.”
“You’re correct,” said Hex. “I wouldn’t. However, I suspect the valkyries might.”
One of the nearby valkyries said, “Those who have swallowed the dragonseed share in his guilt.”
“I disagree,” said Hex, thinking of Jeremiah. How could anyone plausibly argue the boy should bear the burden of this monster’s sins? “In any case, his threat is an empty one.”
“You think I’m bluffing?”
“I’m certain that you’re not,” said Hex. “I’m also certain that Vendevorex has far more experience with your machines than you do. He tells me that one of the first things he did upon regaining his awareness was to analyze your dragonseed. He informs me that they work as you say. On your last heartbeat, your genie will send out the death signal.”
“Then it is your duty to see to my safety.”
“Or my duty to take away your genie,” said Hex. “Vendevorex assures me that if it’s not in your possession when you die, the dragonseed can do no harm.”
“Even with that golden shell, you still need to breathe.” Blasphet moved with the swiftness that only those enhanced by nanites could possess as he tossed a talonful of silver dust across the room.
“Die choking in your own . . . own . . . um . . .” Blasphet's voice trailed off as the silver dust swirled and flew back at him, coalescing into silver chains binding his talons. “Curious,” he said.
“Vendevorex says the genie you wear has never been locked. He can control the dust you command from half a world away.”
“Ah,” said Blasphet. He flicked off a black cap from the longest claw on his left fore-talon. The nail glistened with a tar-like black poison that smelled of almonds. He looked deep into Hex’s eyes as he said, “I always knew, in the end, I’d have to fall back onto my familiar vices. These chains cannot bind me! These valkyries will never harm me. I am the Murder God!”
“I would be much more impressed if your claws had any chance of piercing my shell,” Hex said, careful not to open his mouth too widely.
“You misunderstand,” Blasphet said with a chuckle as dry as the rustle of dead leaves. “We’re back to the ending where my heart stops and everyone dies.”
He plunged the talon against his own neck. His face twisted into an expression of pure malice as the poisoned claw tore deep into his vein. Hex lunged, snatching at the genie that floated above Blasphet’s brow. His talons closed on empty air. The tiara vanished like a popped soap bubble.
“It might be along his spine,” Vendevorex buzzed into his ear. Hex’s heart froze at the word might.
Blasphet shivered as he fell against Hex’s chest. The Murder God’s eyes glistened with tears as they rolled up into his skull. His last breath came out in a long, shuddering sob.
Hex sank his teeth into the flesh along his uncle’s spine and ripped away the ebony metal he found there. He spat it out. It slid along the floor like a long black serpent.
Had he been fast enough?
Did the evil beast’s heart still beat?
He held his breath. Blood surged out of the open wound as the Murder God’s black heart pushed out one final pulse. He slid down Hex’s golden chest, completely lifeless.
“We should have anticipated the poisoned claw,” said Vendevorex.
“Did we stop him in time?” Hex asked, his throat tight.
“With at least a second to spare,” said Vendevorex. “The genie never sent out a signal.”
“So it’s over. We’ve won. The world is finally free of the Murder God.”
“Good riddance,” said the Vendevorex mosquito as it flitted away. A few feet away it paused, before darting back to Hex’s ear.
“Just to be certain,” it buzzed, “burn the body.”
DAWN OF DRAGONS
For Rick, Elizabeth, Karen, Mary, Phil,
and all the other members of the Writers Group of the Triad
who slogged through my juvenilia those many years ago.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
* * *
ENDING AT THE BEGINNING
BACK IN 2002 I SOLD my superhero novel Nobody Gets the Girl to Phobos Books. Years before writing Nobody, I’d tried my hand at writing fantasy with a novel called Bitterwood. The book had many of the expected flaws of an early attempt at a novel, but I thought the underlying story was pretty good. I pitched the basic premise of the story to the editors at Phobos and they wanted to see the novel, and for a while it sounded as if the book would see print by them, though staff changes removed the champions of the novel and eventually left it without a home for several more years, until Solaris Books picked it up.
During the months when I thought Phobos would publish Bitterwood, I cranked out a prequel to the novel called Empire of Angels. Never a believer in the theory that less is more, the novel was a strange mash-up of every science fictional idea I had any interest in at all. When I did sell Bitterwood to Solaris, I mentioned the existence of this novel, but they were more interested in sequels than prequels, and thought that the overtly science fictional nature of this book conflicted with the goal of marketing Bitterwood as a fantasy. A fair point, but this many years after the book’s original publication, I don’t see the need to be coy with the science fictional roots of the Bitterwood universe.
More importantly, when I did write the Bitterwood sequels Dragonforge and Dragonseed, I kept returning to ideas I had created in Empire of Angels, things like underspace and robotic angels. The plot is a little rough around the edges when compared to my more recent work, but I think the novel will be of interest to devoted fans of the Bitterwood universe. Besides, my writing résumé to date has a shocking lack of shotgun-toting nuns. Releasing the book would rectify that situation.
So, I’ve blown the dust off the old manuscript, sanded off the roughest of the edges, and given it a spiffy new title, Dawn of Dragons. Enjoy!
DAWN OF DRAGONS CONTENTS
Author’s Note
Chapter 1: Dangerous Animals
Chapter 2: Not Very Good at It
Chapter 3: Shooting Star
Chapter 4: The Kid, the Babe, the Nun
Chapter 5: Ghosts
Chapter 6: Very, Very Quiet
Chapter 7: Shell Game
Chapter 8: Ouch
Chapter 9: Spark of Life
Chapter 10: This is Going to Sting
Chapter 11: Angels
Chapter 12: Intriguing
Chapter 13: Walking with Water
Chapter 14: Break Through
Chapter 15: We Now Interrupt Your Regular Programming
Chapter 16: Born Again
Chapter 17: don’t hold back
Chapter 18: Swirl
Chapter 19: Day Three
Chapter 20: One Small Hitch
Chapter 21: You Idiot
Chapter 22: Tell Me About It
Chapter 23: One Month Later
CHAPTER ONE
* * *
DANGEROUS ANIMALS
THE DRAGON SLITHERED SILENTLY among the tree’s branches as the knight on horseback drew closer. A practiced hunter, the beast positioned himself downwind, with the setting sun at his back.
Not spooking the horse was the dragon’s top priority. The knight himself would be no threat, but experience had taught the beast the benefit of slaying the mount along with the rider. Horsemeat as a rule was more savory than the flesh of men. No doubt the diets of men spoiled their taste; most humans spent the better parts of their lives slowly poisoning themselves.
This knight looked to be no exception. Despite the gleaming, polished armor that glimmered ruby beneath the dimming sky, despite the sword and mace and crossbow that all hung within easy reach, it was obvious from his smell that this man posed no danger. He was sweating from the simple effort of wearing the armor and riding the horse. No doubt his sword arm was slow, his aim unsteady. This was just another deluded fool in a growing string of fools who had set out in pursuit of the dragon.
The knight grew ever closer to the dragon’s hiding place. The man’s eyes stayed on the path before him, oblivious to the danger above. As the knight passed below, the dragon was close enough that he could have dangled his tail and touched the rider’s helm.
With feline anticipation, the dragon tensed, his mouth opening slightly to reveal dagger-like teeth. His strike would be lightning-swift; the horse and rider would die before they ever understood their fate. The dragon’s claws sank deeper into the branch as he shifted his body to pounce.
The knight’s phone rang.
“Goddammit,” grumbled the knight, pulling the reigns of his horse as he twisted in his saddle to better reach his saddlebag. He continued to curse softly as he rooted around the contents of the bag, only halting his obscenities when he shifted his helmet back and raised the phone to his ear.
“O’Brien here,” he said.
The dragon leaned closer, curious at this new development. His keen hearing allowed him to hear the voice on the other end of the line. A female voice. The knight’s mate, perhaps?
“Dammit, Martha,” said O’Brien. “You know not to call me when I’m working. You know I—what? What do you mean you know I’m not working? Jackson told you what? What?”
The woman’s voice on the other line told the knight what Jackson had revealed: O’Brien was spending several million dollars to pay for a vacation at the most exclusive hunt club on the planet. He’d explained his absence to his wife by claiming he was attending a business conference.
O’Brian sighed, and rubbed his temple.
“Fine,” he said. “So I’m hunting. Yes, you’re right, this is a goddamned mid-life crisis. Yes, I lied to you. Yes, I frivolously blew a huge wad of dough. But it’s my money, Martha. I’ve worked my ass off to get where I am and it’s time I started eating the fruit of my labor.”
The woman’s voice grew louder and angrier as the dragon lowered his long snaky neck to listen better. He was now close enough to see his toothy reflection in the knight’s polished helmet.
“Don’t take that tone with me,” snapped O’Brien. “I don’t need to explain myself. Tell Jackson I’d better not see his face when I come back to the office. I—”
Martha asked something the dragon strained to hear. Her mood had shifted. Her voice cracked with sorrow. Didn’t O’Brien trust her anymore?
“This isn’t the time to discuss this,” said O’Brien. “I’m hunting! There are dangerous animals here and it’s getting dark. I’m going to hang up. Don’t call me again. I mean it. Yes. Yes, consider that a threat. The prenuptial agreement is rock solid, Martha. You’ll do as I say and you’ll like it.”
The dragon had enough. Tensed muscles uncoiled as it leapt, spreading its wings at an angle that flipped it into the path of the knight, opening its jaws and emitting a hiss that caused the horse to rear.
O’Brien cursed as he fell from the saddle to the stony path. He curled into a fetal position to avoid the hooves as his horse turned and leapt over him. Martha was shouting from the fallen phone, her voice panicked. With a start, O’Brien unfolded himself and drew the sword from his scabbard, struggling to reach his feet as the dragon looked on with impatience.
“Good sir knight,” said the dragon, with a hissing British accent that was half Monty Python, half actual python. “Sheath your sword and heed my words.”
O’Brien’s mouth fell open.
“Your mate has called because she fears for your safety and you treat her with scorn,” said the dragon. “True knights were chivalrous, but your behavior is loutish in the extreme.”
“You talk,” said O’Brien.
“Or you’ve hit your head rather hard on the path,” said the dragon. “No, I jest. I am, indeed, speaking your native tongue. The monsters who designed me thought it a nice touch, as dragons in speculative literature are somewhat loquacious. But, sir, don’t allow your amazement over my vocalizations to distract you. Your behavior toward your wife is shameful. As one who dreams of knowing the love and affection of a devoted mate, I ask you to lift up that phone and apologize. Leave this place, and I shall not injure you. My offer of safe passage does not extend to your horse.”
“Ha!” said O’Brien, brandishing his sword. “Well, goddamn! A talking lizard.”
“You assume a martial position,” said the dragon. “I ask you to reconsider. Don’t act rashly. I’ve killed seventeen of your ilk. You haven’t a chance if you continue on this course of action.”
“Hee!” said O’Brien, licking his lips, shifting his grip on the sword. “You breathe fire, too? You making this hunt worth the money, lizard? Huh, lizard?”
“My name,” said the dragon, “is Morningstar.”
O’Brien screamed like he was auditioning for a kung fu movie as he lunged forward, swinging his razor sharp sword like a baseball bat.
Morningstar pushed backwards with a flap of his wings, raising up on his tail for balance as the sword cut the air where he’d stood. His hind claws lashed out, slicing through O’Brien’s steel breastplate like the world’s fastest can-opener.
O’Brien dropped the sword, falling to his knees as Morningstar swayed above him. The wanna-be knight dipped his gauntleted fingers into the jagged gash in his breastplate. He pulled them out to study them in the dying light. They dripped with red. His face grew pale.
Morningstar snaked his head forward, jaws wide open, and sank his teeth into O’Brien’s cheeks. With a snap and a crack, his jaws closed, and Morningstar’s mouth was filled with teeth and a tongue not his own. O’Brien fell to the stony path with a clatter.
Morningstar spit the foul taste of businessman from his mouth and silently moved toward the fallen phone. He lifted it, listening to Martha’s panicked voice. It nearly broke the dragon’s heart. How terrible it must be to lose a mate, even a rude and foolish one.
“Madam,” Morningstar said with all the softness his serpent voice could muster. “I regret to inform you of a tragic event.”
CHAPTER TWO
* * *
NOT VERY GOOD AT IT
ONE DISADVANTAGE of being a zombie was that Alex Pure no longer sweated. This meant he had trouble regulating his body temperature. Sitting on the sunny-side of an over-packed Greyhound inching toward Atlanta, Pure’s internal thermometer hovered around 107. When Pure got this hot, time crawled. His perceptions shifted into high gear, turning a five-hour bus ride into eternity, give or take a week.
On the plus side, his accelerated perceptions meant that he had plenty of time to work the crossword puzzle in the open puzzlebook of the sleeping man in the seat across the isle. Pure felt it would be rude to reach out and reposition the book on the man’s lap, so he worked the crossword upside down and backwards to help pass the time.
Crossword puzzles had taken on special significance since Pure had died. He’d never paid much attention to puzzles when he was alive, but death had changed the wiring in his brain. He noticed hidden patterns in the world that had once been lost on him. He could glance at clouds and know the weather for the next week. (Boiling hot.) He could study a stranger’s face and deduce intimate details of childhood. And then there were crosswords. These puzzles now struck Pure as one of the highest achievements of modern man. Sure, mankind had poisoned the planet, wrecked the climate, and triggered mass-extinctions, but, what the hey. Men could also put words into these marvelous grids. There was something magical, almost holy, in a language where words locked and clicked into other words with such ease.
35 across had Pure stumped. It was a big one, fourteen letters, with a clue too broad to be of any help. 35: Your problem. “IDIEDINTHEWARP” fit nicely, except that 35 down was “Newton’s light bulb,” which was “APPLE.” The next letter over had to be a “T” since the word down (or up, given the puzzle’s inverted state) was “BATHTUB.” He slid his eyes back and forth, working the down answers, quickly assembling the letters across until he reached the final clue, “Heavenly light,” making the last letter the “G” in “GLORY.”
“ATLANTISRISING” read 35 across. How was this his problem? Or anybody’s problem, for that matter? No doubt this was some movie reference he was missing. He hadn’t been to a movie in all the years he’d spent in Mount Weather. Pop culture clues were tough for him. He was only thirty-three, an age when a lot of people started to realize that the music and movies they’d imprinted on during their college years were no longer “cool.” But he’d skipped movies and music during college in favor of drugs and anonymous sex. On rare occasions, the name of a pharmaceutical might slip into a crossword, but most puzzle makers were too conservative to ever work in any of the several hundred slang terms he knew for genitals and the creative ways in which they could be used.
The man across the isle woke up. The magazine shifted as the man pulled out his phone and glanced at the screen. 5:34 p.m., August 12, 2037. Pure tried to stare around the man’s hand to see if there was any more of the puzzle he could work. The man suddenly looked across the isle to find Pure staring intently at his lap. Pure turned his face toward the window.
The pale reflection there didn’t look like a zombie. He still had a mostly clean-cut appearance from his military days, though his dark hair was just a little too long for regulation, and he had the same five day unshaved stubble he’d sported when he’d gone into the warp. His clothes had seen better days, though. His once white shirt and blue jeans were ripped and muddy, as if he’d recently spent time clawing himself free from a jail that had collapsed around him, which, in fact, was how he’d spent his weekend.
Outside the window, beyond his reflection, was the rain forest. He’d been to Georgia years ago and it had been nothing like this. It had forests, sure, but this was jungle, thick and all-consuming. The shoulders of the road were black with ash. The department of transportation had switched from mowers to flame-throwers to keep the pavement clean. The bus passed a kudzu covered cinderblock foundation for a house, the tenth empty foundation they’d passed in an hour. This area of the country had been hit hard by mega-molds.
Mega-molds left Pure with a sliver of optimism. What with all the species going extinct, it was comforting to realize that new species still slid into the gaps. Life went on. Mega-molds thrived in the tropical heat and humidity. Thrived was something of an understatement. If mega-mold spores blew into your door as you headed for work in the morning, a huge black puffball would fill your house by the time you returned home. If you were unfortunate enough to open the door, you’d get a face full of spores and suffocate in moments as the mold took root in your lungs. Once the spoors got into your house, it was best to walk away and never look back. Eventually the puffball would push through your roof and knock down the walls. The most you could hope for was that the HAZMAT team might return the little bits of twisted metal that had been your bowling trophies after they had incinerated the place and raked through the ashes.
At last they reached Atlanta. The transition from uninhabited rain forest to teeming metropolis was almost instantaneous. Pure closed his eyes to rest them. Since exiting the warp, he didn’t need to sleep. Unfortunately, after long hours of use his eyes sometimes dried out and stuck open. He’d go temporarily blind until his retinal cells could regenerate. He took this quiet moment to practice breathing and concentrate on his heartbeat. He suspected his heart didn’t beat when he wasn’t thinking about it. He hadn’t really been able to test this, since any time he wondered if his heart was beating, sure enough, it was.
“IDIEDINTHEWARP” was a much better answer than “ATLANTISRISING.” Why couldn’t Newton have sat under an ipple tree?
The bus stopped in the tightly packed downtown terminal. Pure looked out the window, spotting a newspaper rack. The economic sense of newspapers had vanished long ago, but a handful still survived as non-profits supported by corporate sponsors. A headline on the Coca-Cola Journal and Constitution read, “Atlantis Rising Homeless” before disappearing behind a bumper sticker on the newspaper box that read “Four Horsemen.” Pure was vaguely aware that the Four Horsemen were some kind of band.
Leaving the bus, he went to the paper box. It only took cards, which Pure couldn’t carry since they left an obvious trail for the people hunting him. On a whim, he tried the handle anyway. The door swung open and he grabbed a paper. The part of his morals that minded minor theft had died in the warp with the rest of him.
On closer inspection, the headline read, “Atlanta’s Rising Homeless Population Strains Resources.” He scanned the article for another second or two, “floods of Canadians,” yadda yadda, “no more beds” yadda yadda, “Pepsiphetamine addiction,” same old, same old. He’d read this story a thousand times. A dozen years ago, the waves of cold water from the melting Artic had disrupted the Gulf Stream. Without the oceans pumping heat north, much of Europe and large swathes of Canada were vanishing beneath glaciers. When Pure was a kid, everyone had argued about global warming. Now, with a growing ice sheet covering everything north of Maine, the average world temperature was plunging rapidly, despite the furnace-like heat of Georgia summers. On paper, global warming had gone away and everyone was happy.
Except, of course, everyone was miserable. The headlines were a daily assault of Famine, Pestilence, War, and Death, making the “Four Horsemen” sticker on the paper box grimly appropriate.
Just then, a pink-haired teenager, maybe fourteen years old, sauntered past him singing, “Atlantis rising. . . .”
“Hey,” Pure said.
“. . . Arab’s white caps in a winter wale,” sang the boy, walking on. The music from the boy’s headphones was loud enough for Pure to hear.
“Wait,” Pure shouted, reaching out and grabbing the boy by the shoulder.
In a lightning whirl that Pure found impressive, the boy spun around, dropped a switchblade into his hand, and placed the tip to Pure’s throat.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” the boy screamed. “Do not touch me!”
Pure smiled. The knife at his throat didn’t worry him. He was more bothered that everyone in the bus station was staring. He preferred to keep a low profile.
“Sorry,” Pure said, holding up his open hands. “I just wanted to ask you something.”
The boy popped out one of his earphones and said, “What?”
“You were singing about Atlantis and—”
“You high or something? I weren’t singing ’bout Atlanta.”
“No, Atlantis.”
“What I said,” said the boy, who still had the switchblade inches from Pure.
“So what were you listening to?”
“It’s by the Four Horsemen.”
“How does it go?” asked Pure. “The bit you were singing?”
“At last it’s rising, like Ahab’s white corpse on a whiter whale.”
Pure wrinkled his brow. “Really?” he asked.
“Really,” said the boy.
“What does that mean?”
“I dunno,” said the boy. “What’s it matter to you?”
“Put down the knife and I’ll explain,” said Pure.
“Don’t touch me again,” said the boy, slowly lowering his hand, but leaving the blade open.
Pure studied the boy’s eyes. He’d seen eyes like this before, hard and cold. He knew the boy’s story without asking it. The kid was a loner, probably an orphan, most likely the victim of sexual assault, which explained the knife reflex. Pure also knew something else about him.
“Your name,” said Pure. “It’s John Conover, right?”
“It’s Spike,” he answered, furrowing his brow. “Do I know you?”
“Nope. I’m here because of a fortune cookie. I read your name on a fortune cookie.”
Spike stared at Pure.
“I know it sounds crazy. But yesterday, I was eating Chinese food in Savannah and got a fortune cookie with your name in it. Earlier that day, I found a bus ticket to Atlanta on a park bench, sitting underneath last Sunday’s obituary page from the paper here. I think I’m supposed to come here and warn you that you’re about to die.”
“Are you threatening me?” said the boy, raising the knife again.
“No. I’m hoping to help you. I know you’ve no reason to believe me, but I’m in touch with, ah, for lack of a better word, a ‘higher power.’ There’s this, um, entity that guides me from a different dimension. Unfortunately, he’s not very good at it. He causes me to see and hear things. I get clues, weird snippets, but they’re always hard to figure out. Eventually they all make sense, but usually I’m too late to do anything. I thought I was coming to Atlanta to find the grave of John Conover, for instance. Maybe talk with his widow or something. Finding you alive means I might have gotten here in time to save you.”
“I don’t need saving,” said Spike. “You some kind of religious freak?”
“I’m not here to indoctrinate you. But the one who guides me must think you’re important. After all, you gave me the third clue in an hour with the words ‘Atlantis rising.’ I don’t have the foggiest notion what this means, but he must think it’s important.”
“Show me the fortune cookie,” said Spike.
“OK,” said Pure, digging into his pocket. As he searched he made nervous small talk, aware that people were staring at them. He really hoped no one called the cops. “I don’t need to eat anymore, but, you know, I occasionally miss food. My taste buds aren’t great so I have to go with really hot stuff to get any effect. I suck down those little red peppers in General Tsao’s Chicken like they were candy. Ah! Here it is.”
Spike took the slip of paper from Pure.
“This says, ‘Spies are everywhere,’ ” said Spike. “My name’s not on it.”
“Really?” said Pure, taking back the slip. “I swear—”
“Freeze!” shouted a deep, familiar voice behind him. “Put your hands in the air!”
Pure lifted his hands and peeked over his shoulder. From the corner of his eye he could see Hammer Morgan aiming his obscenely large pistol at him. Hammer was accompanied by two Atlanta police officers, also with pistols drawn.
“Get on the ground,” shouted Hammer.
Pure sighed. These encounters were growing tedious. Hammer didn’t ever bother to say hello anymore.
“Get real,” said Pure, rolling his eyes. “The floor’s filthy. I know you get off on your little dominance games, so what say we skip to the part where you cuff me.”
“Get on the damn floor,” growled Hammer.
Pure sighed. “Or what? You’ll shoot me? You’ve tried before and it never takes. What do you think will stop the bullet this time? Aren’t you tired of this game yet?”
“Get on the floor,” said Hammer. “Your friend too.”
“Hey man,” said Spike, “I ain’t no friend of this asshole.” Spike waved his arms around for emphasis.
Unfortunately, he was still holding his knife.
“Weapon!” shouted one of the officers, taking aim.
Pure’s senses were still accelerated by the heat. The gap between the officer pulling his trigger and the thunder of the shot seemed like a space of minutes. Unfortunately, for Pure to cover the distance between him and the officer would have taken what seemed like hours. As it was, he was able to move his body between the officer and Spike long before he heard the gunshot.
Too bad that the whole reason you can hear a gunshot is that the bullet breaks the sound barrier. In eerie silence the bullet punched into Pure’s torso. By the time the sound reached Pure, he was no longer in his body.
Pure rose. The kinetic energy of the bullet punching his flesh raced through his blood. He felt almost alive again. The energy was a wave, lifting him, driving him up, higher, far beyond his body, through the smoke-stained roof of the bus terminal, out into blue sky, and beyond.
Pure was no longer here and now. He was back in the warp, in the space that was no-space, the there that was not there, in the eternity that hides between the ticks of a clock. The warp was a pitch black canvas against which strobing lights swirled. Little by little, the flashes began to take the shape of a man. Not just any man . . . himself. A second Alex Pure still dwelled in this darkness. The Pure that waited for him at the heart of the warp was a beautiful creature, all light and brightness, free of the squalor and weight of physical existence. Before him was Pure, purified.
The purified Pure was surrounded by monkeys.
Good, thought the more earthly Alex Pure.
The glorified Pure extended his hand. The earthly Pure reached out. Only the tiniest gulf separated their fingers.
The higher Pure drew his hand back.
“Sorry,” that Pure said, shaking his head. “Atlantis is rising. Or maybe falling. Whatever. Do something, or everyone dies.”
The earthly Alex Pure cried out in frustration as he began to fall. The perfected Pure and his monkey minions vanished. Blue sky flashed by, followed by the yellow bus station ceiling, as Pure twisted to see what was happening. The bullet or some fragment of it had passed through his torso and was now entering the eye of Spike, AKA John Conover, AKA the latest person he’d helped kill. Could he have stopped this just by not coming here? Should he just give up?
Before he could ponder the value of action versus inaction, the wave of energy that had lifted him collapsed entirely, crashing him back into his squalid, heavy body. He stumbled backwards, his ears ringing, his nose wrinkled from the sulfur stench of gun smoke. His skull vibrated like a struck bell.
“Ow,” he said, struggling to keep his balance as he tripped over Spike’s sprawled and twitching limbs. He finally found his footing and remained standing.
“Hold your fire!” Hammer shouted to the officers.
“Ow, damn,” said Pure, clutching his stomach. He wasn’t bleeding. That meant his heart wasn’t beating. Only, now that he thought about it, hot red liquid oozed around his fingers.
“Alex,” said Hammer, his gun aimed straight at Pure’s head. “I’m giving you one last warning. Don’t make me do this. I don’t want to hurt you.”
Pure stopped worrying about his blood. He clenched his fists into tight knots and stared into Hammer’s eyes. Perhaps twenty feet separated them, but it seemed so much less, so much less than the space that had lay between his fingers and the hand of his higher being. Pure believed that his rage was powerful enough that no bullet would ever stop him. He could stomp across the tiny distance and snatch away Hammer’s gun and feed it to him.
“Are you satisfied?” Pure growled. “Your goons have killed a kid. Is catching me worth it?”
“He had a knife!” the officer who had fired shouted.
“Shut up,” said Hammer.
“How will you sleep tonight?” asked Pure.
“Not as important to me as where you’re sleeping tonight,” said Hammer. “You’re under arrest. Get on the floor. Place your hands on your head.”
“How’s he still standing?” the second officer mumbled.
“I’m not a violent person,” said Pure, addressing the officers, ignoring Hammer. “But the entity that watches over me is sometimes clumsy. Did Hammer tell you what happened to the last jail they put me in?”
“On the floor,” said Hammer.
“Charleston, South Carolina, gone from the map. The earthquake was 7.8 on the Richter scale. The epicenter was the jail that held me. In the aftershocks and tidal waves, the whole damn city slid into the ocean. Kind of like the myth of Atlantis, now that I think about it.”
“Alex, I’m counting to three,” said Hammer.
“Why are you calling me Alex now? Whatever happened to our pet names, Sugar?” Despite his flippant tone, Pure dreaded what was about to happen.
“One,” said Hammer.
Pure could see straight down the barrel of the gun. This one would stop in his brain.
“Two!”
Pure wondered if he’d still be able to do crosswords upside down and backwards without a pencil. He asked, “You want another city on your hands? Atlanta is a long way from the ocean. Might be a volcano this time.”
“Three, Sugar,” said Hammer.
The air cracked open in a flash of light. Monkey screeches filled the bus station as tiny rainbow windows bubbled all around the officers. Bony monkey fingers reached out and snatched at their pistols. Hammer got off a shot that whizzed past Pure’s ear before the monkey paw twisted the gun from his grasp. A horrible stench filled the air as feces materialized from nowhere, flying in precise arcs to splatter forcefully in the faces of Hammer and the officers.
“Thanks, warp monkeys,” said Pure, bending over Spike’s body.
“Mind if I borrow this?” he said, tearing away the earphones and the tiny player they were attached to. He wanted to hear more of the song.
By now, the whole station was a cacophony of screams as monkey fingers tangled in the hair of people watching. Buckets of monkey dung rained from the sky, save for a narrow corridor around Pure. Pure turned to Hammer, blew him a kiss, then walked out to the street where a line of cars waited at parking meters. Instinctively, Pure spotted the one with the windows rolled down.
Pure got into the car, dug for the keys under the seat, found them, then turned the ignition. His wheels were an ancient station wagon with a gasoline engine, no doubt the only means of transportation for some honest, hard-working Joe. Pure understood that without the car the poor guy wouldn’t be able to get to work and might lose his job. He and his wife and their nine kids could wind up homeless side by side with the Canucks. But Pure had a hole through his liver. Everyone has problems. He put the car into drive and hit the road.
CHAPTER THREE
* * *
SHOOTING STAR
THE CITY CAME FROM beneath space, following the faintest possible ripples left from the hole that had been punched through reality. It emerged into nearly nothing, far out beyond the orbit of comets, confused by the lack of a nearby planet. It spun slowly, analyzing the radiation that sank into its soot black shell, studying the feeble tugs of gravity, until at last it found the nearest star, wreathed with a thin halo of dust and gas.
There were planets there. One had been the source of the signal, carried far, far away by the motion of the galactic arm in the time it had taken the city to follow the ripples.
Dipping back into underspace, the city punched back into the mundane dimensions closer to the star. Cataloguing the various planets, its attention became fixed on a gassy, wet ball of rock orbited by an oversized moon. It felt a thrill of recognition to see this world of ice and fire and wind. Continuing to skim along the surface of space, it drew ever closer until it tilted into the planet’s gravity well. The city was coming home.
The city came with a gift. Within the quantum patterns of its machine soul were love, peace, and joy. The city was designed as the perfect servant and the perfect master. The culmination of 65 million years of evolved intelligence, the city was programmed to create a world without war, without hate or hunger, safe from fear, and even death.
Heaven was coming to Earth.
We couldn’t have stopped it if we wanted to.
THE WINDLESS SEA WAS THE COLOR of onyx, calmed to mirror smoothness, reflecting starlight in the moonless night. Adam Morgan lay on the deck, his body stiffened to near-paralysis by a lifetime of aches and agonies magnified by the stillness.
His knees throbbed. They hadn’t been any good for years now. They hurt standing, sitting, lying down. The knotted muscles of his back felt tangled together with barbwire. His ribs ached with each wheezing breath. His heart beat too fast and too hard for a man his age. His skin burned like fire, the heat of the day’s sun still dancing upon him.
His pain gave him grim satisfaction. This was why he’d come to sea, in pursuit of the medieval notion that mortification of the flesh could in some way redeem the soul.
At times he felt on the edge of salvation. After years cooped in labs and offices, shut away from the sun, wind and rain, he’d connected once more with the physical world. His weeks on the sea had kept his body in motion, kept soft muscles pumping until they became solid little ropes, pulling and pulling against the sails, against the wheel. His mind, so used to wrestling with the fundamental questions of life in his day to day job as a geneticist, now wrestled with questions of survival.
This was a new sea for a new world. The great heat engine that drove the trade winds and pushed warm water northward had collapsed into chaotic eddies. The Gulf Stream was but a memory now. From day to day the sea changed. The maps of the world were being redrawn as the encroaching oceans chewed away the coastlines. The Outer Banks of North Carolina had been overwashed by the tidal surge of a hurricane in early spring, and when the waters receded half of the land was gone. On the flip side, the plastic trash that had been floating in the Pacific for nearly a century had proven a fertile ground for matting microbes. They’d knit the whole mass together into a giant floating island that was home to a hundred species of birds and even starting to sprout forests. All environmental destruction was a precursor to environmental creation. Not all the new environments, alas, were pleasing to the human eye, let alone the nose.
When he’d set sail, Adam had hoped to learn that at heart he was an adventurer, an explorer, a new man for a new world. Confronting wind and wave would make him feel alive.
Now, a thousand miles from the nearest land, the wind had died, the waves had gone still, and there was nothing to confront except memories.
He’d failed his son. Right before he set sail he’d phoned Chase. He’d called to say that he was sorry for all the years of neglect, shunting Chase off to boarding schools, allowing him to grow up a stranger. Instead he told Chase that the battery in the car was down to forty percent efficiency and he should get it replaced before he made any long trips. This was possibly the closest he’d ever come to vocalizing concern for his son.
Adam had meant to do better. His own father had been absent much of his early childhood, serving on active duty in the Marines, rotated through endless deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Then, one day his father had come home to stay, at least what bits had been found and placed in the casket. Adam entered his teen years determined to live up to the memory of a man who’d given his life for freedom. Anytime he felt afraid, or tired, or willing to settle for second best, the ghost of the man who’d given everything for what he believed would come back to spur him onward. Adam’s dead father had been a better parent than he’d been to Chase.
He tried to shake off these thoughts. He tried to find the will to stand, walk into the cabin, and fix something to eat. Focus on the now. His past was a disaster, but it was done. Gone forever. No point in looking back. Forward only! Never give up.
“I’m a new man for a new world,” he said, repeating his mantra.
But his body was unimpressed by his pep talk.
“Get up,” he said. “Stop being an old self-pitying fool.”
THE CITY GREW EVER CLOSER to the blue planet. It studied the oceans. There were intelligent beings living in these waters, but not all intelligence was equal. More promising were the tool using bipeds who skimmed the surface in artificial vessels of their own design. These beings were not who it expected to find, but there were no other candidates for the origin of the signal. Whether they knew it or not, these creatures had summoned the city, and it would serve them.
ADAM COULDN’T GET UP. His memories weren’t finished. After tormenting him with Chase, his thoughts turned to Jessica, his wife of twenty-five years. Twenty of these years, Jessica had been in a coma. She’d been a victim of sleeper flu, the epidemic that swept North America in the winter of 2017. That flu had been a harbinger, a prelude of worse things to come, the years of draught, the earthquakes, the plagues, the wars, the hunger.
Adam could have done something about this, perhaps. He was one of the world’s top geneticists. He could have used his genius in pursuit of cures to the plagues, or to design new crops for famine-ravaged lands. Instead, he’d spent the last two decades of his life building living toys for bored, wealthy men. This had paid much better than trying to save the world. Chase may not have appreciated his expensive boarding schools, but at least his son had gotten a good education and had been shielded from the horrors that each day shocked the public schools. Chase had been spared from violence and disease, from drugs and abuse. While Jessica could never know it, the best doctors available cared for her in a secure private facility with a self-contained power grid. These things cost money. Lots of money.
More than money.
Not for the first time, the option of suicide flickered across his consciousness. And not for the first time, his dead father rose up to frown at him for his weakness.
“I’m a new man for a new world,” he said. He closed his eyes and imagined himself rising, standing on the deck. He opened his eyes and hadn’t moved an inch.
“The hell I am,” he said. “I’m a monster.”
But even a monster proved unequal to the task of standing.
High above in the darkness a light twinkled, a bright star growing brighter. As Adam watched, the star threw off sparks, growing larger, yet leaving no trail, until suddenly it vanished.
His right shoulder went numb. The boat lurched. A gunshot cracked in his ears.
“Ahhh!” he cried, sucking air, rolling to his left side as he clutched his right shoulder. It was hot and sticky, the familiar contours of flesh distorted. He pulled his hand away, straining to see his fingers in the dim starlight. They were dark with blood.
With the crack of gunshot still ringing in his skull, he grasped that he’d been shot. How? Who? Why?
He rolled to his belly and used his left arm to help him rise to his knees. His other arm hung limp, dragging the deck as he crawled toward the open door of the cabin. He lurched into the dark portal, falling down the short steps that led into the tiny room that served as bedroom, office, kitchen, and hospital. He fumbled, slapping the wall until at last he hit the lights. He rolled onto his bed, gasping in pain with each movement.
“Oh god,” he whispered, staring at his mangled shoulder. “Oh god.”
If the wound had been a few inches to the left, he’d be dead.
He might still die if he blacked out while he was bleeding. He had to fight the shock. He had to make his body move.
This time, his body obeyed. He rolled over into the floor and pulled out the drawers beneath the bed, searching for the first aid kit. He found it, and also stumbled across the bottle of brandy he’d been saving for the day he reached Spain, his first destination on the other side of the Atlantic. He opened the bottle awkwardly with his left hand and took a long swig of its contents, then poured it liberally over his wound. It burned like mad. But the liquid washed away some of the blood and gore, giving Adam a better look at the damage.
To his relief, his arm wasn’t hanging by a thin strip of flesh. Instead there was a two-inch gash torn through the outer edge of his deltoid, bleeding steadily, not spurting with each heartbeat. No major artery was involved.
The wound looked to be as much a burn as a gouge. The edges were black with ash. Feeling was returning now to the arm below the wound. He could wiggle his fingers, though he still couldn’t bend his arm at the elbow.
He found the gauze in the first aid kit and pressed it against the gash as firmly as he could. The pressure somehow made the pain more manageable. The palm of his hand now encompassed the injury that had been his whole world seconds before.
He would survive this.
Unless whoever shot him had a second bullet.
But this was crazy. How could anyone have shot him? He hadn’t seen or heard an airplane or a boat. There definitely wasn’t a stowaway on board after three weeks. It was impossible that someone had shot him. So where had all this blood come from?
By now, his arm bent at the elbow. He fumbled with the first aid kit, unwrapping the medical tape. He bound his wound, as tightly as he could manage, the tape painfully pulling the hair in his armpit. His handiwork was far from tidy. When he was done, he fashioned a crude sling to keep his arm immobile. Already, blood seeped to the surface of his work.
He grew lightheaded. He was afraid to lie down. Sleep was dangerous. Sleep was the enemy. Where was insomnia when he needed it?
He struggled to his feet in the cramped cabin. He found his flashlight and headed back up the stairs into the open air. The part of his mind that believed he hadn’t been shot was starting to win.
He had another hypothesis now. The reason the shooting star he’d seen didn’t leave a trail was because it was coming straight at him. He’d been hit by a meteorite.
It was a wild, improbable, stupid theory.
But it was the best he had to go on.
He followed the blood trail he’d left, like a detective investigating his own murder. Here was the bloody handprint against the door, here the splatter where the victim had stumbled. Here was the splash of red where he’d been hit.
As expected, there was a splintered hole punched in the deck. He stooped to look down through it but it was too small to see into, no bigger around than his pinky.
Now sleep really wasn’t an option. In all likelihood, he had a hole in his hull. His ship might be sinking.
But the size of the hole in the deck gave him hope. It might be only a small hole. He might yet save the ship. It was possible even that the rock had disintegrated, and done no further damage.
He went back into the cabin and pulled aside the panel that opened the crawl space. To his relief, water didn’t rush out. On his hands and knees, he tossed aside the gear stuffed in the space. He searched the area with the flashlight beam, trying to figure out where the hole would be. Everything looked dry. Maybe his sense of space was off. The hole might be further forward.
He climbed back up the stairs. His dizziness was gone now. Even the pain in his arm grew distant and unimportant in the face of this mystery.
He sat his flashlight on the deck, centered on the hole, the beam pointing straight down. He went back to the cabin, crouching before the crawl space.
There. The beam of light hung on the far side of the space, further to the left than he’d envisioned. In the tight column of light, something was moving. It glistened as if wet. He guessed it to be a tiny fountain of water bubbling up.
Falling to his belly, he pulled himself into the dark space, grunting and cursing as he struggled forward for a better look.
But the closer he got, the less what he saw made sense. It wasn’t a fountain. It looked like a small acorn, glistening with blood. He stretched to pick it up. Though he could barely reach it, the object clung to his fingertips; the blood that coated it was the consistency of molasses. Bringing the thing closer to his eyes, it was unmistakably a seed, though from what plant he couldn’t fathom. The shell was hard, but dented slightly as he pressed his thumbnail into it. His fingertips tingled as he held it, a faint needling as if the object was intensely cold, though it felt pleasantly warm.
Then, for no reason that made sense to him, a vision flooded his mind of him placing the blood covered seed in his mouth. He found the idea repulsive, yet his hand moved toward his mouth despite himself.
As his tongue touched the surface, his mouth filled with a thousand flavors, as if every taste bud had clicked on at once. Every meal he’d ever eaten flooded his mind, from the sweet warm fatness of mother’s milk to the unbearable sourness of his first pickle to the satisfying protein and fire marriage of a well-seared steak. His lips closed around the object and he pressed it against the back of his teeth as music filled his ears, every song he knew flooding back in one chaotic din that merged into a thrumming, bone-shaking chord. His mind opened before the assault of sound and he discovered that he suddenly knew, in every language of the earth, all the words for love and hope and fear and death.
He spat the seed back into his palm.
With the blood coating washed away by his saliva, the seed glowed with a faint internal light, tinted pink. The seed had grown during the brief seconds he’d held it in his mouth and was now closer in size to a pecan, bent slightly into the shape of a kidney. Staring through the translucent skin, he could see dark veins running to a central nucleus. Turning it, he managed to get a faint idea of the irregular shape within.
Adam furrowed his brow. The thing inside was a tiny homunculus of a man, with toothpick limbs that twitched and quivered. The tiny black specs that served as eyes turned toward Adam. The slit of the mouth, no longer than a hyphen at the end of a sentence, opened and silently mouthed a word.
Adam dropped the seed.
His stomach twisted into a tight knot as dizziness seized him. He felt inverted in the cramped space, unable to tell if he was facing up or down. He tried to back out and the slowness of the process caused him to panic. He banged his head against the wood enclosing him.
It wasn’t until he at last wiggled free, sitting in the cabin, clutching the edge of his bunk for stability, that he realized how much his ears were ringing. His throat felt as if he’d swallowed barbed-wire. He’d nearly screamed himself deaf.
Glancing toward the open door of the crawlspace, at the luminous seed writhing as it grew, he screamed some more.
PURE STOOD ON A BRIDGE overpass in Memphis. From here it was an eighty-foot plunge onto a highway. The late night traffic whizzed beneath him.
He leaned over the rail, trying to make sure the fall would be enough to really damage him. If the gunshot had pushed him into the warp long enough for a few short sentences to be exchanged, what might smacking into the pavement at terminal velocity accomplish?
Pure was frustrated with chasing around the country on hunches and odd messages. He’d used the search function on Spike’s media player and learned that the Four Horsemen’s label, Apocalypse Noise, was based in Memphis. It struck him as potentially significant to learn the location of the Apocalypse. He’d gone to the studio office, only to discover they’d gone bankrupt and the office was now empty. The whole thing was a dead end. The other location clue on the album Spike had listened to was a song called “Skeets Motel.” He’d used the GPS in the car to search greater Memphis and had been skunked. No Skeets Motel.
He had no patience for detective work. Thus the temptation to throw himself off the bridge. He wanted to find his higher self and beat the answers out of him.
But some small quiet voice within him didn’t like the pavement diving option. A: It was really unfair to lay this kind of guilt trip on some innocent driver who might run over his body. B: Memphis had the same budget problems as everywhere else; they couldn’t afford another pothole. C: Even though he was confident he’d survive the fall, if survive was a verb that applied to a man already dead, this was still going to be painful. Pain sucked.
A car pulled to a stop near him. A voice called out, “Mister?”
Pure turned around. A middle-aged woman in a nurse uniform sat in an ancient, battered Prius.
“You okay?” she asked.
Pure smiled. “You worried I might jump?”
“Yes,” she said.
Pure nodded. “I was thinking about it. It’s a long story.”
“So tell me about it,” she said. “I’m on my way to work, but I’ll call and tell them I’ll be late. I’ll listen as long as you need me to.”
As she said this, a passing car on the bridge beeped its horn, annoyed it had to swerve to avoid her car.
Pure started to say something, but stopped. The thing he hated most about his current condition was how difficult it was to explain himself. He’d once worked in a top-secret military facility, his soul had been ripped from his body by an experimental warp door, and now he was on the run from his former boyfriend who was hunting him down to take him back to be studied like a guinea pig. Oh, and apparently, he was supposed to stop the apocalypse. There was no part of the truth that didn’t make him sound like a nut.
“I’ve changed my mind,” he said. “I’m not going to jump.”
“You sure?” she said.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Mariah.”
“Mariah, I’m Alex. I promise not to jump. In retrospect, it’s a fairly desperate measure to take in order to get directions to the Skeets Motel.”
“Skeets Motel?” Mariah said, sounding bewildered. “That’s in Arkansas, in the Ozarks. We stayed there twenty years ago when we moved from New Mexico to here.”
Pure smiled. “Wow! You’re a real life saver.”
“OK,” she said, sounding more confused. “No problem.”
“Thanks for restoring my faith in humanity,” said Pure, giving her a salute. He watched as she pulled away, her taillights looking like two red eyes. “I hope I don’t let you down.”
MORNINGSTAR REGRETTED gorging on the horse. Even with an empty belly, his wings were only useful for short flights of a few hundred yards. With thirty pounds of raw meat in his stomach, he was too heavy for his wings to lift him. He could still glide from tree to tree, but his pace was only barely keeping him ahead of his pursuers.
From his perch in the trees, he could hear the ATV’s of the security team on the other side of the hill. He knew they could track him wherever he went, but on an empty belly he could flit across the rough terrain at speeds that kept him safely out of reach.
They were chasing him because of O’Brien’s phone. He’d stolen hunter’s phones in the past and it always triggered these chases. In the hours before the batteries ran out, Morningstar was a voracious reader. Most of what he knew of the world beyond the forest came from the information he’d gathered from these devices. The men who’d created him had designed him to be smart, but they weren’t keen on him actually furthering his education.
The security team had been pushing him east all morning. Morningstar’s skull throbbed. He was nearing the border of his territory. He’d been warned that there was a device in his head that would kill him if he ever tried to leave his forest. Just coming a few hundred feet away from the edge of the boundary triggered a screaming sound inside his skull that made his teeth ache.
Certain that he had at least five minutes before the guards could spot him, he tried to focus on the article about dinosaurs. Dinosaurs fascinated him and he read everything he could about them and other ancient reptiles. He was particularly interested in the archaeopteryx. Morningstar thought he looked more like this toothy protobird than any other creature he’d ever seen, though from what he’d read the archaeopteryx had been little larger than a chicken, while he was closer in size to a tiger. Still, there was something about knowing that such a beast had once existed that made him feel a bit less lonely.
Of course, the archaeopteryx was now dead. Morningstar still hoped to avoid such a fate. With the screaming in his skull too great for him to concentrate on reading anyway, he at last flung the phone away, then leapt across treetops away from the boundary until the pain lessened.
He froze as the ATVs came over the ridge. There were twelve men with dart guns. If his belly wasn’t so full, he’d be tempted to fight them. He had an advantage in such encounters because they weren’t actually here to kill him; he was valuable property. The more hunters he killed, the more other hunters were willing to pay for a chance to bring him down. This meant he had little to lose by leaping down upon the guards and killing as many of his tormentors as he could before the tranquilizer rifles laid him low.
Alas, he had nothing to gain, either. He’d killed guards by the score. It never truly diminished their numbers. From what he’d learned via his study sessions with stolen phones, humans numbered in the billions. Picking off two or three or even a dozen at a time would never bring him permanent relief from such an enemy.
The men found the phone on the ground and quickly retreated, apparently not wanting a face-to-face encounter any more than he did. It still wasn’t too late to change his mind and pounce upon the lone ATV driver straggling behind the others. But he kept still, knowing that such an attack wouldn’t get him any closer to his long-term goal.
He studied the land to the east, at the forest stretching for miles beyond the boundary, dreaming of the vast world beyond. One day, all that vast world would be his hunting ground.
CHAPTER FOUR
* * *
THE KID, THE BABE, THE NUN
DEPUTY RON TUCKER pulled his cruiser into the parking lot of the Skeets Motel to find Erskine Skeets, proprietor, waiting for him. Tucker was at the end of a week of graveyard shifts and the last thing he felt like was dealing with Skeets, probably the most paranoid person in all of White Hill, Arkansas. Two, three times a week Skeets would call and report someone suspicious who’d checked into his hotel. Skeets had watched too many movies in which small town motels were the favored abode of serial killers and terrorists. Ten years ago, Skeets had reported a thuggish looking character with a hook for a hand, an eye-patch, and a tattoo across his neck that said, “Satan’s Servant.” The guy turned out to have an outstanding warrant for armed robbery in Tulsa. This taste of success as an alert citizen had turned him into White Hill’s biggest pain in the butt.
Deputy Tucker rolled down the window of the cruiser, drawing back from the terrible heat that flooded in once the seal of his air-conditioned environment was broken. Not even 8:00 a.m. and already a blast furnace.
“Morning, Mr. Skeets,” said Tucker. “What’s up?”
“What’s up?” said Skeets. “What do you mean by that?”
“I mean what’s wrong,” said Tucker. “Why’d you call 911 this time?”
“That’s not what I heard in the tone,” said Skeets. “You sound like you’re annoyed. You sound like you’re tired of doing the job that us taxpayers hired you to do.”
“Sorry,” said Tucker.
“No you’re not,” said Skeets. “Look at you. You don’t even have enough professionalism to get out of your car when you’re talking to me.”
Tucker grabbed his sunglasses from the dash. Conversations with Skeets usually had him rolling his eyes. The sunglasses might save him from a scolding. Tucker exited the car and put on his smile.
“I apologize, Mr. Skeets,” he said. “Been a long night. What can I do for you?”
“I got some thieves up in 21 that need arresting,” said Skeets.
“I see,” said Tucker. “What did they steal?”
“Gasoline. I had two guests complain this morning about their tanks being almost empty. It’s the folks in 21 what’s doing it.”
“You saw them?”
“Ron, take a look at this parking lot. We got six vehicles left this morning. One diesel, four fuel cells, and that old junker truck with a gas engine. It belongs to the folks in room 21. Who would you suspect?”
“It could be someone who’s not a guest here,” said Tucker.
“That’s a pretty suspicious bunch in 21,” said Skeets. “I almost called them in last night.”
“Suspicious?”
“Yep. Three of them. The kid that checked in paid with cash and said his name was Robert Walters, and that’s what his license said, but I thought it was funny he called himself Robert, not Bob, not Rob. And he’s traveling with this girl, maybe sixteen, with dark glasses, acting like she’s blind. But she had a lot of tattoos. And I ask myself, why would a blind person want tattoos?”
“Maybe she got them before she went blind?” said Tucker.
“Maybe. Still seems funny to me.”
Tucker nodded. “You said there was a third person?”
“An old lady. I mean really old. Dressed like a nun.”
“A nun,” said Tucker.
“Right,” said Skeets.
“A nun?” said Tucker.
“You having trouble hearing me?”
“Nope. Let’s go talk to them.”
They walked to 21, Tucker wiping the sweat from his brow. He was guessing it must be 95° already, maybe 100°. Tucker knocked on the door. There were hushed voices from inside. No one answered.
Tucker knocked again. “Open up! It’s the police!”
More hushed conversation.
The door opened a crack, then stopped as it reached the end of its chain. A sweet-faced little old lady in a habit looked through the crack.
“May I help you officer?” she asked in a trembling voice.
“We’ve had reports of some gasoline theft this morning. I was wondering if I could come into your room and take a look?”
“Now wouldn’t be a good time officer,” said the little old lady. “I’m afraid one of the sisters is in the shower.”
Tucker noticed he could hear the water running.
“Well, can you ask her to throw on a robe?”
“I suppose,” said the little old lady.
Just then, the shower stopped.
A male voice called out from the bathroom, “Man, I thought I’d never get the smell of gas off me.”
The little old lady shut the door before Tucker could react.
There was now muffled shouting inside the room, although Tucker couldn’t quite make it out.
Tucker turned to Skeets. “I assume you have a key?”
“You going in?” said Skeets. “You gonna arrest ’em by yourself or you gonna call for backup?”
“Maybe you’re right. The nun looked kind of vicious,” said Tucker.
“There’s that tone again,” said Skeets. “Is there anyone left on the force that’s not a smart ass?”
“You got a key, or you want me to kick the door in?”
Skeets held out the key. Tucker took it and drew his gun. Then he thought better of barging in. He was in a hurry to get this over with but that was no reason to be sloppy. While his every instinct told him there was nothing dangerous going on, he decided to play it by the book. He walked to the back of the truck and took out his radio.
“So you’re not going in?” said Skeets.
“Not yet,” said Tucker. “They’re not going anywhere without getting past us. Figure I’ll call in these plates.”
“You didn’t believe me,” said Skeets. “I know it. No one down at the sheriff’s ever believes me. But I was right! We got us some criminals this time!”
“Yeah,” said Tucker. “We’ll have to special order you a medal. You’ve saved the world from a dangerous old nun.”
SISTER SUE PULLED HER EAR from the door and started loading the shotgun. Sue had been fighting for the Earth Defense Army for seventy-plus years now, so her gnarled fingers slipped the shells into the shotgun with practiced precision.
“I’ll show them dangerous,” Sue said, snapping the gun shut.
“Whoah, whoah, whoah,” said Chase as he hopped, off balance, pulling on his pants. Chase was a clean-cut kid, fresh out of college, and from the sound of his voice it was apparent he hadn’t had many run-ins with the police before. “Why are you loading the gun?”
“He’s calling in the plates,” said Cassie, with her hands over her ears. Cassie was the tech-wizard of the team. She had more circuitry and wires in her body than most people had in their cars. She was also—and this goes a long way toward explaining Chase’s presence in the room—one hot babe, long and lithe, blonde and pale as a fairy-tale princess. She said, “I’m monitoring the radio right now.”
“Why am I loading the gun?” Sue said in a whining, mocking voice. “I’m loading the gun because you can’t keep your mouth shut. ‘I thought I’d never get the gasoline off,’ ” she whine-mocked. “You might as well have run out waving the can and siphoning hose.”
“Look,” said Chase, his voice squeaking slightly. “We only siphoned a few gallons. I’ll take the blame. That’s gotta be, what, a fifty dollar fine or something?”
“The truck’s stolen, moron,” said Sue.
“Oh,” said Chase.
“I’ve got six federal warrants for my arrest,” said Cassie.
“Oh,” said Chase.
“That’s cute that you still count,” said Sister Sue. Then to Chase: “In the grand scheme of things, the fires of hell burn as hot for gasoline thieves as they do for cop killers. I say in for a penny, in for a pound.”
“The sheriff’s coming to provide back-up,” said Cassie. “We’ve got ten minutes, tops.”
“We should talk about this,” said Chase.
“Let’s talk. Me first,” Sister Sue said as she stomped up to him and smacked him on the forehead with her bony knuckles. “You’ve blown it. You’ve given this hick cop a reason to arrest us. Now we can go out and kill one cop or we can wait ten minutes and have to fight Jesus knows how many. If we go to jail, who’s going to expose your daddy’s dirty little secret?”
“Chase,” said Cassie. “Listen to her. You’re still thinking all bourgeois. This cop is nothing more than an enforcer for the fascist enviro-rapists. You knew when you signed on that we were called the Earth Defense Army. What part of ‘army’ didn’t you understand? This is war. People get hurt.”
Chase felt not for the first time that he had passed through some veil between the sane world and Cassie’s world. For the two months he’d known her he’d been drawn into increasingly bizarre scenario’s that tested his moral fabric, forcing him to make complex ethical decisions in the blink of an eye. Every time, he’d come down on the side that would most please her. But was he actually seconds away from being an accessory to murder?
“While you’re making up your mind about which side you’re on,” said Cassie, “stick this on the window.”
She handed Chase a small metal disk, the size of a nickel. It was sticky on one side. He carefully reached his hand under the curtain and stuck the disk to the glass. Instantly, he could hear the deputy and the hotel owner talking.
“Backup’s on the way. The tags don’t match the vehicle. Probably both stolen.”
“I knew it!”
Cassie said, “That device turns the glass into a big microphone. It only works one way.”
Sister Sue pulled the five-gallon gas can out of the closet. There was still a little left after Chase had topped off the truck. As she untwisted the lid she mumbled, “You and your gadgets, Cass. Sometimes the old fashioned ways are best.”
She started to pour gasoline on the bed.
“Whoah whoah whoah WHOAH!” shouted Chase. “What are you doing?”
“If we set the room on fire, the smoke will give us cover when we open the door,” said Sister Sue.
“You’re insane!” said Chase.
“If we’re going down,” said Cassie, her voice firm with the conviction of the righteous, “we should go down in flames.”
From the window, they heard another vehicle pull into the parking lot.
“More cops?” said Sister Sue, searching for her lighter.
Chase went to the door and looked out the peephole.
“An old station wagon,” he reported. “Some bum getting out.”
“Morning, officer,” said the new arrival. “You got kind of a situation here?”
Sister Sue tilted her head like a curious dog.
“Who might you be?” asked the deputy.
“I might be the tooth fairy,” said the newcomer.
“I know that voice,” said Sister Sue, moving toward the window.
“Look, deputy, you’re a busy man. I don’t know what these folks in that room have been up to, but what say we forget this whole thing and go get a cup of coffee or something?”
Sister Sue pushed the curtain back ever so slightly to peek out.
“I’ll be damned,” she said, then sighed. “It’s Alex Pure.”
In the parking lot, Pure was studying the deputy closely, trying to get a judge of his character. According to the name badge, his name was Tucker, and late last night after walking past an ATM that malfunctioned and spit out upwards of ten-grand, Pure had tuned into an oldies station where he heard a song by the Marshall Tucker Band. This had to mean something. On the other hand, Pure wasn’t sure what to make of the nervous, slightly angry looking civilian next to the deputy.
“Okay, Tooth Fairy,” said Tucker, “I’m going to need to see some I.D.”
“Let’s cut to the chase,” said Pure. “I’m pretty sure I’ve been sent here to bribe you.” He reached into his front seat, making sure the deputy could see his hands and pulled out a grocery bag bulging with cash. “You and the missus might take a nice vacation or something.”
“I can’t believe you’re trying to bribe me,” said Tucker. Pure thought he detected more amazement than indignation in the lawman’s voice.
“Arrest him,” said the smaller man. “This son of a bitch must be part of the nun’s gang.”
“Shut up, Skeets,” said Tucker.
Pure’s eyebrows shot up. “Nun, you say?”
“Don’t act like you don’t know her,” said Skeets.
“I might,” said Pure. “Her name Sue? Really old? Kind of mean?”
“She didn’t say her name,” said Tucker, eyeing the bag of money. “How much money is in that bag?”
“What kind of question is that?” said Skeets. “You aren’t listening to this damn crook are you?”
Tucker took off his sunglasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Pure was certain he’d take the money if Skeets wasn’t watching. “All right, Tooth Fairy,” sighed Tucker, “you’re under arrest.”
“You don’t want to do that,” said Pure.
“I kind of think I do,” said Tucker.
In the distance, a siren drew closer.
“Look,” said Pure. “This isn’t intended as a threat, but you don’t want to arrest me. Something bad might happen. Very bad.”
“Are you getting your dialogue from a Hulk comic or something?” said Tucker. “Put your hands on the hood.”
INSIDE THE MOTEL ROOM, Chase stood in front of the door as Sue tried to push past.
“Now’s our chance!” she said. “While they’re distracted! I can get them all!”
“Sheriff’s almost here,” said Cassie, her hand over her ear. “I’ve cracked his GPS. We have less than a minute.”
“Out of the way!” said Sue.
In desperation, Chase grabbed the shotgun. He was reasonably strong, but Sue held onto it with a death grip. Chase couldn’t wrench the gun from her hands, but at least he was keeping it pointed toward the ceiling.
Outside, a siren drew nearer.
“Something bad is about to happen,” said Pure. “Don’t say I didn’t try to stop this.”
Tucker drew his gun. “Hands on the hood. Now.”
The sheriff’s cruiser zoomed into the parking lot, going way too fast. Pure looked up, and knew instantly how things would play out. As Tucker and Skeets looked over their shoulder, Pure stepped out of the way.
This was just one of those things that happen. Like a crossword with all the letters falling into place, Pure instinctively understood that the sheriff was in his mid-sixties and something of a “type A” personality. He chain-smoked and ate pork-rinds and Mountain Dew for breakfast ever since his third wife abandoned him. The man was long overdue for a heart attack. Something about taking the curve a little too fast into the parking lot set it off. As spots danced before the sheriff’s eyes, the last thing he’d see was Tucker and Skeets as they bounced off his windshield. The fender of his squad car clipped the tail end of the pick-up truck and his car went spinning off, crashing into a tree, at the same time that Tucker and Skeets hit the pavement.
Pure knelt over Tucker and felt for a pulse. The deputy was alive. Pure checked his own pulse. It beat with a sudden startled rush, as if it had been snuck up on.
The door to room 21 swung open and Sister Sue yelled out, “Prayer works!”
“Hello, Sue,” said Pure.
“How did you know I was here?” said Sue. “And why in the world would you rescue me? I figured you’d rather see me rot.”
“I’m here because the Four Horsemen recorded a song called ‘Skeets Motel.’ They also have a song called ‘Evil Nun’ but I didn’t make the connection.”
He saw a young guy leading a woman from the room. She was a real looker, probably breath-taking if you were into that sort of thing.
“Who’re you corrupting now, Sue?” Pure asked.
“This is Cassie,” said Sue. “She’s the brightest young star in the Earth Defense Army. Smart as a whip and willing to do what’s needed to fight the good fight.”
“She’ll kill people, you mean,” said Pure. “Who’s the kid?”
“Some lovesick crybaby name of Chase,” said Sue.
Cassie said, “You should be nicer to Chase. He’s doing his part.”
“His part in what?” asked Pure.
“We’re hunting dragons,” said Sue.
“Dragons?”
“Big winged lizards, pointy-tails, fire-breathers,” said Sue.
“I never said they breathed fire,” said Chase.
“This explains why every other channel I scanned this morning was a gospel station reading from Revelations about ‘that old great dragon,’ ” said Pure. “This must be why he sent me to Arkansas.”
“Who? Who sent you?” said Sue.
“The Unholy Ghost,” said Pure. “It would take a while to explain.”
“I hate to break up this reunion chitchat,” said Cassie. “But I’ve called an ambulance for the people hurt in the crash. We should get out of here.”
“That was nice of you, calling an ambulance,” said Pure. “I see Sue hasn’t corrupted you completely.”
“You act like we’re bad people,” said Cassie. “We’re trying to save the world.”
“Let’s take your station wagon,” said Sue. “Our truck’s stolen and they’ve run the tags.”
“Fine, not that it’s a big help. My station wagon’s stolen also and I’ve got the military chasing me,” said Pure.
“I’m going to hell, aren’t I?” mumbled Chase, shaking his head.
CHAPTER FIVE
* * *
GHOSTS
THE BABY FINALLY STOPPED CRYING. Adam Morgan had retreated to the deck and curled into a ball. The eastern sky was brightening with the approach of morning. This had been the longest night of Adam’s life, and he’d had a lot of long nights.
The night that followed the morning when Jessica hadn’t woken up—that had been one long, horrible night of worry and regret. Jessica had been so supportive while he was finishing his doctorate. He’d repaid her by growing increasingly distant and focused on his work. Her love for him, her gentle kindness, had turned into an annoying distraction. Her pregnancy, an accident that she intended to bring to fruition, had filled him with resentment. He wasn’t ready for a child. He didn’t have time for it, or her. It wasn’t that he didn’t love her—she was a dream come true. But he sometimes wished he’d met her five years later, after he was finished with school, after he’d already built a career.
A year after Chase was born, Adam’s selfish wish of life without the distraction of Jessica came true. She’d been one of the first victims of the sleeper flu. She’d fallen asleep and was gone, like a reverse ghost, the body lingering, the soul no longer present. The tragedy should have changed him. He’d sworn it would change him. Intellectually, he understood how short life was, how important it was to spend every minute with those you love. He vowed on many a sleepless night to be a better man, and most of all, a better father.
He’d broken those vows. The effort of navigating the bureaucracy to get Jessica long-term care at the same time he was starting a job in the research division of Bestiary Industries had eaten up all of his time and energy. He relied on his mother-in-law, Francine, to serve as baby sitter, and would often leave Chase in her care for weeks at a time. When Francine had died five years later and he assumed full-time care of Chase, he discovered the emotional chasm was already there. Francine had filled the boy with the notion that Adam was negligent and cold. Nothing he attempted closed the gap. Eventually he stopped trying.
At thirteen, Chase had run away. That had been the second longest night of his life, and had led to his decision to enroll Chase at a boarding school. By this point he was director of research at Bestiary, leading a project so big it would change the world. He didn’t have time to focus on raising a sullen, rebellious teenager.
Now, curled up on the deck, shivering beneath his thin blanket as the sun rose, he couldn’t help but think he was finally paying the price for his sins. After careful consideration of all the evidence, it was clear to Adam that he’d gone insane. This wound in his shoulder, how absurd to think it could have come from a falling star. This must be a fiction his mind had constructed to cover up a difficult reality. Most likely, he’d stabbed himself in a psychotic fugue brought about by his own self-loathing.
Or, even if he had been hit by a falling star, there was no way there was a baby in the belly of the ship. After he’d recovered from his first shock over seeing the fetus, he’d taken the flashlight and a sharp knife and crawled back under for a closer look. The fetus had grown in the space of an hour, and was now the size of a baby near full term, wrapped in a moist, urine-colored membrane. Adam had wanted to stab it. He didn’t. He couldn’t understand what this thing was, or how it could be here, but he couldn’t quite bring the knife forward to cut it either.
Then, as he watched in horror, the membrane had split and pink jelly rolled toward him and the baby began to cry. He’d abandoned knife and flashlight, grabbed a blanket, retreated to the deck.
“I’m so sorry, Chase,” he whispered. He didn’t know why. He was sorry, but he didn’t know what good it did to say this here, in the middle of the Atlantic where no one could hear. But he couldn’t help but think that the baby was something his subconscious had conjured to represent Chase.
From the cabin came a loud crash, the rattling of pans and tins of food. It sounded like the baby had gotten into the pantry. He put his hands over his ears.
Adam wasn’t sure what good the hands would do. No matter what his ears might think, the sounds weren’t coming from an external source. They were products of his mind. Except that his hands did muffle the sound.
“Or,” he said, “I could just think the sound is muffled.”
He bit his lip. There was always the possibility he wasn’t insane. Accepting that meant rejecting everything he believed, his whole worldview, that scientific laws controlled the planet, that reality had boundaries. If there really was a baby rummaging around in the pantry, it was breaking those laws. It was something supernatural. Adam didn’t believe in phantoms. Yet wasn’t the lore of sailors full of ghosts and monsters? Was there some truth to these legends after all? No, it was foolish to follow that line of thought. Insanity was the only sane explanation.
He lowered his hands. The electric can opener in the cabin whirred. He sat up as the noise stopped. A can clanked to the floor. The can opener whirred again. Adam shielded his eyes from the morning sun. Night was over. Standing, legs wobbly, he decided it was time to gather more information.
He crouched down at the cabin door, peering into the dim shadows within. Another empty can clattered on the floor.
“Hello?” said Adam, his voice quavering. “Is someone down there?”
A belch from the shadows answered him.
Then, wobbling into view, the pale body of a toddler appeared. It was a little boy, his face filthy, a mess of beans and jam. He was naked, except for a tiny bracelet around his wrist, gleaming white and pink, as if carved from a conch. The baby belched again.
Adam stared, determined not to run. The baby looked to be almost two years old now. He shakily started up the stairs, squinting as he entered sunshine.
“Star,” said the child. “Light.”
Adam backed up slowly, allowing room for the child to come on deck. “You talk,” he said.
“Soon,” said the child, stretching its arms above its body as it turned to face the sun. It sighed contentedly.
“Who are you?” asked Adam. Once again the insanity hypothesis was gaining momentum. This child was a dead ringer for Chase when he was two.
“Soon,” said the child, walking, now more steadily, toward the rail. With a grunt, the child pulled himself up and over, landing in the water with a splash.
Adam ran to the side. The baby’s pale body could be seen beneath the surface, several feet down, kicking vigorously. Was this a test? Was he supposed to jump in and rescue the child? But the baby was moving gracefully, purposefully under the water. It didn’t appear to be in danger.
For one brief moment, Adam thought of the myth of Atlantis. He knew the original story by Plato, of a decadent civilization pushed beneath the waves by vengeful gods, and he knew the science fiction creation, of a city surviving beneath the water, populated by human-like beings, changed to adapt to their surroundings. A wildly improbable hypothesis formed—was this child from Atlantis?
The boy swam back toward the surface, no longer a toddler. He’d grown a foot in height, and had lost much of his babyish roundness. The bracelet on his wrist had grown to fit his now larger arms. As he sprang from the water, he grabbed the rail and swung himself onto the deck.
He was a perfect match of Chase as a five-year-old, a little thinner perhaps, and with a happy grin he’d never witnessed on his own son.
“Chase?” asked Adam.
“No,” said the child. “I like the name you were thinking. Atlantis.”
“So,” said Adam, sitting down. “I’m crazy.”
“You’re perfectly sane,” said Atlantis. “I’m reading your mind.”
“I’m sorry, no,” said Adam shaking his head. “I have to be crazy. I can’t accept that this is supernatural.”
“Nor should you. I’m not beyond or above nature,” said Atlantis. “I’m nature perfected. Nor am I the Atlantis of myth or fiction. I’m the Atlantis yet to be.”
Even as Atlantis spoke, he grew taller, his arms and legs growing thicker. Adam decided his sanity was no longer important. There were too many questions.
“Why do you look like my son?” asked Adam.
“I don’t. I look like you,” said Atlantis. “I’ve harvested your genetic template. This body is based upon it. When I’m finished, it will be the body you should have had, optimally balanced and muscled, free of the residue of the pesticides and heavy metals your society has slowly poisoned you with, free of scars and cellular decay.”
Adam didn’t know what to say to that.
“This will be my gift to you,” said Atlantis. “I sense your present body is no longer comfortable. Especially now, with your wounded shoulder festering with infection and your whole body exhausted. I’m responsible for some of your immediate discomfort. I hope you will accept my offer of relief.”
“I don’t understand you,” said Adam. “I don’t understand any of this.”
“I know it’s difficult. I can see your thoughts, the turmoil and confusion. I can see the life events that have led you to question your sanity at this moment. But you will understand. You’ve the knowledge and training to fathom what I say. You’ve the wisdom to accept the truth.”
“What are you?” asked Adam. “How can you read my mind?”
“Your thoughts are nothing but chemical reactions, releasing energy. I can see this energy. When I stimulated your taste buds earlier, I studied the wave patterns of your memories to fine tune my ability to read you.”
“How is this possible?”
“I’m not human, Adam,” said Atlantis. “This may be difficult to fathom while I’m clothed in this form. I’m not a living creature as you understand life. Your language lacks the words to describe me precisely. It’s best to say that I am a city, in search of new residents.”
“A city?” asked Adam.
“I was designed to serve my residents, to keep them healthy and whole, to provide their every want or need so that they can achieve their fullest potential undistracted by the labor of mere survival.”
“Who designed you? Where do you come from?”
“Again, there are no words in your vocabulary. Others designed me. I come from elsewhere,” said Atlantis.
“You’re an alien?”
“It may be simplest to describe me as such. But it’s only true on certain scales. You use the word ‘alien’ to describe fellow human beings not native to your country of origin, but you recognize that they’re the same species, no different than you on most levels. The ones who designed me were also no different than you in fundamental ways. They loved, squabbled, and played, raised families, dreamed dreams, and struggled to understand and grasp the universe.”
“This is incredible,” said Adam. “Astonishing. But I believe you. Any other explanation for what’s happening requires me to believe in the supernatural or doubt my own sanity.”
“You are sane,” said Atlantis.
Adam ran his fingers through his hair as he paced back and forth on the deck, his body crackling with a surge of adrenaline. “This is fantastic. I mean, when I was a kid, I just took it for granted that there were aliens. And now . . . I don’t even know where to begin. God, this changes everything. This is . . . words fail me.”
“I understand,” said Atlantis. “I would understand you even if you ceased vocalizing. I’ll continue to speak, however, since you might find more efficient forms of communication unsettling.”
“How far away is your home planet?”
“I’m standing on it,” said Atlantis.
Adam shook his head. “No. No, you said you were from elsewhere. Where’s that?”
“If a seed is carried on the wind and lands in a field where it finds fertile ground, would not that field be the home of the resulting flower? Earth is my home.”
“And you called yourself a city. Does that mean . . . are there others inside you?”
“Soon,” said Atlantis. “But not others. I’ve come to be your home, Adam. I’ve come to be home for your species. Upon my shores, humanity will thrive and prosper. Within my walls, civilization will at last be given birth.”
Atlantis slipped the shell bracelet from his wrist. Atlantis was much taller now, lanky yet graceful, a perfectly shaped youth on the verge of puberty.
“This,” said Atlantis, gazing at the shell, “is the key that unlocks the gates of paradise.”
Adam stared at the bracelet. Atlantis offered it toward him. Adam reached out, his fingers grazing the smooth surface.
Then things turned strange.
CHAPTER SIX
* * *
VERY, VERY QUIET
“WHAT ON EARTH IS all over this map?” Chase asked as he scraped at the brownish gunk with his fingernails.
“Blood,” said Pure. “I was gut-shot in Atlanta. I was half way through Mississippi before I stopped thinking about it and it went away.”
Chase stopped scratching the gunk. “It looks like ketchup.”
“It is ketchup,” said Sister Sue from the backseat. “Pure’s an unrepentant liar.”
“It isn’t even mildly important that you believe me,” said Pure.
“Not to add to this argument,” said Cassie, who sat next to Sue, “but I noticed the smell of blood the second I got in the car.”
“Thank you,” said Pure.
Chase put the map down. “What do you mean it went away?”
“I mean the hole in my stomach went away. I forgot about it, and it went away.”
“Oh, Lord,” said Sue.
“Ever since I died, it’s been like there’s some sort of template of what I’m supposed to look like. When I’m not paying attention, I sort of ‘reset.’ ”
“Spare me,” said Sue.
“You know, Sue, I did save your butt back there. Can’t you show a little gratitude?”
“Yeah, what’s your problem?” said Chase.
“Don’t start with me, boy,” said the old woman. “My problem is that this man is a scoundrel. He’s a junkie, a thief, a liar, and a vet.”
“You’re a vet?” asked Chase. “What war? My grandfather died in Afghanistan.”
“She means I’m a veterinarian,” said Pure. “Guilty as charged. And this old biddy is a Luddite terrorist. It all balances out.”
“Better a terrorist than a damned vivisectionist!”
“So how exactly do you two know each other?” asked Cassie in a cheerful tone.
“Sue was an old rabble-rouser at NCIT where I was a doctoral student.”
“Wow,” said Cassie. “That’s, like, the top cybernetics school in the country.”
“It’s the top torture school in the country,” said Sue. “They open up live animals and wire them into computers and machines. It’s horrific.”
“Progress isn’t pretty,” said Pure. “But Sue was calling for violence to stop it. She had a website up with pictures of the doctors and students. She had ‘wanted’ posters listing our addresses. One of the doctors was shot under mysterious circumstances. I think Sue murdered him, whether or not she actually pulled the trigger.”
“I’ve pulled plenty of triggers. This is a war and I’m a soldier, the last line of defense for God’s green earth. Do you deny you were hurting animals?”
“We weren’t hurting animals for entertainment. We were doing research to make human life better, pushing the frontiers of what was possible with prosthetics and organ transplants. The research helped improve the lives of millions of people.”
“Spare me your pious justifications,” Sue said. “You were only in the program to steal drugs.”
Pure shrugged. “That was a long time ago.”
“He used to say that it was unfair that horses got all the best pills.”
Pure smiled dreamily. “Good times,” he said. “I used to get wound up on this perfect stew of amphetamines and aggressors. I’d be up all night and in the morning I’d go down to the protest site and get into shouting matches with Sue.” Pure sighed. “Now I’m all nostalgic.”
“He takes nothing seriously,” said Sue. “He’s the closest thing to a soulless man I’ve ever met.”
“True,” said Pure. “The funny thing is, I actually still had a soul then but didn’t know it. Now I know my soul has left my body and it won’t leave me alone.”
Chase interrupted. “I think this is the turn up here.”
Pure slowed the station wagon down in front of a deer crossing sign so riddled with bullet holes it was almost unrecognizable. He steered onto a weedy patch of rock and dirt that barely resembled a road.
“I’m pretty sure this is right,” said Chase. “But my father’s notes are spotty. Hopefully I won’t get us stranded in the middle of nowhere.”
“I don’t think you can,” said Pure. “Not to get all religious on you, but if I’m turning down this road, it must all be part of his master plan.”
“Oh yes,” said Sue. “He’s also a blasphemer.”
“Not God,” said Pure. “I’m talking about . . . oh, forget it.”
“This has to be the place,” said Cassie, her eyes flickering behind closed eyelids. “We’re on the edge of a hundred square miles of land owned by the Warsaw Paper Corporation. That’s one of the front companies of the Bestiary investors.”
The station wagon lurched and bumped over stones the size of breadboxes.
“Who really needs a muffler?” Pure said as they bottomed out with a particularly vicious clang.
“I’m getting a signal,” said Cassie.
“On what?” asked Pure.
“In my head,” said Cassie. “I guess I should mention that I’m a beneficiary of NCIT’s cybernetic research.”
“You’re welcome,” said Pure.
“I lost my sight when I was five. I’ve been wired up with an array that stimulates my optic nerves. Now I have a virtual computer monitor in my head. It gets signals from a camera in my glasses so that I can see. Of course, my sister Jazz hacked the code years ago. Now I mainly use the screen to go online and only use my eyes when I really need them. All the really interesting stuff in the world happens in the higher radio spectrums. Right now we’re passing through some kind of electronic fence.”
“Then we’re on the right path,” said Chase. “The dragons are kept in the game reserve by a radio field that causes them pain if they get too near the borders. The signal interacts with some kind of chip in their head.”
“More NCIT research at work,” said Cassie. “This is why I’m on Sue’s side in this war despite my benefiting personally.”
The road ended at the edge of a stream. The other side of the stream was a solid wall of poison ivy.
“This is it,” said Chase. “I think.”
“Dragons in the Ozarks,” said Pure as he opened his door. “And I thought my story was hard to believe.”
“What is your story?” said Chase. “You make all these weird allusions to being dead, to having a higher power guiding you, to helping us because ‘he’ wants you to help us, but I still haven’t figured you out. I know you’re just waiting for someone to beg you to explain what the hell you’re talking about.”
“I think I could really only explain if I was drunk,” said Pure. “Too bad booze doesn’t work for me now.”
“He’s probably high,” said Sue, lifting the hatch on the station wagon. “Right now, it doesn’t matter.”
Sue pulled her shotgun and a rifle case out and laid them on the ground. She flipped open the case to reveal a dart gun and several vials.
“What’s in those?” Pure asked.
“Acyteloranethine,” said Sue.
“Rhino tranks,” said Pure. “Excellent stuff. Dilute it down and mainline it and you’ll have an inner peace that will last all weekend.”
“Pure, as much as it pains me to say this, I want you to carry the rifle,” said Sue.
“Hey,” said Chase.
“Don’t argue,” said Sue. “I know the plan was for you to carry it, but you didn’t exactly impress me with your nerves of steel back in the hotel room.”
“I’ve got training in this,” said Pure, taking the rifle. “I’m a pretty good shot. Target practice was mandatory back at Mount Weather.”
“Where?” asked Chase.
“Mount Weather. It’s where I lived when I worked for the government. It’s all part of the reason I’m dead now.”
“That’s it,” said Chase, throwing up his hands. “Thanks for helping us escape the cops and all, but you, sir, are insane. I’m in charge of this hunt and I say give me the rifle.”
“You’re not in charge,” said Pure, looking through the scope on the gun at the surrounding mountains. “You might be the least in charge person I’ve ever met.”
“Calm down boy,” said Sue. “Remember the important thing here is bagging the dragon.”
“But he’s crazy.”
“You’re the one who has us out in the Ozarks hunting dragons,” said Pure. “I’m along for the ride no matter what, but maybe someone should fill me in on the back story.”
“Ever hear of a company called the Bestiary Industries?” asked Chase.
“Of course,” said Pure. “They did some recruiting at NCIT. They’re a gene-splicing outfit. They’re the company that takes fish genes and splices them into cows to get milk that contains omega 3 fatty acids. They make chimeras, basically.”
“My father led a project that was a little more sexy than getting fish oil from cows,” said Chase. “Right around the time I was born there was a worldwide ban on hunting big predators like lions and tigers.”
“Yeah. That was one of the things Sue was always worked up about,” said Pure.
“A group of wealthy hunters decided to exploit a loophole in the law. They pooled their resources and gave Bestiary a huge grant to build a new type of game animal, one that wouldn’t be covered by existing bans. It took a while, but their investments have finally paid off. We’re standing in one of the most exclusive private clubs on earth. People pay a million dollars an hour to hunt dragons here.”
“Really?” said Pure. “That’s awesome!”
“You sicken me,” snapped Sue. “I should have known you wouldn’t see anything wrong with this.”
“Private citizens using their own money to create a creature with no ecological significance that they kill for their own entertainment,” said Pure. “What is the problem here?”
Sue stared at Pure with a look of revulsion, hatred, and pity.
“Give Chase the gun,” Sue said, with a sigh.
“Wait a second,” said Pure. “I’m still on the team. I’m looking forward to shooting one of these babies without having to shell out the dough. But why drug it? It’d be less dangerous to kill one than to take one alive.”
“What we’re planning to do,” said Cassie, “is set a live dragon loose in Central Park.”
“I see,” said Pure. “Why?”
“When my father retired, he left to sail around the world,” said Chase. “My mother’s been in a coma since I was one year old, so Dad turned the keys to his house over to me. I went poking around in his papers and found out about the dragon project. But when I tried to go to the press with it, nobody cared.”
Cassie said, “The press won’t be able to ignore this story once our dragon is disemboweling joggers.”
“So this is a publicity stunt?” said Pure. “One that’s guaranteed to get people maimed or killed? Why do I think this was Sue’s idea?”
“You should be more respectful of Sue,” said Cassie. “She’s spent a lifetime fighting to save this world. No one has more moral authority to do this than her.”
Sue looked pleased with herself.
Pure shook his head. Maybe he was getting his signals mixed up. Maybe his higher self had guided him here to stop Sue instead of helping her. But, if there was one pattern to the signals he got from above, it was that the Pure in heaven had a warped sense of humor. Also, backing out now would mean he’d miss a chance to see a dragon, and he was curious to find out what the gene-splicers had been able to knit together. Did it have wings? Could it breathe fire?
“I’m still in,” said Pure. He looked back through the scope at the mountains again. “Hey. There’s a castle up there.”
Chase grabbed some binoculars from the camping gear and followed Pure’s gaze.
“That must be where the guests stay,” said Chase. “They get choppered in from Little Rock.”
“Any contingency plans if we run into a hunter instead of a dragon?” asked Pure.
“Yes,” said Sue, snapping the shotgun barrel shut.
IN ROOM 21 of the Skeets Motel Hammer Morgan ran his fingers across the damp bedspread. Gasoline. Why had Pure poured gasoline in the room? Or had it been one of the others the deputy had witnessed? He wished he knew who they were. Alice, his contact back at Mount Weather, was doing research but hadn’t yet called him back.
He moved on to the shower. He found some hairs in the drain, blond, short. This matched the deputy’s description of the boy. This would give them a DNA profile on at least one of Pure’s friends.
“What are you up to, Alex?” whispered Morgan.
Morgan’s radio chirped.
“I’m alone,” he said. “Talk to me.”
“The woman has to be Susan Karr,” said Alice. “She’s a sixties radical who never grew out of it. She’s a hundred and seven years old and something of a legend in the underground community. She’s on the President’s list of terrorists we’re authorized to kill on sight.”
Morgan nodded. Pure had talked about Susan Karr before, though not in a manner that indicated they’d team up. Still, it wasn’t as if Pure had any other friends or relatives to turn to.
“The girl I.D.’s as Cassandra Robertson,” said Alice. “She’s sister to Jasmine Robertson, presently the top name on the kill list, but Cassandra should be taken alive. It’s possible she has information about Jasmine. Cassandra is legally blind, but has cybernetic implants that allow some limited vision, so don’t turn your back on her, okay?”
“Great,” said Morgan, rubbing his temples. Jasmine Robertson was a name he knew well. A few years ago she’d breached security at Mount Weather, draining thirty terabytes of top-secret data before they’d severed her link. That had been a huge black eye for the whole project. The notion that Alex, an eyewitness to the inner workings of Mount Weather, was involved with someone only one step removed from Jasmine Robertson was troubling. Why was Alex involved with people like this? He hadn’t exactly been the most moral person on the planet, but he was definitely not a terrorist. What had happened to him in that warp?
The last unknown was the boy. “Any leads on the blond kid?”
“Nothing firm,” said Alice. “But associates report that Cassie was hanging out with a blond, short haired boy named Chase Morgan. Relative of yours?”
Hammer Morgan sagged as he sat on the bed. Ever since Alex had come out of the warp, life had been one string of weird coincidence after another.
“You know that no one at the Mountain has relatives,” said Hammer. Thankfully his personnel records were sealed under a security clearance two levels higher than what Alice had access to. There was already pressure to get him off the case due to what supervisors believed was a simple former friendship with Pure. He’d get yanked in a heartbeat if they found out his grandson was involved.
Still, the good news was that Chase’s involvement gave him a pretty good clue as to why he was in Arkansas. It had been almost four decades since he’d severed ties with his old life, but from time to time he peeked into his family’s records. Adam had turned into something of a mad scientist, splicing together eagles, snakes, and tigers. Maybe he’d gotten it from his mother, whose hobby had been knitting.
“Alice, send a team to seize the records of Bestiary Industries. See if they’ve shipped any, ah, exotic cargo into the area recently.”
“On it,” said Alice.
PURE WAS PLEASED to discover he was immune to poison ivy. The others had sprayed themselves down with protective homeopathic lotions but Chase already had a nasty red rash breaking out on the side of his neck. Pure was tickled that the mosquitoes found Sue especially tasty. He wanted to chide her about animal rights every time she slapped one, but now wasn’t the time. Since slipping in the first dragon turd, he’d grown very, very quiet. A huge, carnivorous beast was in the neighborhood. Judging by the bone fragments in its stool, it ate people.
Fortunately, there wasn’t much chance of the dragon sneaking up on them. Cassie had pulled out some nifty toys from her backpack, eight matchbox size solar powered helicopters with small cameras in their noses. She was flying these through the surrounding forest, guiding them with her mind. While daylight lasted, Cassie had 360-degree vision out for hundreds of yards. Ironically, she couldn’t see where she was putting her feet. Chase had to guide her, with his arm around her waist.
Except for the man-eating monster part, this walk through the woods was rather relaxing. There weren’t any fortune cookies or crossword puzzles around, no half-tuned radio stations to murmur messages at him. Sometimes Pure wondered if he wasn’t simply bonkers. It wasn’t entirely impossible that he’d fried his synapses with some horrible mixture of chemicals. He’d been pushing the limits for decades. But he’d always maintained. It wasn’t accurate to say that he’d been careful, but he’d been practiced at his addictions, and managed to stay focused and balanced enough to get clearance at Mount Weather. Of course, he’d also been sleeping with the head of security and that might have played some role.
Cassie stopped. “It’s getting too dark,” she whispered. “I have to reel in my eyes before they lose power.”
“Do it,” said Sue. “This thing probably doesn’t hunt at night anyway.”
“Why do you say that?” asked Chase.
“Think about it. These fat cat hunters are spoiled. They have that big castle up on the mountain to sleep in at night. They want to hunt this thing during banker’s hours.”
“Wow, Sue,” said Pure. “That’s damn close to logic. I’m impressed.”
“Uh-oh,” said Cassie.
Everyone froze and looked around at the growing shadows.
“I just lost one of the eyes,” said Cassie. “It died instantly. Maybe I snagged a branch.”
The other toy helicopters buzzed back into their vicinity like a swarm of hummingbirds.
Pure watched carefully the directions they flew in from, and turned toward the gap in the forest where nothing emerged. He raised his rifle and placed his eye to the scope.
There was a snap and a growl. Teeth flashed before the scope. Before Pure could even think about pulling the trigger the rifle was pushed back with such force that it snapped his wrist. The eyepiece of the scope pushed into his right eye socket with a sickening wet pop.
As Pure fell, the others started screaming. Pure would have screamed himself except that dagger sharp claws were digging into his diaphragm and ripping his bowels out. Then there was a horrible clap of thunder.
Pure watched his torn body land on the leafy forest bed as the dragon snarled over him. Pure was rising up through the branches as the scene below him locked up like a crashed computer program. Smoke rose from both barrels of Sue’s shotgun. Apparently, she’d changed her mind about catching this dragon alive. Chase had turned a shade of white that a snowman would envy and looked ready to turn and run, except for the arm around Cassie, which held on tight. Cassie stood oddly calm as her helicopter eyes all turned toward the dragon. Maybe she had lasers in them or something.
If Pure had still been in the vicinity of his lips, he would have whistled when he saw the dragon. The beast was twelve feet long from snout to tail tip, with a wingspan easily exceeding that length. It was a magnificent creature straight out of a storybook, with bright red scales that blended into feathers at the edges of the wings, and a marvelous, noble head that was part crocodile, part horse, with the steady, knowing eyes of an owl.
It was crouched in an unreptilian pose, catlike muscles coiling and twitching, as it balanced on its hind legs. Unlike the typical movie dragon, this beast was bipedal, with small two-fingered claws at the middle joint of each wing. Apparently, the designers hadn’t been able to work around the four-limb limit vertebrates had been stuck with since they crawled out of the oceans.
And then Pure was above the trees and the dragon and his companions were gone, nothing but memories, and he wondered if this was the last time he’d ever see his body.
With no sense of transition at all, Pure was no longer in the sky. He was back in the warp, where the purified Pure sat on a throne of light, reading, of all things, a Gideon Bible.
“I am a brother of dragons,” said the Higher Pure, “and a companion of owls.”
“What?” asked Pure.
“I left this open for you in the motel room, but you didn’t go in,” said Pure. “You’re surprisingly difficult to steer. Or maybe it’s not such a surprise. What I recall of that body, it was always difficult to control.”
Pure tried to get closer to the throne, but as he rose, something thin and bony wrapped around his ankle, stopping him. He looked down to see one of the warp monkeys.
“You found them,” Pure said.
“Poor lost souls,” said the Higher Pure. “Do you know searching for the monkeys was the first taste I had of actual purpose? Of feeling like I was here for a reason? It’s intoxicating to think that you have a starring role to play in the grand scheme of things.”
“Why am I still alive?” Pure asked. “Why are you in here and I’m down there? Why can’t I rejoin you?”
“Sorry,” said the Higher Pure. “I’ve finished knitting together enough of your blood vessels to get you going again. Shoo.”
“Wait,” said Pure.
Even as the word left his non-existent lips, he was no longer in the there-that-was-not-there. He was falling again, passing through branches on a collision course with his damaged body.
Not much had changed. Sue was frantically stuffing new shells into the shotgun. Chase now had both arms around Cassie, attempting to drag her away from the dragon. The tiny helicopters swarmed around the creature’s head. The dragon swatted at them like a bright red King Kong as he stood atop Pure’s body.
Pure had half a second to assess what he was about to get shoved back into. His right wrist and trigger finger were bent at an absurd angle. His right eyeball was dangling from its socket. A loop of intestines about three feet long lay on the forest floor. This was going to hurt.
CHAPTER SEVEN
* * *
SHELL GAME
ADAM’S FINGERS BRUSHED the polished surface of the shell. His vision blurred. His knees buckled and he fell forward. He was vaguely aware of Atlantis moving to catch him. Adam fell slowly, as if hiding between seconds were eternities and he’d fallen into such an eternity, and into a memory both alien yet instantly familiar.
Adam could see himself standing on a shore of pearly sand, white as bone and gleaming like treasure. Before him was an ocean, crystal blue, with dolphins leaping in graceful arcs just beyond the breaking waves. At his feet was a dodo bird, nuzzling its great hooked beak against his thigh. He wore a robe of diaphanous silk, as soft and light as air, a brilliant green, with dragons embroidered along the sleeves in gold thread.
Behind him was a city, with towering spires stretching into the heavens, the tips lost in clouds. Among the spires flew angels and eagles and airships. The towers were not cold, stark things. They were alive, a vertical maze of waterfalls and garden terraces vibrant with hues of green. Long vines covered the walls, teeming with a rainbow mix of flowers.
He looked upon the city with a lump in his throat. This was the city of love, the city of hope, the city where dreams were given substance, the birthplace of actual civilization. This was his home.
In his hand was a gilded cage, filled with butterflies. He studied them closer. These weren’t bugs. The delicate cage held machines, clever bits of clockwork with twin prismatic solar sails upon their backs and gleaming emeralds for eyes. He opened the wire door and watched the machines flutter skyward.
“Godspeed,” he said.
This was the memory that gripped him in the space between the seconds. This was the memory of a thing that never was. Or perhaps of a thing yet to be.
And then the arms of Atlantis embraced him, halting his fall. Atlantis lifted Adam and carried him into the cabin, to place him on the bunk. Adam noted the wrecked condition of the cabin, with empty tin cans scattered hither and yon. It didn’t matter. He was too tired for it to matter. He felt feverish. He closed his eyes.
When he woke, the day had passed. He was aware that it was dark even before his eyes opened. The night ocean had a different smell than the ocean by day, a fresher smell, like air after a storm.
He felt more rested than he had in years. His body was still sore and his wounded shoulder burned fiercely, but his head was clear, free of guilt and worry. The shell was still in his hand. He studied it in the dim light that trickled from the open door. The shell was like a Möbius strip, twisting and turning in on itself, a shape hypnotic in its simultaneous simplicity and complexity. The surface was smooth as the inner shell of a conch, shaded in subtle pinks and purples, the color growing in intensity in the inner curves. The shell was warm, as if picked up from a sunny beach. Adam placed the shell to his ear. It was humming, not a mechanical hum, but a hum like a woman’s chorus heard at a distance.
Adam pulled himself from the bed and climbed onto the deck. Atlantis was perched on the prow, watching the toenail sliver of moon that hung over the horizon.
“What happened?” asked Adam, moving forward. “Was that a dream? I had a vision of a city before I lost consciousness. What does it mean?”
Atlantis turned to him, smiling. “It means you’ve seen a future.”
“The future?”
“A future. If you choose it.”
“If I choose it? What do you mean?”
“I cannot and will not impose myself upon this world uninvited,” said Atlantis. “I said before I’m but a seed. Before I can take root, I need permission. I need a representative of this world to say, ‘Come, traveler, you are home. We welcome you.’ ”
“Why me? Why choose me for such responsibility?”
“Who else is better suited to this task?”
“Anybody!” said Adam. “My God, pick anyone at random.”
“You are who I chose. You’ve experience in shaping the fate of species. You’re the father of more than just your son.”
Atlantis knew. Of course, he knew, thought Adam. It told me it reads my mind.
“You’re the creator of dragons,” said Atlantis. “Creating life is a feat worthy of the highest honor. In some era, you would be considered a god.”
“I’m not a god,” said Adam. “I’m someone who took the money and did what I was told.”
Again, his memory kicked in strong, only this was a memory he knew, a memory he’d relived a thousand times before. He was sitting in a stuffed leather chair in the office of David Sanchez at Bestiary. Sanchez was CEO and before this day Adam had doubted Sanchez knew he was alive. There were a dozen other men in the room, men he didn’t recognize. Sanchez told him he was being promoted to head a special project.
“We want you to build us a dragon,” said one of the men, with a Texas drawl.
“What?” he’d asked.
“A dragon,” said the Texan. “You know. Big lizard. Wings, sharp teeth, claws, the works. We want it big, dangerous, and clever, the meanest damn predator the world has ever seen.”
“Ah,” said Adam. “Why?”
“So I can hunt it,” said the Texan.
Adam looked at the Texan, then looked at Sanchez. Neither of them was smiling.
“Look, son,” said the Texan. “Back in my granddad’s day, a man could go over to Africa and bag himself a lion or a rhino, then bring it home and put its head on the wall. It was a way of saying, ‘I’m the damn top of the food chain and don’t you forget it.’ ”
“I see,” said Adam.
The Texan continued. “You shoot a lion these days and you’re a pariah, not to mention a criminal. Hell, hunting doves on my own damn ranch requires three different permits. So me and the boys down at the club got an idea. ‘Why don’t we make a brand new animal?’ George asked. And I said, ‘Hell, why not?’ We thought about bringing back a dinosaur, but later most of the boys got set on the idea of hunting dragons. So I started making phone calls and Mr. Sanchez here said you were just the man to head such a project.”
Adam had felt a bit sick. He found the idea of creating a creature to be hunted for sport repulsive. He wanted to jump up and tell everyone in the room to go to hell. But, he had to think about Jessica. The consequences of losing his insurance would be disastrous.
Plus, in a way, he was flattered. Apparently Sanchez read his reports after all. Adam had done his doctorate on chimeras, new creatures spliced together from the genes of unlikely donors. All of the technology was available to make every creature that had ever graced the pages of a storybook. It was only a matter of time. And money. Ungodly, enormous sums of money that he was certain no one would ever want to spend.
Sanchez handed him a folder. “This contains a broad outline of the specifications for the final creature. It also contains the budget numbers that the consortium represented here is willing to finance.”
Adam had opened the folder, glancing over the numbers. He thought it was a typo at first. There were too many zeroes. Then he looked at the budget breakdown and realized they were serious. Ungodly, enormous sums of money weren’t an obstacle any more.
He knew then and there he’d do it. And he knew the moral compromise he’d make to live with himself. He’d build a dragon all right. He’d build it so well that it would be the hunter’s heads over the dragon’s mantle.
So he’d said to Sanchez, “I’m your man.”
And now Atlantis was asking him to decide something larger. He didn’t fully understand the consequences. He had no grasp of the risks. There was more than the lives of wealthy hunters at stake if he chose wrong. His decision would change the world forever.
“If I don’t decide, will you find someone else to give you permission?” Adam asked.
“No,” said Atlantis. “My time is growing short. You must decide. I offer myself as a new land, a terra incognita for the human race to settle. Unlike past human migrations, there will be no danger to the environment. There are no natives to displace, no rare habitats to disrupt. Humans will flourish under my care. All will be welcome.”
“It sounds too good to be true,” said Adam.
“In your vision, you saw it. You felt it. Tell me what you felt, Adam Morgan.”
“Love,” said Adam, tears welling in his eyes. “I was standing on the beach and I felt loved. I felt that everything in the world was good and made for my pleasure. I’ve never felt anything like it. I’ve never even imagined.”
“Pure altruism is my only motive,” said Atlantis. “I’ve been created not to be your master, but your servant. When I fully mature, even the breezes that flow through my streets will be alive, driven by one purpose, to comfort and care for those who breathe them.”
“How can I say no?” said Adam, now openly weeping.
“Say yes,” said Atlantis. “I require an affirmation.”
“Yes,” said Adam. “Yes.”
“Come,” said Atlantis, motioning Adam closer. “My first gift will be to relieve you of that shell.”
Adam thought he meant the bracelet. As he moved closer to Atlantis, he saw clearly that the boy he’d witnessed growing earlier was now a man his own age, but taller, better muscled, without a stoop or slouch, with skin practically luminous with health.
Atlantis held his hand out. Adam took it.
“When the transfer is complete, take my vessel and place it on the water,” said Atlantis.
Then, fluidly, naturally, Atlantis drew his perfect, smooth mouth to Adam’s cracked, dry lips and they kissed. Adam wanted to pull away. But something was happening. Something like his earlier fall, only now time was accelerated, and before he could decide to pull away he’d already done so.
Now it was Adam instead of Atlantis who sat on the prow, looking back into the face of a sickly, aged man, a man with a face he’d seen not so long ago only in mirrors. The man’s eyes were closing, his body swaying, and with a thud he collapsed onto the deck, his limbs thrown at strange angles. His hand fell open, revealing the gleaming bracelet.
Adam looked down at the new body he found himself in. He was flawless. He held his hands before him. His old hands had been pocked with scars from a lifetime of small accidents, like the white slash on one thumb from handling a broken beaker, or the more puckered scar near his wrist from a careless splash of acid seeping around his glove back in college.
His new hands were astounding, works of art masterfully carved by a gifted sculptor. He stood. There wasn’t an ache or a pain anywhere in his body. He felt as if he could leap ten feet in the air. He tried it. He fell far short of ten feet, but when was the last time he’d leapt a foot in the air, let alone three? He felt finely tuned, his muscles moving in grace and balance.
“This is how I was meant to be,” he said, in wonderment. His voice sounded deeper, smoother, his teeth fit his jaw better, his tongue felt like an instrument of song. He laughed. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed. It proved such a natural sound, the sound a human was meant to make, a sound as perfect a match to man as a meow was to a cat or a woof to a dog.
Everyone should feel like this, he realized. Our genetic code carried the promise of perfection. It was the world that roughened us, the viruses and bacteria that nibbled us away, the jobs that stressed us and caused our hair to thin and our arteries to harden. He was in a body that had never known hatred or fear or anger.
“So,” he said. “This is life.”
He looked at his old body. It was dead. There was no longer any spirit within, nothing animated the limbs or lungs. Adam felt a twinge of sorrow as he studied the body he’d worn for nearly five decades. The sorrow melted into sentimentality. Those dead arms were the arms that had cradled his infant son. Those dead lips were the lips that had kissed Jessica.
He saw the shell bracelet lying in the open palm. He picked it up. Atlantis had said to place his vessel upon the water. He was in the body Atlantis had grown, but it was obvious that Atlantis wasn’t inside his old body.
Would the world thank him or curse him for what he was about to do? Despite Atlantis’s rejection of the term, Adam knew he was about to unleash an alien presence upon the world. But he remembered the bliss he’d felt in the shadow of that city. What the world thought no longer mattered. He wanted to feel that bliss once more.
He leaned over the rail of the boat. In the moonlight, his shadow darkened the water as he slowly lowered the shell.
CHAPTER EIGHT
* * *
OUCH
PURE SCREAMED BECAUSE HE COULD. Whatever the Pure in the warp had done to fix him had restored his lungs. Right now seemed like an excellent time to use them. He was still disemboweled, still had one eye dangling from its socket, still had a broken hand, and to top it all off he had a dragon sitting on his chest.
The dragon paid no attention to Pure’s scream. Instead it focused its attention on the tiny helicopters that buzzed it, lashing out with its jaws. One by one the helicopters fell in shards of plastic.
“Get off me!” Pure shouted, pounding his good hand against the dragon’s belly.
As the last helicopter fell in a shower of plastic shards, the dragon snaked his head around to stare at Pure.
“I admire your resilience, sir,” said the dragon.
“You tal—” Pure said before the dragon closed his jaws around his face. Pure had an especially good view of the beast’s tongue. It looked more mammalian than reptilian, with fine cilia covering the surface. The teeth, though, were pure gator.
The dragon whipped around, lifting Pure by the head, swinging him in an arc. Pure’s feet collided with something that gave way instantly. Sue’s shotgun went off with both barrels as she cursed. The dragon spit Pure out. Pure flew a good ten feet before smashing into a tree trunk.
As he landed upside down he could see Sue struggling to regain her footing. She must have been what he hit. The smoking shotgun lay at the dragon’s feet. Tiny wounds peppered the creature’s torso, but didn’t slow it. Off to the side, Cassie was digging through her backpack. Chase was nowhere to be seen, which didn’t surprise Pure in the least. The dragon stared down at Sue, his neck pulled back as if about to strike.
“You talk?” said Pure, as loud as he could manage.
The dragon turned his gaze toward him. “So many choose these as their last words,” said the dragon, stepping over Sue. “I must commend you, sir. You’re made of stern stuff. All the other hunters break so easily.”
“We didn’t come here to hurt you,” said Pure as he rolled himself over into a sitting position. With his broken hand he scooped as much of his intestines as he could into his torso while he popped his eye back into his socket with his good hand.
The dragon recoiled at the sight of Pure manipulating his own entrails.
“My good fellow, aren’t you in terrible pain?” the dragon asked.
“Ouch,” said Pure, half-hearted, with a shrug.
“Allow me to put you out of your misery,” said the dragon, rearing back to strike.
“Why do you have a British accent?” Pure asked.
Then there was a crackle, and the terrible odor of burning feathers. The dragon shuddered and shivered as Cassie’s taser sent enough voltage through him to make steam roll out of his nostrils.
The charge on the taser was powerful, but brief. Ten seconds later the crackling sound died away and the dragon still stood. The beast coughed, amidst a cloud of smoke.
“That, madam, was uncalled for,” he said as he turned toward Cassie.
Cassie wielded her cane like a baseball bat and met the dragon’s stare. Her dark glasses hid her eyes. The set of her jaw gave her a determined, fearless look.
“Bring it on,” she said.
Thwip.
With a sudden puff of air, a dart buried itself deep into the dragon’s neck. Pure looked back to where he’d first been ambushed and saw Chase standing there, dart-gun in hand.
“Leave her alone,” said Chase. “You want to fight someone, I’m your man.”
“Siiirrrr,” said the dragon, stepping toward Chase. The dragon’s serpentine head swayed drunkenly. “You . . . yooooooou.”
The dragon stumbled, spreading its wings for balance. With a flap that cleared the forest floor of leaves it steadied itself. Then it lost its battle with gravity and collapsed to the dirt.
“Seriously,” said Pure. “Why did it have a British accent?”
“Oh my god,” said Chase running to Pure’s side. “Don’t look down.”
“I know, I know,” said Pure. “My intestines are hanging out. No big thing.”
“How are you still alive?” said Cassie as she helped Sue stand up.
“I would offer last rites,” said Sue, “but it’s too late for you.”
“This isn’t going to kill me,” said Pure, sagging back against the tree, closing his eyes, or trying to. The one that had come out of its socket didn’t respond. “I’m already dead. I died in the warp.”
“We don’t have time to sit and listen to him babble,” said Sue. “Cassie, get the restraints on the dragon. We’ve a long walk back to the station wagon with this thing. Chase, help her.”
“But Pure. . . , ” said Chase.
“Pure’s done for,” said Sue. “He’s in shock. He’ll be dead in minutes.”
“You people don’t listen to a thing I say,” said Pure.
“I’m listening,” said Cassie as she pulled long plastic cords out of her backpack.
“You’re obviously scientifically savvy, Cassie,” said Pure. “Ever hear of ‘spooky action at a distance?’ ”
“Yeah,” said Cassie. “It’s a property of entangled particles. You can have two entangled particles separated by any distance and when you change the spin on one, the other instantly changes spin. Since the transmission of information appears to happen faster than the speed of light, Einstein labeled it ‘spooky action at a distance.’ ”
“You go to the head of the class,” said Pure. “Engineers have been playing around with spooky action for decades now. They create encrypted messages with it, for instance. But for the last ten years I’ve been working with a government black ops team on something more ambitious.”
“Black ops?” said Chase.
“US military research is like an iceberg. Only a tiny fraction of it is above the waterline. The rest takes place in programs that are off the books. Black ops.”
“The idea of you getting involved in something sinister doesn’t surprise me at all,” said Sue.
“It’s not sinister,” said Pure. “It’s just secret. And one reason so much of it’s secret is because of people like you who protest every project under the sun because it’s endangering snail darters or whatever.”
“You mentioned Mount Weather earlier,” said Cassie. “My sister’s told me all about that place. She said it’s home to a shadow government that really runs the US. You worked there, huh?”
“Yeah. But Mount Weather doesn’t house a shadow government, at least not anymore. Mount Weather was set up during the cold war as a second home for the US government in case of nuclear war. There was a whole city there at one point, forty thousand people, all living underground in complete secrecy. But after the cold war ended, the budget to run the place kept getting smaller and smaller. Now there’s maybe a thousand people, all involved in military research. I was working on the spook door.”
“What’s that?” asked Cassie as she and Chase set about binding the dragon’s limbs with the plastic ties.
“One theory about spooky action at a distance is that it only appears to be taking place at a distance here in our four dimensional world. But what if the two particles react instantaneously because they’re actually the same particle? Some unified theories call for as many as thirteen higher dimensions. The researchers on our team believed that entangled particles are actually separate four dimensional reflections of a single particle existing in one of these higher dimensions.”
“I follow you,” said Cassie.
“So the researchers on my team had an idea. Since all matter is made up of particles, what if you built two gates out of entangled particles? Would it be possible to step through one gate and exit through the other?”
Sue walked around the dragon, checking its bonds. “They need to be tighter, boy,” she said to Chase. “Look how Cassie’s doing it.”
“It took ten years but the project was a success,” said Pure. “There’s a spook door in Mount Weather and another one in Houston. No light passes through them. When you look inside, they’re pitch black. But if you toss a baseball through one, it comes out the other side.”
“Wow,” said Cassie. “No wonder this is a secret project. This will change the world.”
“Actually, there are still a few bugs in the system,” said Pure. “Baseballs, no problem. But then we tried mice. There were complications. The mice all came out flipped.”
“You mean inside out?” asked Cassie, wrinkling her nose.
“I mean mirror symmetry. When they came out they looked normal and healthy, but when I dissected them all their organs were on the wrong side.”
“Ah,” said Cassie. “I was wondering how a veterinarian wound up working on a physics project.”
“This was Pure’s specialty back in college,” said Sue. “He didn’t care about helping animals. To him, they were research tools. He had as much empathy for them as he had for a beaker or a test tube.”
“Whatever,” said Pure. “You got any gauze in that bag?”
“Sure,” said Cassie, fishing about.
“The real trouble began when we tried the monkeys,” said Pure. “We used capuchins. We sent them through one door, but they never came out the other side. We tried attaching cameras to them, but no signal ever came out of the gates. We tried sending them through on tethered harnesses, but the tethers would pull back empty.”
“That’s horrible,” said Cassie, producing the gauze from her bag. “How many monkeys did you kill like that?”
“None, it turns out. But I’ll get to that in a moment. If you’re asking how many we sent in, it was an even dozen. And you’re right. It was horrible. I don’t want to come across as overly soft-hearted here, but after the third or fourth failure, I kind of felt like sending the monkeys into the warp had the same scientific value as putting kittens in a microwave. The last ten exploded, but we better do another ten to be sure.”
“Why, Pure,” said Sue. “You do have feelings.”
“Fortunately, I also had drugs. Feelings exist to be quieted.”
“How did a drug addict ever wind up working in a top secret place like that?” asked Cassie as she carried the gauze over to Pure.
“Lots of practice,” said Pure. “There wasn’t a day in my life since college that I wasn’t altering my mood with some sort of chemical. What Sue said about me being a vet in order to get the drugs is partly true. If a horse doesn’t get all of its pills, it doesn’t complain to anyone. Over the years I became an expert at faking drug tests.”
“But still. . . , ” said Cassie, unrolling the gauze and setting to work on Pure’s mangled face.
“Also, I sort of had a relationship going with the head of security. Talk about messy break-ups. The last time I saw him, he tried to shoot me in the head.”
“He?” said Sue.
“Come on, Sue,” said Pure. “You’re an old hippie. You can’t be that shocked that I’m gay.”
“But,” said Sue, “You’re a Republican.”
“I just told you that to piss you off,” said Pure. “I’m really apolitical, with slightly conservative bent. Except, you know, about sex. And drugs. I’d call myself a libertarian, except I’ve never had a job that wasn’t paid for by taxpayers. I’m tough to classify.”
Sue shook her head and mumbled something Pure couldn’t make out.
“So what happened to the monkeys?” asked Cassie.
“I started seeing them,” said Pure. “I’d be taking a shower and look out through the steamy glass and there would be a monkey sitting on the toilet, watching me. But when I opened the door it was gone. Another time I was sleeping and I felt a hand on my leg. I put my hand onto it in the darkness and was absolutely sure I was touching a monkey’s paw, but when I sat up and turned on the light, nothing was there. Other times I would catch the scent of monkeys, or hear them chattering in the hallway, but any time I tried to track them down, nothing.”
“Spooky,” said Cassie. She turned her attention to Pure’s dangling intestines. Pure did what he could to push them all back inside before Cassie started wrapping his torso.
“I couldn’t tell anyone. I always knew I was playing a dangerous game, messing with my brain chemistry on a daily basis. In some ways, winding up haunted by monkeys was perfectly natural, a long delayed side effect. I tried tinkering with doses to get rid of the effect, but it wasn’t working. I finally asked for some personal time and went down to Brinkley, a little civilian town about ten miles from the mountain.”
“You’re hardly bleeding at all,” said Cassie.
“Now you’ve done it,” said Pure, as the gauze suddenly stained red. “If I don’t remember I should be bleeding, I don’t.”
“Sorry,” said Cassie.
Pure waved his hand. “Meh. I’ll be good as new soon. Anyway, I was standing in a grocery store, in kind of a half daze, high as a kite and staring at this banana. The drugs I was on are related to LSD and I was in total awe of this banana’s energy fields. I’d probably been standing there five minutes when all hell broke loose.
“The air around me ripped into little rainbows. I thought I was tripping at first, but I noticed that everyone else in the store was screaming, so what was happening must have been real. Monkey paws and faces started pushing out through these little rainbow rips and grabbing at the fruit. The monkeys were screaming, half in fear, half excitement, and in my drugged out condition it was like I understood what they were saying to me. They were lost in the warp. And they needed me to get them out.”
“Holy cow,” said Cassie.
“So I drove back to the base, went right into the lab and went through the door. And now things get tricky to explain.”
“Really,” said Sue, shaking her head.
“I went into the warp and immediately saw the problem,” said Pure. “There isn’t one door inside, leading to Houston. There are millions of doors leading all over the world, maybe even to different times for all I know. Being inside the warp is like surfing on a wave of windows, leading to infinite possible futures. I didn’t see the monkeys. The space I was in didn’t look large enough to hold them, and yet, paradoxically, it seemed vast enough to hold everything, entire universes. No wonder the monkeys were lost.”
“What happened then?” asked Cassie.
“I looked back at the door I’d stepped through. The room was full of security guards. Worse, Hammer was there, and he wasn’t going to be happy about this. Our relationship had been kind of strained ever since I started being haunted by the monkeys. Our relationship was secret, so he had to be worried that I was getting crazy enough to spill the beans. So I decided that it wouldn’t be smart to go back out the way I came in.
“I wished there was someplace safe I could go to. Instantly, the doors shuffled and whirled around me until I was looking into the backyard of the house I grew up in. I reached out and touched the window, and I was back in the real world, three thousand miles from Mount Weather. At least, part of me was back.
“Because remember how the particles are extrusions of a single particle on a higher plane? I think something like that happened to me. I think the real me, my soul or whatever you want to call it, is still inside the warp, and I’m a kind of shadow of him in the 3D world. As near as I can tell, I’m no longer alive in a biological sense. I’m a physical echo of a man who lives on a higher dimension.”
“Wow,” said Cassie. “My sister has definitely got to meet you.”
“I can’t believe you’re buying his story,” said Sue.
“He’s awfully perky for a man with his intestines hanging out a moment ago,” said Chase. “You have a better explanation?”
“He probably loaded up on rhino tranks when we weren’t watching.”
Pure ignored her. “Since then, I’ve been on the run. The scientists on the spook door project want to dissect me. I’m their new warp monkey.”
“Talk about karma,” said Sue.
“The one ace in the hole I have is that my relationship with Hammer, the head of security at the Mountain, was secret. Being gay is still against the rules of conduct. Unlike the public military, there’s not a lot of societal pressure to update rules in a place few people know exist. With Hammer in charge of hunting me down, I think maybe, just maybe, he’s not doing his best work. I think he wants me to escape.”
“Is Hammer his real name?” asked Chase. “My grandfather, the one who died in the war, was nicknamed Hammer and I’ve never heard of anyone else with that name.”
“It’s a nickname for him, too,” said Pure. “Hamilton Morgan is his real name.”
“What a strange coincidence,” said Chase. “That was my grandfather’s name.”
Pure puzzled over this bit of information. Certainly this was important, another clue from the higher dimension trying to tell him something. But what?
“You know,” said Pure, “we might be talking about the same guy.”
“Doubtful. My grandfather’s ashes are on the mantel at my father’s house.”
“Lots of lifers at the Mountain have their deaths faked back in the real world,” said Pure. “I’m not the only walking dead man with ties to the Mountain.”
Chase shook his head. “I’ll buy the whole warp door thing, but I can’t believe my grandfather faked his death. He had a family. Why would he do something so cruel?”
“Don’t worry about it,” said Pure. “I’m only speculating. Hammer never talked about his life before he came to the Mountain. It’s probably a coincidence, the names. But what does it mean? What’s my higher self trying to tell me?”
As if in response, a terrible wind suddenly swept through the woods, swirling the leaves around them. A pulsing, pounding rhythm swept through Pure’s belly. It reminded him of the pulsing that used to sweep through him when one of the Mountain’s silenced helicopters would lift off.
“I’m getting radio signals,” said Cassie. “They’re encrypted.”
“Oh no,” Pure said. “Quick we have to—”
Suddenly branches began to snap all around them. Leaves crunched beneath heavy boots. Shadows slipped and shifted among the trees. A half dozen men in black military fatigues with rifles burst into the clearing as a familiar voice shouted, “Freeze!”
“—run,” finished Pure.
But there was nowhere to run. The commandos were right on top of them, guns ready, and Chase, Cassie, and Sue were all pushed down into the dirt with ruthless efficiency.
Hammer Morgan strode onto the scene, pistol drawn, aimed at Pure.
“So much for the theory that I’m secretly trying to help you escape,” said Hammer.
“Maybe it’s subconscious,” said Pure. “That chopper must have some damn good microphones, though.”
“Good enough to hear your little story,” said Hammer. “You’ve blabbed too much. I can’t let your friends go now.”
The soldiers were binding the arms of the others with plastic ties similar to the ones used on the dragon. Pure noticed that the soldiers kept looking at the unconscious dragon out of the corners of their eyes.
“How about your own flesh and blood?” asked Pure. “This kid here is your grandson. You going to kill him?”
“I don’t have to kill any of you if you cooperate,” said Hammer.
“Generous of you,” said Pure. “But, you know, even if I wanted to cooperate, I don’t think it’s going to happen. Earthquakes and monkey shit haven’t deterred you. I wonder what he’ll come up with this time?”
As he spoke, the roar of a motor tearing through the woods became ever more apparent. The soldiers melted into shadows behind the trees, turning their rifles toward a monster-wheeled van that lumbered toward them. The van shuddered to a stop. The side door slipped open and a dozen armed men in bullet proof vests leapt out.
The driver of the van stepped out, with a megaphone in hand, and said, “Throw down your weapons. You’re under arrest for trespassing.”
Hammer sighed.
“Told you,” said Pure.
Hammer lowered his gun, but didn’t drop it as he turned to the megaphone wielding man.
“I’m with the FBI,” said Hammer, holding up his fake badge. “I can give you information on who to contact to confirm this. Local law enforcement should have already been notified.”
“You’re on private property,” said the megaphone man. “Maybe you are FBI, and maybe you’re not. Poachers here come up with all kinds of tall tales. I’m telling you one last time to drop your damn gun. I’ve got a dozen guards here with weapons ready. If you’re telling the truth, we can work it out after we take you back to headquarters.”
Hammer shook his head and mumbled, “Rent-a-cops.”
“I’m going to count to three,” said the head rent-a-cop. “If that gun is still in your hands, we will open fire.”
“Screw it,” said Hammer. “I’m not in the mood for this. Take ’em.”
To punctuate his command he calmly raised his gun, took aim, and placed a bullet between the eyes of the megaphone guy, then leapt behind a tree before the other rent-a-cops could react. The rifles of his hidden commandoes spat out shots, dropping half the guards before the body of their leader had even hit the ground.
Pure covered his ears as the gunfire exploded around him. He flinched as a bullet knocked the bark from the tree six inches above his head. Chase, Sue, and Cassie flattened themselves into the dirt. The dragon cracked his bleary red eyes to see what all the fuss was about. As he saw the armed men among the trees, his eyes snapped open and his body tensed. As the muscles in the reptile’s neck and jaw bulged, the plastic tie that bound the creature’s mouth struck Pure as being woefully insufficient.
CHAPTER NINE
* * *
SPARK OF LIFE
ADAM WATCHED THE BRACELET fall through the dark water, its bright curves visible beneath the surface for a moment, growing ever dimmer as the bracelet drifted into darkness, vanishing.
Was that it? Was that all there was to do? He kept staring into the water, expecting some dramatic development. Nothing happened.
He returned once more to the corpse he’d worn only moments earlier. He moved the limbs of his former body to give it a restful repose. The absence of life mystified him. What had changed inside his former shell? He was a man of science. He understood life from the genetic level up. But the more he’d studied and understood through the years, the more he’d grown to feel that there must be something more to life than mere chemistry and genetics. He’d watched his wife fall asleep and never awaken. What had happened? Where had she gone? Her body had remained, still healthy in most aspects. Her heart beat, her lungs moved of their own power, but her eyelids never opened again. Why?
Then, there had been the dragons. If he was ever going to understand life, it should have been when the dragons actually slid from their plastic wombs. He’d felt like a god that day. Of course, the feeling had been tempered by the knowledge that of one hundred embryos, only eleven reached term. Four of the fledglings died before the day had ended. The rest had grown as expected, aggressive, strong, and smart, except for subject J-11, who’d grown too smart, and begun to speak. His superiors had dismissed it as mere mimicry, parrot-like, especially since the other dragons, even ones born in later batches with improved code, showed no evidence of speech. Sometimes, staring into the eyes of J-11, Adam had felt as if he was looking into something deeper and vaster than he’d ever understand. Could mere random variation in brain wiring explain J-11’s precocious personality?
Now, here was his old body, the spark of life removed. There was no reason for it to be dead. He’d been healthy enough. If he attempted mouth-to-mouth to revive it, would there be two of him? Or could his old body be reanimated to spend countless years comatose, alive yet not alive, like Jessica?
He grew aware of a noise around him, faint at first, and distant. It reminded him of the songs of whales, which he’d listened to many nights in his bunk. The ocean grew choppy, though the wind remained still. There were lights in the deeps of the ocean, dim orbs of phosphorescence, growing ever sharper and more defined.
Suddenly, one of the orbs broke the surface of the water. It was perched atop a thin spire of silvery metal. The spire continued to rise from the water as another orb punctured the surface a hundred yards distant, then another, and another, until all around him the sea was full of these sharp silver needles, growing ever taller and thicker. The water was bubbling now, and the air grew incredibly humid. Thunder rolled from all directions. The storm wasn’t in the sky.
Beneath the water, lightning arced, in long blue-white jags that raced toward the horizon before vanishing. The water groaned. The choppy waves grew more violent, and Adam clung to the mast to steady himself. With a loud crash, the boat listed violently, and water washed over the deck, threatening to tear the mast from Adam’s grip. The boat continued to tilt, until at last it toppled. But the boat was no longer sinking. It was rising.
The waves rolled away as a cylindrical platform lifted the boat skyward. In every direction that Adam looked, glistening geometric shapes were rising from the retreating ocean. They reminded him of children’s blocks, cubes and pyramids and cones, of enormous dimensions.
Adam let go of the mast, slipping down the wet, tilted deck, jumping onto the white platform. It had a smooth, chalky texture, warm and moist, slightly gritty. Adam lifted his fingers to his face. The tips were coated with fine white sand. And the sand was crawling. With his newly fine-tuned eyes he could see the grains of sand with astonishing clarity. Each one was a tiny crab, smaller than a flea.
Though the stars were still bright in the sky, it began to rain. Adam became acutely aware of his nudity. Even though the night was warm and the rain was soothing, he worried that he’d grow cold soon enough. He wondered if his old clothes would fit him anymore.
Suddenly, clothes weren’t the focus of his attention. The crabs were starting to swarm him, washing over his toes, swirling past his ankles, stretching in long fingers toward his knees. Worried, Adam scrambled back onto the tilted deck of his boat, kicking, trying to dislodge the invaders. His efforts failed. The crabs kept swarming, engulfing his legs, his waist, his torso, and he took a deep breath, anticipating they would next move toward his face.
They didn’t. The crabs swirled down his arms, stopping at his wrists, and climbed no higher than his neck. The feeling of panic left him. The crabs weren’t hurting him; they didn’t even tickle. They were making tiny chirping noises, like microscopic crickets, which he strained to hear amid the drum roll of the rain.
As quickly as the crabs had swarmed him, all movement suddenly ceased and they grew silent. Adam was shocked to discover that he was now fully clothed, in a clean white shirt and blue jeans, wearing a comfortable pair of gleaming white deck shoes. He examined the fabric. It resembled cotton, soft and supple. The rain beaded on its surface and ran off, leaving the cloth dry. He sat and looked closer at the shoes. They were molded perfectly to the shape of his feet, free of any snaps or clasps. He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to take them off, short of cutting them off.
As he thought this, the shoe began to shimmer, breaking apart once more into the millions of tiny crabs, which fell from his feet like dust, leaving him barefoot once more.
“Hah!” he said, suddenly figuring it out. He decided he’d once again like to be wearing shoes. Once more, the crabs scuttled onto him, spinning into shoes in an instant. On a whim, he decided that the shoes would look better black. In a twinkling, with a fluid motion starting at the toes and flowing back to the heel, the shoe darkened to an obsidian hue.
“Okay,” he said, wanting to test this further. “I need a new watch.” Again, a swarm of crabs rushed him, passing over his shoes, vanishing beneath the cuff of his pants, emerging once more from his left sleeve. They sounded much more mechanical than before, with grinding, whirring noise as they swirled around his wrist. Slowly, a gold band resolved itself, and a smooth circle with a glass face. He watched closely as the hands formed and began to tick in a deliberate path. He recognized this watch. It was his favorite one, a gift from Jessica when he graduated college. He’d lost it years ago, when the clasp had broken while he was swimming in the ocean. He remembered details of the watch, like the diamond that marked the twelve o’clock position, and the tiny nick in the glass made from bumping it against the corner of a brick wall. The watch took on these features before his eyes.
“My God,” he said, tears welling. He was happy. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so happy before. It was so pure, so powerful that he trembled in gratitude to be so blessed. All from the reunion with an old watch.
Despite what Atlantis had told him, he wondered if this was supernatural. Perhaps this was heaven. He’d seen his dead body. It made sense, in a way. Except what had he ever done to deserve heaven? And why would heaven be so unpopulated? He was alone here. He wished so badly that Jessica could be with him.
By now, the cubes and cylinders were starting to grow more intricate. It was now apparent they were buildings. The windows and doors were forming as waves of crabs poured from the forms. Before him, a section of the roof fell inward with a gentle sigh, revealing stairs leading down into the interior
He followed them, leaving the relative safety of the ship. The stairs led into a lovely room with marble walls, lit by globes of phosphorescent fluid. The room was unfurnished, but as he thought this the floor began to ripple and warp, until couches were formed, and paintings hung on each wall. The room had the airy, open feeling of an art gallery.
The paintings were abstract and a bit disappointing. Adam wondered if Atlantis was somehow pulling them from his mind. He hoped not. Adam had many useful talents, but he was the first to admit he knew and cared almost nothing about art. If Atlantis was being built to please his aesthetic standards, the rest of the world might be in for a letdown.
He left the room, moving down another staircase, and exited onto a narrow, winding street. The street had an old world charm, the buildings close together, whitewashed, inviting conversation from street level windows.
There was no one to talk to.
He was still confused by what Atlantis had meant when he said he was a city. Presumably, Atlantis was the intelligence crafting everything around him, from the shoes on his feet to the towers stretching into the night sky so high he couldn’t see the tops. But was Atlantis an empty city? Was all this being crafted for his pleasure alone? For the pleasure of all humanity? Or was Atlantis somehow carrying other spirits within it, alien minds that would inhabit this place? Adam wished this thing had come with an owner’s manual.
“Not a manual,” said a deep, hearty voice behind him. “But I hope I will be able to answer your questions.”
Adam turned to find himself face to face with a marble statue of Poseidon. He was sure it hadn’t been behind him when he’d stepped onto the street.
“Let’s walk,” said Poseidon. “The sun will rise soon and I know the best place to view it.”
The statue moved, as fluid and easily as flesh, motioning for Adam to follow.
“Are you one of the Greek gods?” asked Adam. “Were the gods really aliens? Is that what all of this means?”
“No,” said Poseidon. “I’ve lifted this image from your world’s mythology. Many of those who come here will find it easier to accept if I wear this form. For others, I may choose to use a Buddha statue, or an African totem. While I’m not a supernatural creature, the human mind is hardwired to accept these archetypes. It will help ease the cultural shock of settling here.”
“Who will be settling here?” Adam said, following the Greek god down the twisting alley into an open plaza. In the center of the plaza was a fountain, and beyond that was one of the enormous towers, far taller than any building he’d ever seen, massive, yet graceful, slender as a needle in proportion as it rose into the heavens.
“Anyone who wishes. All will be welcome,” said Poseidon.
“That may not work out as smoothly as you imagine,” said Adam. “People from different parts of this world don’t always cooperate. People from the same parts of the world, even.”
“I know the history of your nations. Even as humans build cultures that span the globe, you still maintain tribal identities and react to competing tribes with hostility. Natural selection has bred this into your race. It was a logical response to a world of limited resources. Here, there are no limits.”
“No limits? There must be some cost to all of this. I don’t mean financial, I mean in energy, in resources. How are you building these structures?”
“Far beneath this city lies a mid-Atlantic ridge. I’m drawing minerals directly from it to assemble these structures. These waters also provide raw materials for food and clothing. As you’ve witnessed with your shoes, when you’re done with an object, I can simply recycle its components into new forms. All matter can be recycled endlessly.”
“But people like to keep things,” said Adam. “If you make everything people want, it won’t be long before this island runs out of closet space. Trust me.”
“I believe you. But again, your thoughts apply to your old world of finite resources. That watch you wear, I’ve crafted from your memories. If you decided not to wear it any longer, it wouldn’t require storage. I would simply reclaim the minerals. Should you ever wish to see it again, it’s a simple matter to recreate it. Storage no longer requires space, only information.”
“All of this creation must carry a tremendous cost in energy. What is the power source? What fuels all of this?”
“Your sun, which has heated the ocean we rest upon for billions of years. The ocean is a giant solar battery, and it’s a simple enough matter to draw heat from it to provide clean, nearly limitless power. There is some cost, in that the ocean will grow slowly cooler. It will take millions of years to draw off enough heat to have any environmental significance.”
“This all sounds very Utopian,” said Adam. “I suspect most people will have a difficult time swallowing this.”
“Perhaps,” said Poseidon. “But the fact that your language possesses a word such as Utopia shows that humans already have a nearly universal vision of the perfect city. Some call it heaven. Others call it Shangri-La. I’m the city your race has dreamed of since the dawn of cities.”
“The thing about heaven was, there were rules to get in. How will you decide who comes here? You can’t accommodate nine billion people.”
“Nine billion is not an intimidating number. But, as you said, some will be skeptical. Many will not come. All who do will be welcome.”
Adam couldn’t quite get over the notion that Atlantis was overestimating the potential for humans to get along. There were too many questions in his mind all at once. If Atlantis could provide the world with the technology for clean, unlimited energy, was there time to reverse the environmental damage Earth had suffered? Would introducing this knowledge cause economic chaos?
But it was difficult to focus on his worries. Poseidon was leading him up broad stairs toward the tower. Adam looked in awe at the vast structure. He had no way of judging its height. He was too close. It vanished into infinity, far taller than any building he’d ever seen.
He stepped into the domed lobby. In the center of the lobby on the floor was a large black disk, so perfect in its darkness that Adam hesitated to step on it, fearing there was nothing before him but a vast pit. Poseidon walked to the center, and motioned for Adam to follow.
“This may disorient you,” said Poseidon.
Adam felt his stomach turn as he stepped onto the dark circle. He was no longer standing in the lobby. Instead, he was standing on a narrow balcony, impossibly high above the city. Dizzy, he grabbed the balcony rail with a white-knuckle grip. Beneath him the city was glowing white, and he could see the plan of the city, circles within circles, punctuated by spires. He was miles in the air. His clothing instantly thickened, keeping him warm.
“What just happened?” he asked. The air here was thin. His voice fell faintly on his own ears.
“To facilitate movement through the city, all of the towers contain gateways connected through underspace. We’ve traveled seven miles to the top of the tower though we only took one step forward. In time, this method of travel will become second nature for you.”
“Seven miles? How can we be breathing this high up?”
“There are tiny machines within you that instantly adapt your body to these conditions.”
“Nanotechnology?” asked Adam.
“That is your culture’s word for it, yes.”
It was too much. He was standing as high as the peak of Everest, having walked here with a single step, inside a brand new body, and now he had to think about microscopic machines working inside his lungs. He realized he had gone insane after all. The talking statue before him was just a fantasy. And then the sun broke over the horizon, revealing the vast arc of the Earth, painting the city below in a palette of rose and shadows. Adam smiled in the face of such beauty.
“If only Jessica could see this,” he said.
Poseidon smiled, a twinkle in his eye.
Then, on the horizon, dark specks appeared. Adam’s new eyes spotted them instantly.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Fighter jets,” said Poseidon. “The world has discovered us, it seems.”
CHAPTER TEN
* * *
THIS IS GOING TO STING
SNARLING, THE DRAGON THRASHED against its bonds. Its mouth was sealed with a plastic muzzle that kept its jaws clamped shut, but Cassie and Chase hadn’t taken its serpentine neck into account when they bound it. The beast simply snaked its jaws down toward its bound wrists and looped a single sharp claw through the cord, snapping it.
The handful of rent-a-cops who survived due to good reflexes or sheer luck had now taken positions behind trees themselves and were returning fire on the black-garbed soldiers.
The dragon used it free jaws to snap through the cords that bound its legs.
Pure calmly rose to his feet amidst the hail of gunfire. He had a good feeling about all of this. He walked over to the fallen leader of the rent-a-cops and found the knife on his belt.
“Jesus Christ,” Hammer shouted as the dragon pounced toward him. From the corner of Pure’s good eye, he could see the dragon crash into Hammer and knock him to the ground. Hammer’s head landed on a particularly sharp looking rock and he stopped moving. The dragon didn’t pause over its prey, leaping instead toward a black-garbed soldier behind a nearby tree. Pure deduced that the beast really didn’t like guns or the people who carried them. A severed arm went flying overhead as the dragon made short work of his target.
Pure strode to the center of the clearing. The gunfire was definitely dying off now, as the commandos dropped one by one. The few surviving rent-a-cops were running for all they were worth. Pure heard a snap and a curse as the dragon landed on another of the black-garbed soldiers.
Using his knife, Pure quickly cut Chase and Cassie free. He was tempted to leave Sue bound, but decided not to be petty. As he cut her loose she rolled over and he saw she was smiling.
“This is better than Ontario!” Sue said, referring to a famous riot of a decade ago when the Canadians had first really gone into panic mode about their country disappearing under ice.
There was a horrible cry trailing off into a gurgle from a nearby tree and all gunfire stopped.
The dragon emerged into the clearing, covered with gore, his eyes fixed on Pure.
“That was an impressive bit of slaughter,” Pure said. “They didn’t mess around when they designed a predator, did they?”
“Why aren’t you still injured?” asked the dragon, furrowing its brows in a confused dog kind of expression.
Pure looked down. He pushed aside the bloodied gauze to discover that his belly was intact once more.
“Huh,” he said. “In all the excitement, I sort of forgot about it. He must have taken the opportunity to hit my reset button.”
“What manner of beast are you?” the dragon asked.
“I’m just your average walking-dead, queer, black-ops veterinarian,” said Pure, extending a hand. “The name’s Alex Pure. Pleased to meet you.”
“I’ve no patience for trickery,” said the dragon. “You’ve shot me, fried me, drugged me and bound me. Friendship isn’t easily forged in such conditions.”
“Sounds like someone has a chip on their shoulder. More to the point, you’ve got a chip in your head,” said Pure. “It causes you a lot of pain when you get near the borders of the park. Am I right?”
“What of it?”
“We can fix you,” said Pure. “We can take out the chip. Get you outside of the park, away from hunters.”
“And then what? I’m well aware of my status, and have long dreamed of the larger world. But I’m aware of my lot in life. I’m property, a plaything created for amusement. I can never be free, even beyond the accursed boundary.”
“What kind of attitude is that?” asked Pure. “Never say never. Trust me, there are agents out there that would dream of having you as a client. We could be talking about a book deal, movie rights, the works. Once the press gets hold of you, you’ll be famous, and once you’re famous, you’ll be the freest creature on earth. Celebrities get away with murder.”
“Intriguing,” said the dragon, scratching his chin with his claws.
“Make up your mind quickly,” said Cassie. “One of the guards that got away has radioed this in. We’ll be swarming with backup any minute.”
“Very well. I shall go with you. What have I to lose?”
“Good. Get in the van,” said Sue, opening the van doors. “I’ll drive. Cassie, you’re riding shotgun.” Sue shoved the shotgun into Cassie’s hands. “Get me some directions on the fastest way out of here. Chase, Pure, in the back with the dragon. Get that chip out ASAP.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Chase.
“I rather like her,” said the dragon, moving toward the open door.
“You got a name?” asked Pure.
“Morningstar.”
They piled into the van. A John Denver song was warbling softly from the speakers, “Country Roads.” Cassie switched the radio off before John could finish the last syllable of “West Virginia.” A bottled water sat on one of the seats. The tiny print on the label read “Bottled in West Virginia.” Bells went off in his head.
“That’s two,” he said. “Can anybody think of any reason we might be needed in West Virginia?”
“Not on the itinerary. We’re heading straight to the Big Apple.” Sue said as she stomped on the accelerator, tossing Pure, Chase, and Morningstar backwards.
“Actually,” said Cassie. “I was going to suggest going through West Virginia. It’s not far out of our way. We could hook up with my sister, Jazz. We’re going to have every cop in America looking for us, but she’s got the connections to get us safely to wherever we need to go.”
“Then that’s where we supposed to go,” said Pure, bracing himself with one hand against the ceiling as he brandished the knife. He turned toward Morningstar and placed his fingers on the dragon’s brow. Through luck or invisible guidance, he could feel the small square of the pain-chip beneath the beast’s hide. “Hold tight. This is going to sting.”
IN THE DISTANCE, the night sky glowed red with the fires of road crews fighting back the jungle. Pure had taken over the driving duties somewhere around the Tennessee border. Sue and Cassie and Morningstar were zonked out in the back of the van. Chase was sitting next to him, obviously annoyed as Pure kept pushing the scan button on the radio.
“Can’t you just pick one?” Chase asked.
Pure said nothing. He kept his eyes on the highway, watching for the frost-backs who walked along the edges of the road. These illegal Canadian immigrants tended not to wear anything bright or reflective. They loomed out of the darkness at the last second, casting frightened glances at the passing van. Poor bastards.
“The world’s going to hell,” said Chase as they passed by one of the frost-backs, his sad, hollow-eyed face ghostly in the headlights. “I wonder what it would have been like to grow up in a time when the world wasn’t on the verge of total anarchy?”
“I’m sorry. Did the center not hold?” said Pure, struggling to figure out if the ghostly voice on the radio a second ago had said “Atlantis” or “Mylanta.” It didn’t matter, he supposed. His higher self wasn’t trying to warn him against heartburn. “I bet you look around, see all of these homeless Canucks, see the jungle eating cities from the south and glaciers coming in from the north and it looks like the end of the world, huh?”
“Yeah,” said Chase. “I think it might well be.”
“Grow up,” said Pure. “Get some perspective. The world isn’t in any danger from this. Kids your age always think they’re living in the end times, that things are as bad as they can possibly get. It’s what people believed a century ago. Even a thousand years ago. The end of days always seems to be just around the corner.”
“How can things get worse?”
“We aren’t fighting any major wars at the moment; all the major powers are too broke to field armies. And how much of the world’s population have we lost to plague recently? Ten percent, tops. Mostly we have some lousy weather and a tough economy. One day you’ll tell your grandkids about how horrible the world was. They’ll laugh and tell you how tough their world is and you’ll think, ‘these young whippersnappers don’t know shit.’ ”
“You think you’re funny don’t you?” said Chase.
“I think life’s funny,” said Pure. “It’s just a matter of training your eyes to see the humor.”
“I don’t see anything funny about my life,” said Chase.
“Maybe you just aren’t using the right drugs yet,” said Pure. “I could prescribe something that would have you giggling at funerals.”
“I don’t want to be giggling at funerals,” said Chase. “You might not take life seriously, but I learned early on just how serious things really are. Remember sleeper flu?”
“Yeah. It took my grandmother,” said Pure. “She slept for a year before it took her.”
“My mom’s still in a coma,” said Chase.
“Really?” said Pure. “Wow. The flu was, like, twenty years ago.”
“It took her just after my first birthday,” said Chase. “My dad keeps her in some upscale nursing home in Pennsylvania. All the memories I have of her are of this withered skeleton lying in bed. I haven’t gone to see her in years. It’s too depressing.”
“That’s a rough break.”
“But at least my Mom has a good excuse for neglecting me,” said Chase. “My dad took himself out of my life with full deliberation. He only cared about his job. When I was old enough to confront him on this, he actually had the nerve to tell me the reason he worked so hard was because of Mom and me. He told me boarding schools and nursing homes aren’t cheap. But he had more than enough money to get by, it turns out. He retired early and bought a boat, then set out to sail around the world alone. How’s that for a remote father?”
“And that’s why you’re wanting to punish him by exposing him to the whole world as a monster for creating our toothsome friend back there.”
“That’s definitely a bonus. But really, the most important thing is that the world finds out about the potential environmental harm.”
“Oh, please,” said Pure. “You sound like you’re reading that off a cue card. How much did you care about the environment before you met Cassie?”
“A lot. Really. I’m not faking my devotion to the cause,” said Chase.
“You’re so transparent I could read a book through you. I’m guessing Cassie caught your eye and you desperately wanted some excuse to talk to her. You find out she’s a gung-ho enviro-freak; you just happen to know about some morally dubious genetic engineering. You aren’t the first person to pretend to feel something you don’t in order to get into another person’s pants.”
“My feelings about Cassie are none of your business.”
“Oh,” said Pure, nodding slightly. “I see.”
“You see?” said Chase. “What do you mean, you see?”
“I deduce from your tone that you haven’t slept with her. She’s still stringing you along,” said Pure. “You never imagined you’d actually find yourself on the dragon hunt personally. You thought ratting out your dad would be enough to bed her, right?”
“I’m starting to see why Sue hates you,” said Chase. “You’re an asshole.”
“Everyone needs an asshole to keep them from filling up with shit,” said Pure. “Look, kid, I thought I was picking up some strange vibes from you two. You’ve got the hots for her so bad you’re committing felonies to impress her. She’s putting up with you while you’re useful, but she doesn’t have the faintest romantic glimmerings about you. I’ve got a feel for these things. It’s a side effect of my gaydar.”
“Gaydar?” said Chase, rolling his eyes. “That’s real?”
“Nope,” said Pure. “Not in any logical, empirical sense. But, yeah, sure. Sometimes. I get signals.”
“Really?”
“Like with your granddad,” said Pure. “Jesus, you think you know a guy and then you find out he has a grandkid. Sheesh.”
“He’s not my grandfather,” said Chase.
“When he looked at you back in the forest, he had this little twitch in his cheek,” said Pure. “He knows who you are.”
“You’re basing this on a cheek twitch?”
“I’m tuned in to Hammer on a pretty deep level,” said Pure. “Really, really deep if you get my drift.”
“You’re disgusting,” said Chase.
“You’ve got his eyes,” said Pure.
“Are you hitting on me?” said Chase.
Pure chuckled.
They drove through Memphis in silence. Pure wondered if Chase was finally going to sleep.
About an hour before dawn, Chase asked, “So where did you meet him?”
“Hammer? As head of security, he oversees interviews of potential recruits to Mount Weather. It’s not like they have an office where you go in and fill out an application. They have a secret network there to recruit people that fill their needs. They needed a vet for the lab animals and I fit the bill. I was unmarried, had no strong family ties, was something of a loner. I was apparently a pretty good candidate for vanishing from the face of the Earth and living the rest of my life in Mount Weather.”
“It also makes you fit the profile of a nut who would climb a bell tower and start shooting people,” said Chase.
“There’s a surprising overlap. Anyway, when I was contacted by the screener, I was told that there was a research job overseas, top-secret medical work for a large pharmaceutical company. They hinted that some of the research would be illegal if done in the U.S. I told them I was the man they were looking for. I had a half dozen interviews and a battery of psychological tests.”
“I can’t believe that didn’t weed you out,” said Chase.
Pure shrugged. “Part of my medical training was on administering these tests. I know how to make myself sound good. Too good, actually. Part of the screening team was suspicious. There are six people on the screening team and I was splitting them perfectly, three to three, as to whether I was a dream candidate or nothing but trouble. So Hammer was brought in to visit me at my home and make a final judgment.
“I’ll never forget opening my door to let him in. Hammer was gorgeous. He was a couple of decades older than me, but his body was chiseled. I got a nice warm shiver from the way he took over the room when he walked in, the way he stared at me, as if he was daring me to be dishonest with him. He had this take-no-prisoners gleam in his eyes and I don’t mind telling you, I wanted to bite this man.”
“Look,” said Chase. “You can leave out the sexual commentary.”
“Why? You homophobic?”
“No. But I happen to be polite enough not to talk about sex.”
“Probably because you have nothing to talk about. Anyway, we’re alone in my apartment and Hammer is in full-bore dominance mode and says to me, ‘Mystery solved. I can smell it on you. You’re a junky.’
“And I never break his gaze. I say, ‘Sure. And you’re queer. Is there a problem?’ ”
Pure felt himself drifting off into the memory. He remembered Hammer’s stoic, stony face, followed by the slight wry grin.
“We clicked,” said Pure. “We were two people who prided ourselves on being direct and at the same time we both had huge secrets, things that were at the core of our personalities, that we were hiding. That was what bonded us. I knew something about him no one else knew, he knew something about me no one else knew. That, and the sex was incredible. My god, Hammer has this wonderful little thing he does—”
“You’re doing it again,” said Chase. “I think you’re trying to provoke me.”
“There’s something about you that makes it fun to bug you,” said Pure. “I haven’t put my finger on it yet.”
Chase shook his head. “This is all a coincidence. My grandfather’s dead. And he certainly wasn’t gay. He had a wife and a son.”
“Hammer grew up in the late seventies, early eighties. It was a different world then. Some gays were coming out, but lots were in denial. They got married due to societal pressures, then either lived in misery or else found outlets for their desires on the side. Hammer would always dismiss my questions about his past by telling me it wasn’t important, that it was a lifetime ago. Maybe he was so unhappy with the choices he’d made that the idea of faking his death and going to live in a hidden city seemed like a better alternative.”
“Whatever,” said Chase, lowering his seat back another notch and turning his face toward the window.
Pure decided to let the matter drop. Maybe it was important, maybe it wasn’t. He wondered if Hammer was dead now. Morningstar had done a number on him. Why hadn’t he thought to check his pulse?
It bothered Pure slightly that he wasn’t more worried about Hammer’s fate. Had he always been this cold and self-centered, or was this only a side effect of the warp? Why didn’t he know more about Hammer’s past? But, it wasn’t like they’d spent long endless hours on some romantic beach talking about their lives. Their relationship had been one of stolen moments, kept hidden from others. It had been exciting, romantic, but also pretty shallow. Their relationship was mostly physical. But, yowza, what a physique.
Pure turned his attention once more to the radio. This time, it was definitely a Mylanta commercial once he listened to a larger clip. But it had sounded like Atlantis at first. Something big was brewing, he could feel it. It involved Atlantis—whatever the hell that meant. Now he was heading back to West Virginia, home of Mount Weather, sitting next to his boyfriend’s grandson—that meant something, didn’t it? The world was like a big spider’s web of connections and coincidences. Was he now so tangled in the web he was prey for something he couldn’t see?
Pure shook his head. He needed to stop trying to figure everything out. Just ride the waves of weirdness that were swelling up to carry him toward an unseen shore. A week ago he would never have believed he’d be driving around the country in a van with two girls, two guys, and a big animal, trying to solve mysteries. No, wait, that was Scooby Doo. But from that moment forward, he thought of the van as the Misery Machine.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
* * *
ANGELS
CAPTAIN CHERISE WASHINGTON piloted her F-32 Navy Phantom along the coastline of the new island. The radar data from the Aegis system had been right after all. An island almost forty miles across now sat where there hadn’t been one the night before. Nor was this one of the black, steaming chunks of rock that volcanic ridges would occasionally push to the surface. The beach below her was sparkling white, as if made of pearl, and to her right the gigantic towers of an undiscovered city gleamed in the sun.
The F-32 was a poor choice for a reconnaissance plane. Cherise was moving at the speed of sound, a bit fast for sightseeing. But the USS Clinton, the aircraft carrier Cherise was stationed on, was the closest American vessel in the vicinity of the island and the Clinton housed fighter jets, not spy planes. In a situation like this, any information might be useful. Already, she could tell her mission wasn’t a waste. The first piece of useful information she gathered was that her radio headset spewed out only static the second she passed within a mile of the island. The island was surrounded by some kind of jamming field. She and her squadron played around for fifteen minutes, defining the static boundary. Attempting to fly over the city would leave the squadron completely cut off from radio contact.
The second important thing she learned was that the city looked empty. She had no way of telling what might be in those towers, but the beaches were devoid of any signs of life.
“Here’s the plan,” she said. “Skirt the radio boundary, but keep in contact. I’m going to do a flyover of the island. Maintain visual contact with me as long as possible. If I’m not out the other side of the island in five minutes, head back to the Clinton.”
She banked her plane into a hard right, rocketing toward the center of the island. If the city had any sort of defense systems, she wanted to smoke it out. Passing over streets and buildings, she still saw no sign of any inhabitants.
Suddenly, her defense radar began to chime. There was something small and fast rising toward her. She banked hard left, veering close to a tower and climbing in a way that no other plane in the world could match. In seconds she’d looped around the tower completely. But the radar continued to chime. She hadn’t lost whatever was tailing her. It was, in fact, gaining on her. Impact would be in ten seconds. Nine. Eight.
She twisted around, trying to see something, anything that might indicate what was on her tail. Nothing. Her helmet blocked her peripheral vision. She straightened the plane out with five seconds to go, and then punched into a dive, looking for an extra boost of speed. She pulled out a hundred feet above the ground. The thing on her tail was closer than ever. She pushed aside the guard on the ejection trigger in her joystick with three seconds to impact. She held off, waiting for the last possible second.
The last second arrived, and the radar showed the object close, but no longer on a path toward impact. Whatever it was now pulled parallel, passing to her left. She glanced over and blinked. She studied the oxygen gauge on her in-helmet display. She wasn’t starved for oxygen, even with the g’s she was pulling. She looked left again.
An angel flew next to her plane. Its wings were enormous, perhaps twenty feet across, three times the length of its body. It was difficult to say if it was male or female. The angel’s long white hair flowed around its smooth face, and its slim, graceful body was concealed beneath white robes that also seemed sculpted from marble. The incredible wind that accompanied the speeds they were traveling barely rippled the robes. The angel smiled as it looked at her, and raised a hand in greeting.
Suddenly, the static in her headset cleared and a voice, gentle and calm, said, “I mean you no harm. In one day, we will broadcast a message of welcome to your people. If you wish to investigate closer, there’s a landing strip that can accommodate your plane three miles north. Welcome to Atlantis.”
The angel extended its arm toward her and gave a thumbs up gesture. Then the angel sped ahead of her, leaving behind a halo of mist as it broke another mach and darted behind one of the towers, vanishing.
“Jesus H. Christ,” she whispered, then instantly cringed. In light of this development, taking the Lord’s name in vain might be a bad idea.
ANTONIO LOPEZ-NELSON had been president of the United State for three years, three absolutely horrible years. In the most recent poll, his job approval numbers had been at 17%. It wasn’t like the world wasn’t a mess when Lopez-Nelson had taken over. But since the day of his inauguration, there had not been a single morning where he’d come into a morning briefing and been greeted with good news. This morning, he walked down the long hall toward the briefing room slowly, all alone, sipping coffee carefully. The two minutes it took him to leave the oval office and walk to the briefing room were likely to be the only quiet moments of his day. He was considering moving the briefing room even further away, to give him yet another quiet moment. Was that too much to ask?
His only consolation was that if great presidents are made during difficult times, people might one day remember him as the greatest president of all.
On the day he’d been sworn in, a magnitude 9 earthquake had struck New Madrid, Missouri, and the inauguration platform had trembled with the furthest echoes of the shock at the moment he’d been sworn in. Apparently, scientists had been warning for over a century that such a quake was possible, but no one had listened. That trembling inauguration platform had been a bad omen.
In the weeks that followed, mosquito born hemorrhagic fever struck New York City when summer-like temperatures arrived in February and stuck around. February continued to be an unlucky month. In his second February in office, war had broken out between Pakistan and India. Thanks to the nuclear arsenals of both nations, it was a very short war, but it still sent shock waves through the world’s economy. The stock market had collapsed, and the dollar was so weak that the peso was now considered the world’s safest currency. On top of all this, there were three separate regional rebellions going on, with Texas attempting to secede, Montana falling under control of the Freemen, and the whole Mountaineer Underground nonsense in West Virginia. Just when he thought that there was no more possible bad news, he’d woken up to find an email from David Sanchez, his largest campaign contributor, giving him the heads up that some kind of scandal might be about to break concerning genetically modified reptiles at a research facility in Arkansas. Lopez-Nelson couldn’t figure out why anyone would care about such an obscure subject, and that made him worry all the more about what it was that he wasn’t being told.
In front of the briefing room, he took one last sip of coffee, pulled back his shoulders, and stepped inside.
Silence greeted him. Everyone was there, his entire cabinet, but there was none of the usual chitchat. They turned in unison toward him, revealing pale, shocked faces.
Then they looked back to the head of the table. Lopez-Nelson followed their gaze, to the statue of an angel that stood across the room. Strange. No one had said anything to him about a new statue. Was this a gift from some foreign country? Didn’t they know the grief the church/state separation people would kick up over an angel statue in the White House? Then the statue raised its open hand in greeting and said, “Hello.”
Lopez-Nelson jumped as the statue moved and spoke. Then he slapped his thigh and started laughing. Things had been so tense lately, a practical joke starting the briefing was a welcome change. This one had really got him. He wiped his eyes.
“Hah,” he said. “I really thought it was a statue. You got me. Who set this up? Ben? Was it Ben?” His vice-president was the only one not in the room. Supposedly he was visiting Houston this morning to look at damage from recent riots. But now he wouldn’t be surprised if Ben leapt out from behind a curtain and yelled, “Gotcha.”
All of the members of his cabinet remained silent. Lopez-Nelson studied their faces. None had even the faintest hint of a smile.
“Okay,” he said. “I don’t get it. What’s going on?”
“I’m a representative of Atlantis,” said the angel. “I’ve been sent to inform you that tomorrow morning the city will be broadcasting a message to all the citizens of Earth. We’re paying this visit to you and to other world leaders as a courtesy. Don’t be alarmed by the new land forming in the Atlantic. We mean no harm. We come to offer peace, prosperity, and security to all the people of Earth. We’re aware that your nation possesses the technology to attempt an attack upon Atlantis. We wish to warn you, although we are in no way threatening you, that any attack against us will only result in the destruction of your forces.”
“Ben?” said Lopez-Nelson.
MARIAH BELIEVED IN THE POWER of prayer. There was much in her life to pray for. At home, she took care of her twenty-nine-year-old daughter, Anna, who had an inoperable brain tumor. The doctors said Anna had only weeks to live. Perhaps this was so. Or, perhaps not. Mariah knew a thing or two about the pronouncements of doctors. She’d witnessed their predictions go wildly wrong many times on her job.
Mariah was a nurse’s aide on the graveyard shift at Rolling Meadows, a long-term care facility just outside of Memphis, Tennessee. Each night, she took care of the men and women in the ward as they slept. They always slept, and would have slept even if she’d had one of the coveted day shifts. Caring for these sleepers gave her a perspective on the workings of God. The rooms of sleeping patients could be viewed as a message to the doctors, a message saying not to be so arrogant, not to treat people as if they were only a list of chemicals to be boiled down and studied. Twenty years of study had done nothing to wake these people. If there was another message here, it was that God treated everyone equally. Rolling Hills was an expensive facility. The patients here were from wealthy families. She could never afford to place her own daughter in such a facility. But what did wealth matter to God? The only thing that would one day wake these sleepers was the power of prayer. And so Mariah prayed, during the night, during the day, before going to sleep, upon waking, Mariah prayed. The world had become sinful and depraved, so she was in no way angry or blameful of God for the punishments he’d visited upon the world, even upon her own daughter. She could only hope that if she remained devout enough, faithful enough, that the Lord would one day bless the world and bring relief from these terrible times.
It was about an hour after dawn, nearly time for her shift to end, when she was pulled from her silent prayer by shouting from the lobby. She crossed herself and pressed up against the wall, listening. Was the facility under attack? She’d heard a woman screaming, probably Celia at the front desk, but that had stopped. Now she heard a man’s voice shouting, “Who are you?” and coming closer to her. Curious, she stuck her head around the corner, into the hall leading to the main lobby.
An angel was walking toward her. Tall, magnificent, like a marble statue come to life, the angel strode down the hall, its wings moving in gentle motions that sent bright, sparkling showers of dust swirling through the air behind it. Doctor Fredrickson, the young new doctor who’d recently started on nightshift, was walking backwards before it, arms outstretched as if trying to get the angel to stop.
“You can’t come in here,” Dr. Fredrickson said, half shouting, half begging. “The police will be here any minute. Stop!”
The angel spoke as it continued to walk forward. “The substance I’m releasing from my wings contains microscopic machines that are analyzing the brain structures of your patients. When the police arrive, please have them wait outside if I haven’t completed my work. I understand they will be armed, and I don’t want them doing anything to imperil the patients.”
“Is that a threat?” said Dr. Fredrickson. “You can’t come in here and start making threats.”
Mariah took pity on the poor young doctor. As he continued walking backward, he drew near her, and she reached out and grabbed his coat, and pulled him toward her, out of the angel’s path.
“Don’t try to stop it,” Mariah said as the angel strode past.
“Mariah?” Dr. Fredrickson said, glancing at her nametag. “What do you know about this?”
Before she could answer, the swirling dust engulfed them. She inhaled. The air smelled of roses, and was fresh and full of wonder, the sort of air she’d breathed only in her dreams of paradise. Even Dr. Fredrickson calmed upon breathing this heavenly scent.
“My God,” he whispered.
“Yes,” said Mariah.
She let go of the doctor, who stood still, looking stunned, tears welling up in his eyes. Mariah had never before felt so full of purpose, so decisive. She followed the angel, who was opening the door to the private room of Jessica Morgan. Mariah slipped in through the open door, now close enough to the angel that she could touch it. She didn’t dare. She didn’t fear the angel, but she worried that her own, earthly touch might sully it.
The angel stood near the head of Jessica’s bed. She’d not seen anything so exquisitely beautiful since she’d seen sculptures at the Vatican, forty years ago on a pilgrimage.
“You’re going to wake them, aren’t you?” said Mariah.
“Yes,” said the angel.
“Will you also help my daughter?”
The angel studied her with stony eyes. Mariah believed the angel could see her soul.
“She has cancer,” said Mariah. “She stays on a hospital bed in my living room. The doctors say she will die soon. I know you can help her.”
“All who can be healed shall be healed, in time,” said the angel. “For now, I’ve come to retrieve a specific individual.”
The angel leaned over and lifted Jessica into his arms. She was little more than a skeleton, with skin pale and translucent. As he lifted her, tubes were pulled roughly from her skin, but she didn’t flinch.
Then the angel tilted his face toward Jessica, brought his marble mouth to her cracked, papery lips, and kissed her.
Mariah fell to her knees, hands folded in prayer. As the angel breathed into Jessica’s mouth, her body began to change. Jessica’s limbs grew thicker, her skin blushed with new blood, her needle marks and bed sores closed over and vanished.
The angel drew his lips away. A halo of diamond dust illuminated their faces. Jessica’s eyes fluttered, opened, then closed once more. She breathed deeply, stretching her arms, then once again opened her eyes.
“Good morning,” said the angel.
“Am I dead?” asked Jessica, calmly.
“No,” said the angel. “You need never again fear death.”
“Mrs. Morgan, it’s the rapture,” said Mariah, attempting to be helpful.
The angel carried Jessica past Mariah and walked toward the lobby once more. Mariah followed, as the angel stepped outside. Behind her, people were shouting, a cacophony of voices, boiling down to one message.
All the sleepers were waking.
Outside, the angel spread its wings, and said to Jessica, “I’m taking you home.”
“Heaven?” asked Jessica.
“Atlantis,” said the angel.
Then, with a graceful wave of its wings, the angel lifted into the sky.
Mariah watched until she could see them no longer. She went back inside, paying no attention to the chaotic shouting from the halls. She had to get her purse. She had to go home to see her daughter. She had faith that she hadn’t seen her final miracle of the day.
CHAPTER TWELVE
* * *
INTRIGUING
AS CASSIE GAVE PURE DIRECTIONS after they crossed into West Virginia, Pure experienced a sense of déjà vu.
“Are you guiding me to Billings?” he asked.
“Yeah. That’s where my sister is.”
“Mount Weather is near there,” said Pure.
“I know. That’s why she’s there.”
“Not exactly a friendly place for an environmentalist,” said Sue. “That crazy right wing militia has taken over the place.”
“The West Virginia Underground,” said Pure. “Religious nuts with guns and a healthy dose of paranoia. They’re nothing to worry about.”
“You been following the news, lately?” asked Sue. “These zealots effectively control half the state.”
“Only half now?” said Pure. “West Virginia’s gotten more liberal since I left, apparently.”
Almost on cue, they drove past a road sign that had been painted over. “The Underground State” had been painted in bright red letters, and a deer skull was hanging from leather cords tied through bullet holes in the sign.
“Ominous,” said Chase.
“Agreed,” said Morningstar, his long head snaking up over the back seat to peer out the side window. “A dear head has rather stringy meat. A horse head would be more welcoming.”
Morningstar had survived Pure’s pocket-knife and bumpy road surgery and had slept most of the last twelve hours, a side effect of the acyteloranethine. He now looked bright-eyed and perky in the rearview mirror.
“Morning,” said Pure. “Sleep well?”
“Indeed. As well as I’ve slept since I was born,” said the dragon.
“Look, this is driving me crazy. Why do you have a British accent?”
“My creator, Adam Morgan, told me that we weren’t designed to speak,” said Morningstar. “We dragons were designed to be fast, strong, and smart, with a predator’s intelligence. He was surprised when some of us imitated human speech from an early age. There was some debate as to whether we were mere mimics, like parrots, or actually intelligent beings.”
“You strike me as incredibly intelligent,” said Pure.
“As we did to Adam Morgan. He would come to our cages and talk to us for hours, telling us that our lot in life was to hunt and be hunted. In his desire to make us intelligent, he had borrowed sections of the best mapped genetic code for intelligence, that of the human mind. He told us he wanted to stop the project once we began to speak, but that higher powers prevented this. As time went on, we saw Adam Morgan less and less, and other trainers took over. There was a woman named Cynthia who read us fairy tales and had us watch movies so that we could learn the dragon’s role in human mythology. Her accent was British, as were the accents of the actors in many of the movies.”
“This is sick,” said Cassie. “They knew you were sentient and they still planned to hunt you?”
“It wasn’t an unfair fate. We were allowed to hunt back.”
“I see they bred optimism into you,” said Pure.
“Nothing exists in a vacuum. As I learned from the fairy tales the roles of dragons, I also learned of chivalry, honor, and duty. And, as Cynthia was fond of saying, no matter what difficulties you may face in life, you should always face them with a stiff upper lip.”
“You don’t really have lips,” said Pure. “Just scaly jaws.”
“Which, I assure you, are stiff.”
“I still think it’s monstrous that they raised you just to be hunted,” said Cassie. “I wouldn’t blame you if you hated all mankind.”
“On the contrary,” said Morningstar. “You humans are born into this world unsure of your roles. When I spoke with Adam and Cynthia, it seemed as if they spent their lives in a confused quest for purpose, sometimes wondering what their creator intended. We dragons had the advantage of meeting our creators directly and receiving explicit instructions. We know what we’re bred for. Our lives are to be lived on the razor’s edge, to hunt and be hunted by the world’s most successful predator.”
“Man,” said Chase.
“Indeed,” said Morningstar. “It is quite elevating to know that I have emerged the victor from every encounter so far.”
Pure started to point out that they had technically been the victors of his last encounter, but decided to hold his tongue.
“Despite my prowess at survival, the rewards I was promised have yet to materialize.”
“Rewards? Like, a horde of gold?”
“What would I do with gold? Cynthia told me females of my species were created at the same time as the males. Only males have been released into the park; she implied that the most successful hunters would be introduced to the females for breeding. But what if these are lies? What if there are no females of the species? I sometimes feel that my struggles are meaningless as I will never have the opportunity to mate.”
“Chase feels the same way,” said Pure.
“Hey!” said Chase.
“Maybe once this is all over, we can get you a girlfriend,” said Cassie, not clarifying if she was addressing the comment to Morningstar or Chase. “From what I know of genetic engineering, I’m certain that there would be females created. The female is the default form of any species; males are just malformed females.”
“We aren’t here to be a dating service for a lizard,” said Sue. “Let’s stay focused. Our immediate goal: Expose the men who did this and put them out of business.”
“Put them out of the business of creating life?” asked Morningstar. “I’m hard pressed to imagine a more noble profession.”
“There’s nothing noble about this project. You’re just a toy for rich hunters. If we hadn’t rescued you, eventually your head would wind up as a trophy in some fat cat’s den.”
“This may be so, Madam, but the knowledge that I’m hunted has made me cherish every day I survive. I hold no hard feelings for those who wish to kill me.”
Pure laughed. “He’s got Stockholm syndrome.”
“Stockholm syndrome?” asked Morningstar.
“Hostages get it. They start sympathizing with their captors. It’s a coping mechanism.”
“Label my opinions what you wish,” said Morningstar. “I bear no ill wishes toward my creators.”
“But you still chose to come with us instead of staying with them,” said Pure.
“I can hardly be judged for accepting an opportunity to expand my horizons.”
“Ignore him, Morningstar,” said Chase. “Pure thinks he’s a psychologist instead of a vet.”
“I’m just clear-headed,” said Pure.
And on they squabbled into Billings.
Cassie gave directions to a Piggly Wiggly that was familiar to Pure. As he pulled into the grocery store parking lot, he said, “This is it. This is where the monkeys pushed through the warp. I can’t believe my higher self took such a convoluted route to get me back here.”
“Maybe he wanted you to have a dragon when you came back,” said Cassie.
“Yeah,” said Pure. “But why?”
“Let’s go inside. Jazz says she’ll contact us here.”
“Ah, the infamous Jazz,” said Sue. “I’m eager to finally meet her.”
“What’s she infamous for?” asked Pure.
“She’s, like, the most wanted hacker on Earth,” said Cassie. “She’s the one who digitally kidnapped all those telecom satellites three years ago. She also was the hacker who took down the bank of Japan. They never have tracked down all the money she’s got scattered through accounts worldwide. She told me that if she were a country, she’d be the world’s fifth largest economy, right behind the US.”
“Sounds talented,” said Pure.
“That’s barely scratching the surface. She’s also a whiz at robotics, bionics, all sorts of gizmos. She wrote the code for the mental joystick I use to drive my mini-choppers. I’m a pretty good hacker, but she’s magic.”
“Enough chitchat,” said Sue, stepping from the van. “Morningstar, you wait here. Keep an eye on this for me.” She lay the shotgun on the seat. Morningstar picked it up with his wing-claws, inspecting it curiously.
Pure, Chase, and Cassie followed Sue into the store. Pure noticed a lot of people staring. Did they remember him?
Pure certainly remembered the store. The supermarket looked pretty much the way it had probably looked in 1950, a squat beige cinderblock structure with posters in the window advertising the price of chicken and pot roast. Stepping through the sliding doors, he spotted the produce section, exactly as it was that fateful morning.
He wondered again if people knew he was the ghost-monkey guy. Maybe not. In the chaos of that event, perhaps he’d barely caught anyone’s eye. Or, maybe he was here because someone was supposed to recognize him. He wished his higher self would be more direct in his guidance.
They paused in front of a table full of tomatoes.
“I think people are looking at us,” whispered Chase.
“Not many nuns in this neck of the woods,” said Pure, thinking this was the most likely explanation. “You ever think of dressing in something other than that penguin get-up, Sue?”
“This ‘get-up’ is a badge of my moral courage. I may be a fugitive, but I’ll never be in hiding.”
“So,” said Pure. “What next, Cassie? Are we supposed to get a cart and start shopping while we wait for Jazz?”
“I don’t know,” whispered Cassie. “I expected further instructions by now.”
Then there was a shout, a crash and a bang. All four of them whirled to face the front door, which was now ten feet inside the building, pushed by the grill of a battered black pick-up. The truck skidded to a halt as a half dozen men in camouflage pants and black tee shirts leapt from the back, brandishing an eclectic array of rifles, pistols, and sawed off shotguns. The door of the truck swung open and a tall man got out, easily six foot six if not bigger. He wore a floor length black overcoat and a matching cowboy hat. His long blond hair hung halfway down his back and his face sported the sort of chiseled, even features one normally found on the covers of romance novels.
“Hooyaw!” the blond man shouted. “Good morning, shoppers! We’re the requisition for the West Virginia Underground. Pardon our splashy entrance, but we’re on a tight schedule. If everyone stays calm, nobody will get hurt.”
The blond man looked behind him, at the six men gathered in front of the truck, half of them keeping their guns pointed into the store, half staring at the cloud of steam rising from the front of the truck.
“The radiators done busted, Gabe,” one of them said.
The blond guy sighed and rubbed his temples. “We don’t use real names in the field, Number Three.”
“Sorry,” said Number Three.
“Two, Five, Six, grab a cart and round up the shopping list. I’ll secure us some new wheels.”
Gabe glanced over his shoulder into the parking lot as his men scrambled into the isles with carts. He looked back and shouted, “Okay, who’s driving the van?”
“That would be me,” said Pure, raising his hand.
Gabe walked up to him. Pure couldn’t help but notice that the leader had incredible piercing blue eyes. Maybe his higher self was trying to arrange a date. Good job, higher self.
“Keys,” said Gabe.
Pure shook his head. “You don’t want the van. It’s already stolen, plus it has a dragon with a shotgun in the back seat.”
“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it,” said Gabe, holding out his hand. “Keys.”
Pure dug for the keys in his pocket, unable to think of a good reason not to.
In the distance, a faint siren slowly wailed.
The three men with shopping carts ran back to the front of the store, their buggies filled with bulk goods, bags of flour, coffee, and dried beans, and what had to be every egg in the place. They struck Pure as being rather disciplined looters, not filling up the carts with potato chips and soda.
“Shit,” said Number Three as a squad car skidded into the parking lot.
Gabe shook his head sadly and said to Pure, “Looks like you and your friends have just turned into hostages.”
Number Three moved behind Pure and stuck a barrel to the back of his neck as other members of the militia grabbed Sue, Cassie, and Chase. Gabe confidently strode over and grabbed the grocery carts and pushed them into the parking lot, giving them a good shove toward the van. As his men scuttled in the background with the hostages, Gabe approached the lone squad car and the two deputies, raising his arms in the classic pose of surrender.
“Stay right where you are, Gabriel,” one of the deputies said as he crouched behind his car door with his pistol aimed toward Gabe’s chest. Pure found it interesting that the deputies were ignoring the armed men with hostages and focusing on the big guy. Apparently, Gabe had a reputation.
“Friends, all I’m doing is walking closer to save you the trouble of coming over here to arrest me,” said Gabe.
“Not another step,” shouted one of the deputies.
Gabe kept walking toward the car. Pure cringed as a shot rang out. Then another. Then a whole volley, as the deputies all but vanished behind a cloud of smoke as they emptied their pistols into the approaching figure.
As the guns fell silent, Gabe stood in front of their car, none the worse for wear except for rips in his coat.
“Gentlemen, I think there’s something wrong with your engine,” said Gabe, as he pounded his hands onto the hood of their squad car. The hood crumpled and buckled. Gabe picked it up and tore it loose. He tossed it aside while the deputies reloaded.
“Yeah, this doesn’t look right,” Gabe said, grabbing handfuls of random wires, ripping them loose, and tossing them over his shoulder amidst a shower of sparks.
“Well there’s your problem,” he said, as the engine burst into flame.
The first deputy finished reloading and aimed his gun once more at Gabe.
Gabe grinned. “Go for it. You’ve heard reports that I’m bulletproof, but I understand it takes folks a little while accept this. You might not have heard that I can see the future. In about ten seconds, I’m going to feed you that gun. Nine. Eight . . .”
He didn’t need to reach seven before both deputies turned and ran.
Gabe headed back toward the van, where his men and Pure and company stood watching him.
“That’s showing them, Gabe,” said Number Three, although there was as much fear in his voice as congratulations.
“Just get in the van,” said Gabe. “More cops will come. Keep the hostages.”
Number Three slid the side door of the van open and glanced inside. His grip on Pure loosened as he began to shriek like a little girl. His voice was suddenly muffled as Morningstar snaked forward and closed his mouth around Three’s head.
“Don’t hurt him,” said Pure.
Gabe strode up beside him. He stroked his chin as he studied the dragon.
“Intriguing,” he said.
“Bulletproof?” said Pure.
“We’re both full of surprises,” said Gabe.
“Gang,” said Pure, turning toward Sue, Cassie and Chase. “This might be where we part ways. I have a strong hunch I’m here to hook up with this guy. I’m also going to take Morningstar with me, if he doesn’t mind.”
“Why not?” said Morningstar, his voice barely audible over the shrieking face between his teeth. Pure noticed, however, that Morningstar’s voice was relatively undistorted by the immobility of his jaws. Apparently his speech organs were closer to that of a parrot, further down his throat.
Pure added, “The rest of you can hang out here and hook up with Jazz if you want.”
“You’re friends of Jazz?” said Gabe.
“I’m her sister,” said Cassie.
“Then you’re all coming with us,” said Gabe.
THEY DROVE INTO PARTS unknown, up and down tiny mountain roads full of switchbacks. They were packed into the van like sardines, assuming that half the sardines had guns and another had dagger-like teeth and breath reeking of CEO and horse. Bags of groceries were stuffed into every cranny and nook not occupied by a body. Number Three, the dim-witted rebel who had accidentally said Gabe’s name during the raid, stared at Pure. Pure met his stare. Number Three didn’t stand a chance of winning. Being dead meant you never had to lose a staring contest.
At last Number Three averted his gaze, looking at Morningstar for about ten seconds until Morningstar started looking back. Turning pale, Number Three suddenly found the roof-liner of the van to be fascinating.
“Three’s an interesting name,” said Pure. “That short for something?”
Three ignored him, or pretended to, at least.
“I bet you got teased about that a lot as a kid,” said Cassie.
Three shifted uncomfortably, sinking deeper into the mound of toilet paper he was leaning against.
“Don’t let ’em rile you,” said Gabe from the driver’s seat.
The back of the van had no windows and Pure couldn’t see much on the road ahead. He was lost. He suspected Cassie knew exactly where they were via GPS but he wasn’t about to ask her. He didn’t want to tip their captors off to Cassie’s special talents.
Sue leaned toward Number Three and looked him over. “You shouldn’t let yourself be dehumanized by letting people call you a number,” she said. “You look like a Zeke to me. Maybe a Cletus.”
“Shut up,” Three said, clenching his teeth in an attempt at menace.
Morningstar snaked his head a little closer, mimicking Three’s clenched teeth. Three sank back, sweat visibly beading on his forehead, and Pure figured it was a good thing the man was sitting on toilet paper.
“His name’s Francis,” said Cassie. “Francis Darnwell.”
Three’s eyes popped open. Pure knew Cassie had scored a bulls-eye. No doubt she’d been digging through databases with facial recognition software.
“As in, ‘You know Darnwell?’ ” Chase said.
Pure grinned. The kid wasn’t so bad.
Then the lights went out. Pure hadn’t been paying attention to the little bit of the road ahead of them he could see, but from the sudden darkness and the loud roar he guessed they’d plunged into a tunnel. The darkness stayed solid. Pure wondered why Gabe didn’t turn on the lights. They van shuddered and lurched as they took unseen potholes at breakneck speed.
Cassie leaned close to Pure and whispered, “Don’t panic, but I’ve lost all radio signals.”
“We’re inside a mountain,” Pure whispered back.
Morningstar’s road-kill breath was suddenly next to his other cheek. The dragon whispered, “As long as we’re exchanging information, you should know that Gabe shares something in common with you.”
“I already know he’s damn good-looking,” said Pure.
“I mean, sir, that he also does not breathe.”
Twin shivers ran down Pure’s spine. A: It was kind of a relief to finally have someone confirm what he suspected about not breathing. B: Was Gabe like him? Had he also been through the warp?
“Ya’ll stop whispering,” Francis said, still attempting to sound menacing. But the squeak in his voice revealed he was scared.
Pure was scared himself. The road was bumpy as hell and pitch black. Gabe gave no hint that he understood the concept of brakes. Memories of a long-ago driving instruction video came to mind, twisted smoking wreckage where nothing was left of the vehicle occupants but a handful of blackened teeth. Just how much damage could he take before his higher self couldn’t fix him? Wasn’t it time for some warp monkeys to appear and take over the steering wheel?
Pitch black bothered Pure for a second reason. Sometimes, when it was really, really dark, he felt like he was somewhere else. He had the sense that he was someplace icy cold, his body stiff, heavy, and bloated, with the weight of an ocean resting on his shoulders. This was the closest he ever came to dreaming, and these dreams were always the same. He stumbled forward in the dream darkness, groping blindly, as gape-jawed monster fish with lanterns dangling from their brows swam before him.
And then, light. The ocean dream evaporated. The van slowed. Pure craned his neck, trying to make out their surroundings. The visual imagery was too chaotic to interpret, random flashes of light and shadow, devoid of context. Where were they?
At last the van stopped. The back doors were thrown open. A whole army of militiamen in black tee shirts and camouflage pants surrounded the van, guns drawn. As Francis and his cohorts pushed Pure and the others from the van, men ran up and fastened their hands behind them with plastic zip strips.
“Play along,” said Pure, as Morningstar growled at the men who approached him.
The dragon stood down, and someone produced steel handcuffs, joining his wing-claws together. Pure doubted the dragon could bite through those. Still, Pure’s gut told him they weren’t in danger. Cassie’s sister was apparently a big shot among these people judging by Gabe’s earlier reaction.
“Why are you shackling us?” Cassie asked. “We’re friends of Jazz. I’m her sister.”
Gabe chuckled. “What makes you think we’re friends with that atheist freak?”
“I told you these were a bunch of right wing zealots,” growled Sue. “Jazz is a good leftie. I knew she wouldn’t get wrapped up with these nuts.”
“Hold your tongue, woman,” Gabe said. “Or I’ll cut it out and staple it to your forehead.”
Pure studied their surroundings. They were in a huge cavern, with stalactites hanging high overhead. The floor of the cavern had been bulldozed flat, and now housed several military style tents. Pure searched his memory for what he could remember about the West Virginia Underground. Supposedly their leader was some kind of religious prophet. Hannibal? That didn’t sound right. Hecuba? It definitely started with an “H.”
“Let’s take them to see Hezekiah,” said Gabe, giving Pure a shove.
“That’s it,” said Pure. Then, in his calmest voice, “Hezekiah is a prophet, right? Legend has it his mom ran off to the mountains when she got pregnant and raised him inside a cave so he wouldn’t be corrupted by the world.”
“Silence,” said Gabe. “The story of our beloved founder isn’t for heathen infidels. He’s a holy man. You aren’t worthy to speak his name.”
Gabe pushed Morningstar from behind so that the dragon stumbled a little.
“I’m disappointed your pet didn’t put up a fight,” Gabe said. “I would enjoy the challenge of ripping him limb from limb.”
Morningstar’s alligator-horse-face showed no reaction to Gabe’s taunts. Pure remembered what had happened to the hood of the squad car and knew Gabe was actually tough enough to back up his threats.
“Leave him alone,” said Pure. “Man, you seemed like a nice guy back at the Piggly Wiggly. Aside from, you know, the whole armed robbery and hostage thing.”
“I am a nice guy,” said Gabe. “To normal people. Not heathen swine like Jazz’s friends.”
Pure gritted his teeth. Gabe wasn’t fitting smoothly into the fantasies Pure had entertained about him. If they ever did go on a date, Pure definitely wasn’t putting out. Not all the way, at least. Well, not on the first night.
They were taken past the tents toward the far side of the cavern, where a pitch black hole in the wall awaited. It was difficult to gauge scale in the underground. His first guess was that the hole was maybe a hundred yards away, but after they had walked for ten minutes he realized the hole was huge, big enough to hide a building in, and seemed farther away than ever.
Then, at last they entered the mouth of the hole. Darkness engulfed them. Pure gritted his teeth, anticipating the return of his ocean dream. Maybe it was time to make a break for it. Just take off running and hope that his higher self would guide him toward safety. Then lights began to flicker in the gloom ahead and he decided the opportunity was lost.
Their captors halted and forced them to their knees. Sue grumbled until someone slapped her.
Then, silence. Further down the tunnel, more lights flickered. Lanterns, set in sconces on the wall, came to life. Two dark figures approached through the dim light. Pure squinted to make out details. One of the approaching men was small, dressed in shapeless, loose-fitting clothes, like a monk’s robe, his face hidden under a huge hood.
The second man was anything but shapeless. Gabe was a big man, but the man who approached was a giant, seven foot tall easily, with a wide, solid build. He was dressed all in black, with a broad brimmed pilgrim’s hat casting shadows over his face. His hair was long and wild, as if it had gone a lifetime without being cut, and his beard hung down to his waist. In one huge hand the monster carried a Bible, an enormous one that one might find on display on a podium. The giant held it like a paperback. In his other hand was an axe, equally oversized, its sharp edge glimmering red in the lamplight.
The giant figure strode to where Pure and the others knelt. He stared at them, then at Gabe.
With a thunderous voice that echoed through the chamber, he asked, “Gabriel, why have you brought this lot before me?”
“For judgment, Oh Great Hezekiah,” said Gabriel. “They may be allies of Jazz. We would have already slain them but perhaps they have useful information. Should we torture them first?”
“Useful?” said Hezekiah. “Perhaps you’re right. We can always use fresh meat to feed the hounds.”
Hezekiah looked up at the small army of goons behind Pure and the others.
“Leave this place,” the prophet said. “I would not have their sinful blood contaminate you as it splashes from the walls.”
With silent nods of assent, the army walked away. Pure was heartened by this turn of events. The prophet looked formidable, but Morningstar could take him. Unfortunately, while the rest of the army left, Gabriel stayed behind, and he wasn’t going to be a pushover. The hooded figure in the monk robes was also still present, hanging a respectful distance behind the prophet.
As the footsteps of the army faded, Hezekiah strode back and forth before the prisoners.
“This one,” he said, standing before Cassie. “An abomination, as much a machine as human. A modern witch who should not be suffered to live.”
“If you know who I am, you know it would be stupid to hurt me,” Cassie said, sounding defiant.
“Silence,” boomed Hezekiah, moving toward Chase. “A coward. A moral weakling. His lusts lead him down dark paths. Yet, salvageable, perhaps. He has committed no unpardonable sin. What say you boy? Do you renounce your wicked ways? Will you join our army as a faithful servant?”
Chase said nothing for several seconds. Pure placed bets in his head about what the answer would be.
“Screw you,” said Chase, costing Pure his imaginary money.
“You’ve chosen damnation,” the prophet said.
Then, before Sue. “A bride of the anti-Christ. Her foul faith has led uncounted souls to the pit.”
“I’ve heard it all before,” Sue grumbled. “You gonna jaw us to death or you actually planning to use that axe?”
The prophet stood before Morningstar. “It’s rare to see a demon in such a naked form. Of course you will receive no mercy.”
“Now, Pure?” said Morningstar. “Shall we meekly sit here and take these insults?”
“Hold on,” said Pure, as the prophet moved in front of him. Pure looked up into the man’s black eyes, searching for any insight into his thinking. Pure decided to chance it. He rose to his feet before Gabe could move to hold him down. He stood as tall as he could next to the prophet and said, “Sue’s right. You talk a big game, but you know we’re not scared of you. Let us go before you force us to do something we regret.”
“Brave words,” said Hezekiah. “For a soulless sodomite.”
“You know what?” said Pure, looking first at Hezekiah, then turning toward Gabe. “I am soulless. You’re facing a damn Halloween parade here. I’m a zombie. My friends are a dragon, a cyborg, the world’s meanest nun, and . . . uh . . .”—Pure grasped for the first thing that came to mind—“Chase is a master of kung fu. So let us go, apologize, and we’ll let you live.”
He stared once more into the prophet’s dark, narrow eyes. The prophet stared back. Then the prophet grinned. The monk-robed figure behind him slapped his knees and said, in a woman’s voice, “Damn Cass, you got some wild-ass friends.”
“Jazz?” said Cassie, rising to her feet. Gabe moved forward and silently snipped the ties binding Cassie’s hands.
The robed figure pulled back her hood, revealing a woman with shocking orange hair cropped short and a tattoo of an Ouroboros in the center of her forehead. “Hey, Sis,” she said, running forward and throwing her arms around Cass.
Gabe moved down the row, freeing everyone else. As Gabe unlocked Pure, Pure studied his face. He leaned in close, looking at the man’s skin close enough to see the pores.
“Wait a second,” Pure said, gears clicking in his head. “This is a robot?”
“Yeah,” said Jazz, swaggering up to Hezekiah. She rapped him on the forehead with her knuckles. “Both of ’em. Wild, huh? Cost me damn near five billion each to get the parts. I’ve leapfrogged the Korean models by at least twenty years.”
“But . . . but why?” asked Chase. “Why scare us like that? Why any of this?”
“The Jazz I’ve heard about wouldn’t be associated with these wing nuts,” said Sue. “She’s a socialist.”
“More an anarchist,” Jazz chuckled. “Sue, don’t you know any history? There’s no army better than one fighting for the Lord. Unemployment was close to thirty percent in these mountains. There were a lot of men with time on their hands who already had high-powered rifles and camo pants. Hezekiah gives them a cause to believe in.”
“What do you need an army for?” asked Pure, continuing to study Gabe.
“Wait,” said Cassie. “How did Hezekiah know so much about us? I told you I was bringing friends but I never said anything about Pure. Have you been—”
“Tapping into your systems?” asked Jazz. “Duh.”
“You’ve been in my head? How dare you?”
“Oh, come on, what sister hasn’t taken a little peak into a sister’s diary?”
“But my diary is in my head!”
“What’s so special about your head? It’s just another databank, and you’ve been eager enough to let me hack it before now.”
Chase placed an arm around Cassie to comfort her.
Jazz moved to Morningstar. “Glad to meet you,” she said, offering her hand.
Morningstar took her hand and shook it. “My pleasure, madam.”
“Oh my God they took my suggestion,” said Jazz. “You sound British.”
“Took your suggestion?” asked Sue. “You’ve worked with Bestiary?”
“I was hacking them when Cassie was still in diapers,” said Jazz. “I thought their little dragon project was the coolest thing ever. I used to spend hours digging through the progress reports and thought it was funny as hell when these things started talking. So I whipped up a fake memo from a financial backer requiring that the dragons be taught the lore of knights and dragons and that they learn it in a British accent. I had no idea they’d take it seriously.”
“You’ve known about the dragon project?” said Sue.
“For ages,” said Jazz.
“And you didn’t try to stop them? You didn’t put a halt to their abominations?”
“I can hear you,” said Morningstar.
“What’s so abominable about pushing the frontiers of genetics out a little further? When you were a little girl, didn’t you ever dream about unicorns? Maybe with wings? Because there’s a team in France getting ready to market those.”
“I thought you were a defender of the earth,” said Sue. “I thought you were opposed to genetic engineering.”
Jazz shook her head. “In the grand scheme, it’s just a higher form of evolution. Bees help design flowers and flowers help design bees. Men who never heard of DNA designed dogs, corn, and broccoli. I don’t see why greater understanding of our role in species development is a bad thing. In the end, it’s all just code to be hacked.”
“You’re as bad as Pure,” said Sue.
“Ah, yes,” said Jazz, turning her attention to him. “Alex Gordon Pure. Mount Weather ID# AL9874Z17. Security clearance ‘Fountain.’ You’ve been in the belly of the beast.”
“I’ve been one damn place after another,” said Pure.
“You asked why I’m building an army. Simple. I want to get inside Mount Weather.”
“Really?” said Pure. “You’d be better off wanting one of those unicorns.”
“Ever since I learned about Mount Weather, I’ve known what I really wanted for Christmas,” said Jazz. “The projects they’ve got going on in there make my robots look like tinker toys. You were working on a warp door, right? And it works.”
“There are some bugs,” said Pure.
“You don’t even know about the other projects,” Jazz said. “You’re clearance isn’t high enough. They’ve got a negative gravity chamber in there. They’ve got stable anti-matter atoms all the way up to boron. They’re even prototyping a fucking time machine.”
“Yeah,” said Pure. “I know about that. Don’t get too excited. Everything they put in the chamber disintegrates the second they power up.”
“I would think the military would be happy with a disintegration machine,” said Sue. “But I’m disappointed you want such things, Jazz. You’re not a fighting for a good cause. More technology isn’t going to solve the harm inflicted on this planet by technology. If you’re not planning to destroy the secret projects at Mount Weather, you’re nothing more than a thief. I don’t want any part of this.”
“You just lack imagination,” said Jazz. “Think of how many dolphins you could save if you had your own atom bomb. You want to take a dragon to NYC? What about a suitcase nuke? Have it handcuffed to your wrist while you stand atop the Empire State Building and tell the world what it needs to hear. I guarantee people are going to listen.”
“A suitcase nuke?” Sue rubbed her chin.
“The place is packed with them,” said Jazz.
“Losing control of their top secret base would be a real black eye for the government,” said Cassie. “It might trigger the revolution. The good one, I mean, not what these rednecks are part of.”
Sue eyes suddenly took on a far-off stare. Pure could tell Cassie had snagged her.
“This does sound . . . intriguing,” said Sue. “Why don’t you let us sleep on it and get back to you in the morning?”
“Morning’s going to be a little busy,” said Jazz.
“Why?” asked Cassie.
“Tomorrow’s the day we break through,” said Jazz. “West Virginia has so many mine shafts and caverns it’s a wonder it hasn’t collapsed. A big chunk of my army is made up of former miners. We’ve been tunneling through the bedrock for the last five years. Your arrival is well timed. We break through to the lowest level of Mount Weather at 10 a.m.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
* * *
WALKING WITH WATER
CAPTAIN CHERISE WASHINGTON hadn’t gotten where she was by disobeying orders. The Hollywood myth of fighter pilots as rule-breakers and daredevils in no way defined her personality. She was a careful person. She played by the rules because the rules kept people alive. But how could rules apply to a city that had sprung from nowhere overnight, to a city populated by angels? She could have flown outside the zone of static for further orders, but she doubted those orders would be to land and take a closer look. The static provided a bit of cover, but as her plane touched down she was still deeply aware that if her plane fell into enemy, perhaps alien hands, she would almost certainly be court-martialed.
After the plane came to a halt, she popped the hatch and climbed out. She took off her helmet. The city smelled of sea breezes and sunshine. It reminded her of the air on the beaches of Oregon, where she’d grown up. The city was quiet, the air still. Despite the angel she had seen, she still couldn’t help but feel that this was a deserted place.
“Hello?” she called out.
No one answered. She walked to the edge of the runway, studying the city beyond for any sign of life. New young grass was sprouting on the field that separated her from the nearest tower, a bright almost neon green blanket that thickened and grew before her eyes. She knelt down and touched the grass, pressing it between her gloved fingers. The blades seemed to squirm as they continued their rapid growth, perhaps a quarter of an inch per minute.
This sort of thing didn’t happen in the real world. Was she sleeping? Was this all a dream? She shook her head, certain that she was both awake and sane. Was she finally witnessing the supernatural? This place reminded her of heaven, a heaven plucked straight from her childhood dreams. Her mother had died when she was four. When she thought of her mother in heaven, she thought of a place of endless green fields. She had dreamed about that land of green fields for a long time, every time she’d thought of her mother. In her dreams, it had all gotten confused as the years passed, and she’d grown to see her mother as a creature of that field, with rose petal skin and ivy hair and clover for eyes.
The field grew more lush and green. Trees began to sprout randomly, pushing into the air steadily, several inches per minute, with branches spreading to create large patches of shade.
Cherise sat, watching this miracle field, as the sun warmed her in her flight suit until the heat became uncomfortable. She rose, removing her gloves, unzipping her flight suit to cool off a bit. Almost as if sensing her distress, a floral breeze swirled around. Then, in the corner of her eye, something moved. She turned to look. Under the shade of a distant tree, something was rising, something vaguely human in shape.
She was nervous about heading too far from her plane, but the whole point of coming here was to meet the locals. She began to walk toward the shadowy figure. She raised her hands and called out, “Hello!”
The figure stepped from the shade. It was a woman, woven from vines and flowers, with clover for eyes.
“Hello,” her mother said. “Welcome to Atlantis.”
PRESIDENT LOPEZ-NELSON rubbed his temples. This had turned into the longest meeting of his life. Ever since the angel had said there would be a message the following morning and had then flown back out the open window, his advisors had been peppering him with facts and speculation.
Fact: The angel had flown from Washington so fast and so low that radar couldn’t track it and none of the interceptor planes sent to chase it could locate it.
Speculation: Perhaps the angel had been a hologram?
Fact: There was a city in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. This wasn’t a hologram. Radar confirmed its existence, satellite photos were pouring in. It was a city that hadn’t been there yesterday.
Fact: The city hadn’t descended from the sky. There were too many early warning systems for something of this size to slip through. And from the earliest satellite photos, it looked as if the city had risen up out of the ocean. There was also sonic evidence for this from submarine microphones.
Fact: The floor of the ocean where the city had ascended supported an active deep-sea-vent range and had been thoroughly photographed by research vessels only three years prior. The photos and the radar maps of the seabed showed no signs of a city.
Speculation: The city was being built somehow, at an alarming rate of speed.
Question: By whom? For what purpose? Was a human hand behind this? Or alien?
Fact: The city had already swallowed one fighter plane, now visible on a runway in the satellite photos. The fate of the pilot was unknown. The pilot was Captain Cherise Washington, a stable and levelheaded person by all reports, not someone likely to be collaborating with aliens.
Speculation: Given the level of technology on display, could the residents of this city have somehow taken over the electronics of the plane and forced it down?
“Obviously,” said Lopez-Nelson, “If this thing can take over our planes, sending in more for reconnaissance is useless. Suggestions?”
“I say we do this low-tech,” said General Junaluska. “Put together a landing force of marines with plain old rifles with no electronic target enhancements. Yank the computer navigation system out of personnel carriers and pilot the boats in by compass and guts.”
“What about the radio silence?” said Lopez-Nelson. “What good is it going to do us to send men in if we can’t communicate with them?”
“Our satellites have resolution down to six inches,” said Junaluska. “We equip the men with mirrors and they can signal us in Morse code.”
“You’re joking,” said Lopez-Nelson. Then he rubbed his eyes. This hadn’t been a good day for assuming things were jokes. He trusted General Junaluska, but he also knew the old war-horse’s all-purpose solution to the world’s problems was to find someone to shoot.
“Okay,” he said at last. “Okay, I haven’t heard a better plan. How fast can we get men out there?”
“I ordered the modifications to the boats four hours ago,” said Junaluska. “I already have my best men on board, and the ships under way. I can have them ashore in twelve hours.”
“Do it,” said Lopez-Nelson.
MARIAH ARRIVED HOME to find Anna looking sicker than ever in her bed. Mariah took her frail bony hand and said her name, but Anna didn’t stir. She breathed in shallow, ragged gulps, but wouldn’t open her eyes even as Mariah squeezed cold water from a wet washcloth over her brow to cool her.
On any other day, Mariah would have been frantic. She would have called the hospital, desperate to try anything to pull Anna back into the waking world. But this was the day of miracles. The angel had said Anna would be healed.
She sat by Anna’s bed, her hands clasped around her daughter’s hands, and prayed, and prayed, for hours, until the weariness of the night’s work and the morning’s excitement at last overtook her, and she fell asleep, sitting by the bed side, her head on her daughter’s chest.
IN ATLANTIS, THE DOOR of the room Adam waited in swung open and Jessica entered, looking as young and healthy as she had on their wedding day.
“Adam?” she asked.
“Jessica?” he said.
They ran to each other and embraced, smothering one another with kisses. Adam felt faint with joy. His newly-minted heart skipped beats. His day-old stomach filled with butterflies. Jessica was awake. It was like he was emerging from a twenty-year nightmare. He was awake, and she was awake, and they were young and healthy once more, in this city of miracles.
Jessica pulled away, just a little, to look into his eyes. “It’s okay to tell me,” she said. “We’re dead? This is heaven?”
“No,” said Adam. “You’re alive. I’m alive. This isn’t heaven. It’s Atlantis. It’s tough to explain.”
“But I was carried here by an angel,” said Jessica.
“And I’ve spent the day conversing with a Greek god,” said Adam. “But as best as I can understand it, there’s nothing supernatural about any of this. Atlantis is an alien city, an artificial intelligence operating on such a high level of technology that it appears to be magic. I can grasp the basic principals underneath it all, but only barely.”
“Alien?” asked Jessica. “Why is it doing this? Is it dangerous?”
“No,” said Adam. “If there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s not dangerous. It means us no harm. I think it was designed to serve us, to keep us safe and happy.”
“Designed? By who?” asked Jessica.
“It’s been a little vague on that point,” said Adam. “Look, I know I’m the last person you’d ever expect to hear these words from, but who cares? We should sit back and enjoy this. Our old, sick bodies have been repaired. We’re in a place designed to provide us with anything we desire. We can puzzle it out later. Right now, let’s make the best use of our time together. We’ve a lot of lost years to make up for.”
As he spoke, the room shifted and changed, and a bed grew from the wall, a huge bed with fluffy white linens. The light in the room dimmed, and candles rose from the floor, giving the room a romantic glow, and filling the room with the scent of lavender. A violin began to play, the music coming from nowhere and everywhere.
“Oh,” said Jessica, a tear falling down our cheek. “It’s our song.”
Adam pulled her on to the bed. It occurred to him that perhaps she wasn’t real. Atlantis could grow human bodies. He could read minds. Could it have made this fantasy come true? Was this merely some imitation of Jessica?
Then her lips met his, and he surrendered to faith, trusted his heart to know the difference, and once more wrapped his arms around the woman he loved.
“MOTHER? IS THIS HEAVEN?” Cherise asked as she took the outstretched hand of the woman before her.
“No,” said the woman with roses for skin and ivy for hair. “You’re still alive. And I did not mean to deceive you. I’m not your mother.”
Cherise pulled her hand away. She was ashamed of herself for being so easily lulled into this false sense of security. Of course this thing wasn’t her mother. Somehow, it was violating her mind, tapping into her deepest memories.
“I’m sorry you feel betrayed,” said the woman. “I’m Atlantis. I’m a city, but have chosen this intimate form in hopes of quickly forming a bond of trust with you. Your suspicion that I’m reading your mind is correct.”
“Then stop it now,” said Cherise.
“I can’t,” said Atlantis. She motioned for Cherise to follow as she left the field and stepped upon a path of white sand that led toward the spires of the city. “You can understand from the experience of your own senses. Imagine if someone asked you to stop hearing things in the middle of a symphony? You might try to block out the sound with your hands, but you would never be fully successful. I possess over three hundred senses. I know your thoughts with the same ease that I hear your voice or feel your feet upon my sand.”
Cherise looked down as she followed the woman at a safe distance. “Your sand? Possessive, aren’t you?”
“I’m everywhere around you,” said the plant-woman. “This body is for your convenience. But my mind is in the stones you walk upon and the air you breathe. I exist in the water flowing through the fountain in the plaza ahead.”
Cherise remembered the breeze that had cooled her. The air was sentient? Was it even safe to breathe? “Okay. You said you want to form a bond. There’s a few things you need to do if I’m going to trust you. First, I don’t like you messing with the memory of my mother. If you have another body, I’d rather talk to that. Understood?”
“Of course,” said the woman, who turned and walked away.
Cherise swallowed hard as she watched the memory of her mother walking away. But despite the pain Atlantis had caused, her gut told her that the entity had meant no harm.
She turned away from the figure of her mother and yelped to find another figure standing behind her. This was a man, formed of water, with shiny silver fish swimming in his chest. She reached out to touch him. Her fingers sank right into his arm, and pulled away wet.
“I weave these bodies together with machines too small for your eyes to see,” said the water-man. “Don’t be alarmed.”
“I’m okay,” said Cherise. “Wow. So you really are an alien.”
“It may be easiest for you to understand me in these terms. But I came of age on this planet. I’m as much a child of earth as you.”
“Most children of earth don’t hop around from body to body.”
The water-man shrugged. “I have access to technology developed over a much longer time scale than mankind has existed. I hope to share it with you openly.”
“Then why the wall of static?” asked Cherise. “Why not let me call my superiors and tell them I’m okay.”
“The static is intended to discourage aggressive visitors. I’m still young. Your world has mastered a primitive level of war-making that could unleash severe ecological damage to your own world. The static helps create a fog of doubt. Doubt will lead to delay and indecision among your leaders, allowing me time to neutralize their more dangerous devices.”
Cherise wasn’t sure she liked the sound of this.
“I know what you’re thinking,” said Atlantis. “You wonder what threat I pose to this world.”
“Yes.”
“When I’m done, human civilization as you know it will no longer exist.” Atlantis said this in a matter-of-fact tone, devoid of malice. “Mankind at present is like a cancer upon this planet. Through carelessness and ignorance your race has altered this planet’s ecological systems to the point of collapse. It’s fortunate I arrived when I did. A century from now, it’s possible your race would have ceased to exist.”
“Look,” said Cherise. “I know we have problems. I’ve been hearing about climate change and acidic oceans my whole life. But we’re taking steps to get things under control. If we humans created this mess, we can fix it.”
“I will fix it,” said Atlantis. “I’ve been created to heal and nurture your race and this world.”
“That’s kind of presumptuous. We didn’t invite you.”
“This is untrue. I received permission from a representative of your species. I have technological and information resources your race has yet to develop, and may never develop on its own. Would it not be immoral of me to stand by and watch your race slowly die?”
“Unless you have some sort of technology that sees the future, you can’t know what will happen to our race.”
“True,” said the water-man, smiling gently, like a wise teacher. “But your world contains human cultures with vastly different levels of technological access. Suppose that, deep in the Amazon, a tribe that had never before seen modern humans was discovered, and this tribe was currently caught in the midst of an epidemic that threatened to kill all its members. Would it be immoral to vaccinate the members of the tribe not yet infected?”
Cherise frowned. “It’s not that simple. Yes, it would be a good thing to save the tribe with the vaccinations. But it would come with a cost. This isn’t as hypothetical as you make it out. It’s happened again and again that encounters with more advanced civilizations have obliterated older cultures. The tribe might survive the intervention, but their way of life would be forever destroyed.”
“And so it shall be,” said Atlantis. “Though destroyed is a harsh term. Transformed is less pejorative. In a few hours, I will broadcast a message to the entire human race. Soon, everyone will know of my existence. And within less than a week, human civilization as you know it will draw to an end.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
* * *
BREAK THROUGH
IN THE PITCH BLACK BOWELS of the Earth, the massive mining machines drowned out all conversation. The heat was unbearable, every surface slick and slimy from the humidity. The rotten egg smell of coal dust was inescapable. Despite this, Pure was feeling optimistic.
They were in the fortuitously named “shaft seven,” making good time. The plan was simple. Mount Weather had enormous ventilation tunnels that spread out from the central complex in all directions. Mount Weather had been designed to house a hundred thousand people, and that meant that a lot of air was required. One way of protecting the vents was to dig them deep and surface them far away from the actual site. The vent tunnel they were intercepting drew air from somewhere in Ohio. The entrances to the shafts were well hidden and heavily secured. Any attempt to invade through them would be met with locks, grates, baffles, and bombs. Random sections of the shaft were booby-trapped to collapse if invaders penetrated too far. Which was why they would be entering the shaft only a half-mile from the central complex. They would still face bars and baffles, but these wouldn’t prove overly formidable. Jazz’s army had plenty of former miners with experience in blowing things up.
Once they were past the gates and barriers, there would no doubt be a fierce fight against Mount Weather’s security forces. Again, this didn’t seem insurmountable. The men who fought for Hezekiah seemed willing to die for him, and would probably outnumber the guards three to one. Long before reinforcements could arrive, Jazz would have captured the computer core that controlled all the gates and locked down the facility. The government would find itself locked out of its own impenetrable fortress.
And then . . . then Pure would have access to the spook door again. He didn’t know why this was important. He wasn’t one hundred percent sure that was even what his higher self was aiming him toward. But it made sense. Physical trauma allowed Pure to briefly glimpse the warp space and his higher self, but he could never actually make contact. But what if he entered the door now? Was it possible he could reintegrate with his other half? Could he be whole and alive again? Or at least die in a respectable fashion without running around as a semi-dead adventure zombie?
Suddenly, there was a wash of cool air and swirling dust and a noticeable change in the pitch of the machinery. One by one, the grinding wheels spun down to silence.
“We’ve broken through,” said Jazz from beneath her monk’s hood. “I’m going to have Gabriel and Hezekiah lead the charge.”
They were at the back of the pack of rebels. They were all dressed in the black tee shirt, camo-pants uniform of the West Virginia Underground. Hezekiah had announced that the prisoners had renounced their wicked ways and were now part of the flock, and so far none of the other members of the militia had even cast them a mean glance.
Sue looked like a natural in her militia uniform. Stripped of her nun’s habit, Sue’s left wing radical persona didn’t bug Pure as much. Deep down, Pure had to admit a grudging admiration for the old biddy. He liked people whose convictions outstripped their common sense. It was only Sue’s insistence that the Lord was on her side that bothered him. Pure had little patience for people who didn’t understand their own religion.
“This is so cool,” said Cassie as they followed the last of the rebels. This was the first sentence she’d spoken all day that Pure had understood. Most of the morning, Cassie and Jazz had been jabbering in lingo Pure couldn’t comprehend about how Gabe and Hezekiah worked. He grasped occasional individual words, but the sum of their conversations was gibberish.
“Stacks?” asked Cassie.
“Three. Smart-jellied grope-packs.”
“Ultraswank. Under that?”
“Shoe math,” said Jazz, with a tone that made it clear she was saying something cool. “Veloski protocol.”
“OMG,” said Cassie. “Muscles?”
“All slick. Memory strings. Niners. Self-restoring; these things might still be running a hundred years from now. Hell, maybe a thousand.”
“Pocalyptic,” said Cassie, with a shiver of appreciation.
Chase was dead quiet and looking a little pale. Jazz had given him an AK-47, an ancient but dependable machine gun. Pure felt sympathy for Chase. One minute you’re trying to impress a girl by talking about your father’s line of work, the next you’re committing high treason by taking over a top-secret military base. Life had a certain momentum. Pure knew this better than anyone.
The vent tunnel was bigger than Pure had expected. It was a twenty-foot diameter tube carved straight from the surrounding bedrock and filled with about two feet of ice-cold water. The tunnel had a strong wind that whipped past the entry hole they had dug with a low, foreboding moan. Between the water and the wind, Pure could feel his temperature dropping by the second. In a way, it was a relief. The world was shifting gears for him, moving at normal speed for the first time in ages. Still, he wasn’t sure what would happen if he got really cold. Hopefully they would get into Mount Weather soon.
The whine of turbines grew ever closer. Somewhere up ahead were huge fans capable of sucking air from Ohio to West Virginia. An explosion shook the walls, sending pebbles bounding off their heads, and the whine of the turbines stopped instantly.
Then, gun shots. The pop pop pop of machine guns as the leading edge of the militia encountered the guards. The tunnel was too cramped for Pure to see what was happening. Cassie and Jazz chattered back and forth in excitement. Pure knew they were watching the action through Gabe and Hezekiah.
The gunfire grew more intense. Cassie’s expression changed from excitement to horror.
“They’re being mowed down,” she said, her voice choking.
“Press on,” Jazz said.
“We’re like fish in a barrel,” Cassie said. “Hezekiah and Gabe are through but everyone else is falling the second they step out.”
“Eggs for omelets,” said Jazz. “We’ll whittle them down.”
“Send me in,” said Morningstar. The dragon hadn’t spoken all day, and he moved with such eerie silence that the sound of his voice right next to them caused Chase and Cassie to jump.
“Go,” said Jazz.
Morningstar’s long claws bit into the surface of the rock. He scampered to the ceiling and scrabbled over the heads of the combatants, disappearing into darkness.
Then, shrieking.
“Holy cow,” said Cassie, looking slightly green.
“Pocolyptic,” said Jazz, trailing off in a long, impressed whistle.
Then, silence.
Cassie turned and began to vomit as Chase moved to help steady her.
“Nice pet you got there,” Jazz said to Pure. “He moves so fast I could barely track him. Hezekiah would look to the nearest shriek but by the time his head moved he would only see a disemboweled soldier dropping to the floor.”
“Yeah,” said Pure. “I’ve been on the receiving end.”
Hezekiah’s voice boomed through the tunnel. “Forward, my children. The enemy has fallen before our righteous fury. No one may oppose us.”
Pure had to admit there was something breathtaking in Hezekiah’s tone. It was easy to see why people obeyed him. As they climbed over the corpses of the fallen rebels at the mouth of the tunnel, Pure watched Jazz for any reaction. Cassie and Chase and even Sue were visibly shaken, and Cassie especially looked ill. Jazz stepped over the corpses without hesitation or squeamishness. Pure wasn’t sure if he admired her toughness or loathed her lack of compassion.
Not that he could talk. Pure felt like he should be feeling something as he slipped and stumbled over the fallen bodies. But, deep, deep down inside him, there was nothing. Stepping over these bodies had no more emotional significance than stepping over a log. Was this a side effect of his being dead, or had he always been a psychopath? He wished he could remember. He couldn’t trust his brain anymore. His memories of his own life had no more emotional weight than the memories of sitcoms he’d watched.
The room they entered was unfamiliar to Pure. He’d never gotten into the guts of Mount Weather before. The room was cramped, filled with pumps and machines that had fallen silent when the turbine blew up. Dead bodies were all over the place. Hezekiah’s and Gabe’s clothing was riddled with bullet holes. Morningstar sat perched atop a huge pipe, gnawing on a moist bloody hunk of meat with a shoe on the end of it.
“Yes!” said Jazz, spotting a computer terminal. She ran to it and sat down, pushing back her monk’s hood in her excitement. Pure noticed that some of the militiamen were startled by her appearance.
Jazz’s enthusiasm soon vanished. “Damn,” she said. “This isn’t connected to the larger network. It’s useless. I thought this was too easy.”
“Easy?” said Sue. “There’s a hundred men dead to get you here and you complain that it’s easy?”
Gabe walked up. “Our men understand the price they must pay for liberty.”
“You,” said Sue, grabbing one of the men. By chance, it was Francis from the van. “What are you fighting for?”
“The same thing you are, sister,” said Francis. “The right to raise our children in the faith, uncorrupted by the forces of the Anti-Christ.”
“Yeah,” said Jazz, sounding deadly serious. “Anyone with half a brain can see that Lopez-Nelson is the antichrist.”
“Just testing, brother,” said Sue, releasing Francis and smoothing out his shirt. “Carry on.”
“Time is of the essence,” said Gabe. “Let’s push forward.”
By now, his men had cut through the heavy steel hatch with the torches. Hezekiah kicked down the door. Fortunately, no one waited on the other side. Pure guessed that the security forces would counter the attack by attempting to lock down the facility, slowing their progress until reinforcements could arrive.
They were going down a long hall, with storerooms off to each side. Pure was more than a little lost, although Jazz’s army moved with a confidence and swiftness that made Pure think they were well-briefed on the layout. The demolition team had already cut through the next door by the time the rest of the army reached it.
“These guys tear down mountains for a living,” Jazz said. “The doors don’t stand a chance.”
For the first time, they were moving into a room Pure recognized. Finally, he was able to orient himself. They were in the senate. The vast room was an almost perfect duplicate of the real senate chambers in Washington. Mount Weather had been envisioned as a functional shadow government, complete with legislative chambers, a Supreme Court, the works. At the height of the cold war, each state governor had secretly appointed two shadow senators to serve in the mountain, although that practice had been stopped decades ago. The militiamen spread through the chamber in an air of silence. The room was ornate and awe-inspiring, in contrast to the cramped, functional rooms they’d passed through to reach it.
Jazz moved to the front of the chamber, her face brightening as she spotted a computer terminal. She sat down and began tapping away. She broke into a broad grin.
“Cassie, get over here and plug in. This one’s live.”
“Found it,” said Cassie, without moving from where she stood. “My god, this is the most primitive wireless network I’ve ever hacked. Cavemen had better.”
“The feds are notoriously bad about keeping up to date. This stuff was state of the art thirty years ago,” said Jazz. “Hee hee. There’s the lock-down sequence. Poor babies.”
“Got ’em,” said Cassie. “Now I’m . . . uh-oh.”
“Uh-oh,” echoed Jazz.
“What?” asked Pure.
“Bad voodoo,” said Jazz.
“Very bad,” said Cassie. “Explosive.”
“What?” asked Pure. “What?”
“Damn!” said Jazz. “I lost it!”
Cassie sat down in one of the padded leather chairs. According to the nameplate, she was now a senator from Idaho.
“It’s been fun, guys,” she said.
“They can’t do this,” said Jazz. “Not after five years planning. No, no, no, no, no!”
“What’s going on?” Sue asked Cassie.
“We have about forty seconds to live,” said Cassie. “They’ve sealed off this section of the mountain and are pumping in nerve gas.”
“Can’t you stop it?” asked Chase.
“Damn it,” said Jazz. “The vent controls are on their own secured network. All hardwire, no radio. We had one of the terminals back in the turbine room and I didn’t even look for something like this. We’ll never make it back to the terminal in time.”
“Thirty seconds,” said Cassie.
“I love you,” said Chase, embracing her.
“Oh, geez,” said Cassie, twisting her face away from him.
High overhead, the vent doors swung open with low, ratcheting knocks.
Behind Cassie’s podium, an enormous video screen flickered to life.
Then the angel appeared.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
* * *
WE NOW INTERRUPT YOUR REGULAR PROGRAMMING
EVERYONE ON EARTH heard the message.
In cities around the world, every television, every radio, was taken over by the Atlantean broadcast.
“Greetings. I’m the city of Atlantis,” the broadcast began.
IN TIBET, IN A MONASTERY where television was an unknown thing, the monks were astounded to find a giant snow leopard strolling into their courtyard. It introduced itself as Atlantis and said, “In the coming days, each of you will receive a ballot. You will have one month to make a decision.”
In the far reaches of the Amazon, a woman made of water stepped onto the shore of a local village and told the villagers that she was a city, and they had a choice to make.
“The ballot will have a button,” she said. “Press it, and I’ll bring you to me.”
In Kenya, in a camp of poachers, a gorilla with silver skin and diamond eyes surprised them by walking into their midst and beginning to speak. As the shock wore off, they tried to shoot it, but if it felt pain it didn’t react. It continued speaking to them, as they fell into a hushed awe.
“In Atlantis, you will be safe from war and disease. There will be no hunger or poverty. You’ll not need to toil or labor for sustenance. You may turn your energies to the pursuit of whatever you wish, be it the perfection of arts, the study of science or literature, anything you can imagine.”
President Lopez-Nelson swallowed another antacid tablet as he stared at the TV screen. The message was worse than anything he’d imagined. If this thing had declared war, his country would have banded together behind him, the nations of the world would have turned to him for leadership. Instead the damn thing was offering some kind of Utopia. It had to be a trick.
“I know that some of you may be skeptical,” said the broadcast. “You’ve thousands of years of cultural experience that leads you to believe that nothing comes without a cost. This is accurate. There are human pursuits and pastimes that will not be allowed in Atlantis. The petty tribal conflicts that rend this planet will have no place upon my shores. No citizen of Atlantis shall be allowed to use violence to achieve their goals. And there is a still greater cost.”
Mariah woke when she realized the television had turned itself on. She’d fallen asleep by Anna’s bed, and was still sitting upright in her chair. It took her fogged mind a second to understand what it was saying.
“Your present industrial culture is killing your world. Atlantis cannot stand idly by while this happens. In three days, the infrastructure supporting your poisonous activities will be shut down. It’s the Earth’s best hope for survival.”
Cassie fell from her chair, convulsing.
“It’s in my head!” she screamed. “It’s in my head!”
“And on my monitor,” mumbled Jazz. “It’s everywhere. Some sort of universal carrier code. My god, it’s beautiful.”
On the enormous monitor, an angel was babbling about Atlantis. Pure was pretty sure this was important, but his attention was instead focused on the vents overhead, which continued to clank open. He doubted the nerve gas would hurt him, but who knew? And it would definitely kill everyone else in the room except the robots. Suddenly, he hated his higher self and whatever little game he was playing.
“Hah!” said Jazz. “I stopped the gas!”
“What?” asked Pure. “How?”
“This signal. It’s perfect. It’s like the ultimate machine language, and it’s universal. It’s a song every electronic circuit in the world is humming. It’s hitting the terminals in the pump room the same way it’s hitting us. Triggering the kill switch was a breeze.”
Chase and Sue were struggling to hold Cassie down. She was foaming at the mouth, thrashing, screaming, “Get out! Get out!”
Jazz ran to her side and grabbed Cassie’s fallen cane. She flipped open a panel on the side and whistled in awe.
“Cassie,” she said. “Calm down. It won’t hurt you. Stop fighting it. I’m going to use some of your cortex to record this.”
“Pardon me,” said Pure. “Her cortex? You’re going to use her brain as a tape recorder?”
“This is an intelligent signal. I don’t think mechanical media will be able to get it all. I need something organic,” said Jazz, pressing buttons on the cane.
Cassie stopped screaming words and began to simply scream, the sound echoing around the chamber. A foul stench hit Pure’s nostrils as she lost control of her bowels.
“She’s demon-possessed,” said one of the militiamen, pulling back.
Gabe and Hezekiah had grown still. Their lips moved in unison with the angel on screen though they made no sound.
“It’s an angel,” said another of the militiamen, watching the screen. “It’s finally here. Judgment day.” The man dropped his rifle, then fell to his knees. One by one, his fellow rebels joined them, and the message of the angel and Cassie’s screams were almost drowned out by the prayers of two hundred men begging to be let into Heaven.
Blood was now pouring out of Cassie’s nose. Pure grabbed Jazz’s arm.
“This is killing her. Stop it.”
“She’s just going to have a headache,” Jazz snarled. “Don’t fuck with things you don’t understand.”
“Stop it now or—” Pure didn’t have anything to follow the “or.” What was he going to do? Punch Jazz?
Jazz looked up from the tiny monitor on the cane with a taunting grimace. “Or what?”
“Or I let Morningstar eat you,” said Pure.
On hearing his name, Morningstar stuck his head over Pure’s shoulder. “Madam, I don’t pretend to comprehend what is happening here, but if you possess the power to stop it, now would be the time to do so.”
The monitor went dark. Hezekiah and Gabe stopped lip-synching and began to stagger drunkenly in small circles. Cassie continued to thrash and scream.
“The signal cut out,” said Jazz. “But the recording has set up an electrical storm in her frontal lobes. She’s going to be having a seizure for another two or three minutes. All we can do is hold her down until she recovers. This isn’t my fault.”
Pure stared at Jazz, still holding her arm.
“She will recover,” said Jazz.
“The second she can walk, I want her, Sue and Chase out of here,” said Pure. “I should never have gotten them involved in this craziness.”
“It’s safer in here than anywhere,” said Jazz. “Thanks to the signal, I’ve gotten control of all the systems in the complex. We can move about as we please. I can gas anyone who gives us trouble.”
“No nerve gas,” said Pure. “I’m damn serious about this. The people who work here are good people just making a living. If you’re in control, let them go.”
“We could use them as hostages,” said Jazz.
“Do as he says,” said Morningstar, drawing his head close enough to Jazz to allow his carrion breath to wash over her.
Cassie’s shouts suddenly vanished. Her violent convulsions ended. She began to cry softly, her sobs the only sound in the chamber. The militiamen had stopped their prayers and were watching the bizarre gyrations of their leader and his right hand man.
“Boys,” said Jazz. “Reset.”
Hezekiah and Gabe stopped moving. Hezekiah straightened himself, stared into the eyes of the nearest militiaman, and said, “I am a brother to dragons, and a companion of owls.”
“Yes sir,” said the militiaman, quietly.
“The Lord is coming soon,” said Gabe, brushing his hair back from his eyes.
“Sooner than we thought,” said Cassie, sobbing. “Angel. I had an angel in my head. I can still hear him.”
“Hang on, Cassie,” said Chase, squeezing her hand. “It’s okay. You’ll be okay.”
“I’m blind,” she said.
“You’ve been blind,” said Sue.
“No. Totally. I can’t see the cameras. I can’t see the network. What’s going on?”
“Sorry,” said Jazz. “I needed all the cybernetic components in your brain to capture the signal. I can’t reset them until I’ve learned everything I need to about the code.”
“Why?” Cassie sobbed. “Why did you do this to me?”
“Am I the only one who understands what we just witnessed?” Jazz asked angrily. “A goddamn intelligent alien signal just washed over this place. This is more important than anything.”
“Nothing is more important than the holy cause,” said Hezekiah.
“Of course,” said Jazz, rolling her eyes.
“Listen up, brothers,” said Gabe. “Show time’s over. We’re in the belly of the beast and we’re going to be here a while. I want the C-team to get back into the tunnels and look for survivors. We’ll set up an infirmary in the hall. B-team, set up a perimeter. Find all the doors and wire them. Make sure no one gets in with their hands still attached. A-team, secure the cafeteria in the chamber below. Let’s eat in style tonight, boys.”
A flurry of activity erupted. Sue was helping Cassie to her feet.
“Find us a room with a shower and bring us some clean clothes,” Sue said.
“No problem,” said Jazz, snapping her fingers. Gabe grabbed one of the militiamen and gave an order for this special mission. Jazz said, “We’re in the right place for it. The senator’s quarters are the most luxurious in the mountain.”
“We’re on the wrong side of the complex for the spook door,” said Pure. “Can you lock it down from here?”
“Already done,” said Jazz. “I can’t wait to see it.”
Pure wished he’d paid more attention to the angel. Had it really said, “I’m the city of Atlantis?”
“Atlantis rising.” That was his problem. Why was it that when the small clues made the most sense the big picture always seemed fuzzier?
PRESIDENT LOPEZ-NELSON turned to General Junaluska in the wake of the broadcast.
“That was a threat, wasn’t it?” he asked.
“Nuke the damn thing,” said Junaluska. “I’ve already run simulations. Given current wind conditions, the fallout is unlikely to reach Europe.”
“I should consult—”
“Mr. President,” said Junaluska. “Listen to me. Every year that’s gone by, I’ve seen this country give up more and more of its authority to the UN. If we’d acted autonomously, New Delhi might be more than a smear of black glass today. Now the world is so nuke-phobic that if you go to them seeking approval it’s going to be debated for a hell of a lot longer than we have. You heard this thing threaten to destroy our infrastructure and kidnap our population. You have the authority. You don’t need anyone’s permission to press the damn button. Do it now, while there’s still an element of surprise.”
“I don’t know,” said Lopez-Nelson. “I should—”
“Listen to me!” said Junaluska. “You know my heritage. I’m of Cherokee blood. I’m the most American person in this room. And I’m here to tell you that even if this thing is the most benevolent being in the world, even if we storm its shores and find out it’s being operated by Santa Claus, we must destroy it. The way of life of my people was all but obliterated by European contact. If we don’t stop this thing now, there will be no true human civilization left. It will forever be corrupted by the encounter with this thing. You’re the one man on the face of this Earth with the power to stop it.”
“What about your landing teams? Can’t we—?”
“They are still hours away. Satellites show this thing getting more developed with each moment. Stop it now.”
Lopez-Nelson cradled his face in his palms. “This is madness. Earthquakes, fine. Environmental collapse, sure. A lousy economy? Just part of the job. But an invasion from heaven? There’s no way to win. I’m either going to be known as the man who lost the world, or the man who nuked angels.”
“History gets written by the victors,” said Junaluska.
“All right,” Lopez-Nelson said, with a sigh. “Bring me the football.”
The football was the name given the suitcase that was never more than a dozen yards from his person. The marine sergeant who carried it unlocked the handcuff that attached it to his wrist, brought it to the President’s desk, and pressed the latch. A retinal scanner rose from the suitcase’s black surface like the eyepiece of a microscope. Lopez-Nelson lowered his eye to the lens.
The case clicked open.
“May God have mercy on me,” he said, as he began the launch sequence.
ADAM AND JESSICA stood on the balcony in the aftermath of their lovemaking, looking out over the still forming city. Trees were growing now, and a distant tower had changed into a fountain, with a waterfall almost a mile high falling into an unseen pool. Rainbows danced within rainbows around it.
“It’s so beautiful,” said Jessica. “But where is everyone?”
“The city is uninhabited at the moment,” said Adam. “I think we may be the only people here.”
“Why?”
“Atlantis is barely a day old. I know it’s difficult to understand, but the city is growing before our eyes. It’s creating homes for other people who come.”
“Is Chase coming?” asked Jessica. “Oh my God. Chase. I’ve been so overwhelmed by the angel and flying over the Atlantic and finding you that I haven’t had time to think about the implications. Chase is all grown up now, isn’t he? I’ve missed his childhood.”
“He’s grown,” said Adam. “He’s . . . a good man.” He hoped it was true. He had no reason to doubt it.
“How about my parents?”
“I’m sorry,” said Adam, pulling her closer.
“Then they . . . when?”
“Your father passed away about seventeen years ago. Your mother a few years after that. I think your sister’s still alive. I kind of lost touch with her.”
“You lost touch?”
“Honey, I’m not proud of how I’ve handled the last twenty years. I lost touch with a lot of people. I’m afraid Chase is one of them. I’ve seen him only a couple of times since he left for college.”
“Why? How?”
Adam shrugged. “Things haven’t worked out.”
He immediately knew this was the wrong thing to say.
“Things haven’t worked out?” Jessica said, her voice rising. “That is not acceptable, Adam. Chase is our son. He deserves more than a shrug and a lame excuse.”
“I don’t have an excuse,” said Adam. “I admit this was my failing. I wasn’t the best father.”
“You used to always say you’d be the most devoted father on Earth,” said Jessica. “You said that after you grew up without a father—”
“Stop,” said Adam, holding up his hand. “You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know. You can’t make me feel more guilty than I already do.”
“I’d like to at least try,” Jessica said softly, turning her back to Adam, crossing her arms.
“Don’t be like this,” he said.
“I want to see him,” said Jessica. “That’s my top priority. I want to see my son.”
“I do to,” Adam said. “And I think we will. This city specializes in making dreams come true.”
THE WATER-MAN LED CHERISE to a small café in sight of the shore. They sat at an iron table beneath an umbrella. A robot with glass skin revealing golden clockwork within brought Cherise drinks and food. There had been no menu.
Before her sat a glass of milk and a tomato sandwich on toast. She felt a wave of sentimentality wash over her as she smelled the food, the warm bread odor, the tang of the tomatoes.
“When I was a kid this was what Granny fed us for lunch all the time in the summer,” said Cherise. “But it’s not real, is it?”
“Of course it’s real,” said Atlantis.
“It can’t be. There aren’t any cows here. There weren’t any plants here before I landed. You can’t grow a real tomato in one day.”
“All matter consists of a relatively small number of elements arranged in various combinations. The milk may never have been excreted from an udder, but it’s still milk by every possible test.”
Cherise was hungry. They’d been walking for hours and she hadn’t eaten breakfast before getting sent on the recon mission. Her stomach grumbled. Yet the tomato sandwich seemed like a dangerous thing, more menacing than a hand-grenade with a missing pin.
“Wasn’t there a Greek myth? About Hades? That if you ate any of the food there, you could never come back?”
“Yes. Other cultures share similar myths. In Celtic lore, eating the food of the fairy kingdom would keep you forever a prisoner of the fairy realms. But you aren’t in the fairy realms, Cherise.”
The sandwich smelled heavenly. Her curiosity was also hungry. Could you make a good glass of milk without a cow?
She took a nibble of the sandwich. Its flavors exploded in her mouth, the tomato sweet yet acidic, with a hint of saltiness, the toast dry and crumbly on the surface yet sopping with juice and mayonnaise. She swallowed it down and took a sip of the milk. The milk was cold and creamy and instantly lifted away the acid of the tomato. The condensation on the glass trickled across her fingers.
“Lord,” she groaned. “Nothing has a right to taste this good.”
“I’m glad you enjoy it,” said the water-man. Then, casually, “I hope it isn’t your last meal. The United States has launched a nuclear assault on this island.”
“W-what?” Cherise sputtered.
“Don’t be alarmed,” said the water-man. “My probability models predict a 64 percent chance that I can stop all of the missiles.”
“How long before they get here?”
“Never, I hope,” said the water-man.
The light grew suddenly dimmer. Cherise looked toward the sky. A flock of angels, darkening the sky with their multitudes, was rising over Atlantis.
“I gotta get back to my plane,” said Cherise.
The water-man shook his head. “There’s no point—”
Cherise didn’t wait for him to finish his sentence. She started running. Assuming they were launching ICBMs from the mainland, she had maybe twenty minutes before they hit. That wasn’t enough time to make it back to the plane and get clear. She’d walked three miles, maybe more by her estimate. Assuming she didn’t get lost in a city without road signs, she would use up most of the twenty minutes getting back to her plane.
Still, there were other scenarios. Perhaps only a limited strike had been ordered. The Atlantean defense could no doubt stop the attack if it was a single missile. That would likely be followed by a no-holds-barred barrage of dozens, if not hundreds of warheads in the hope one would get through. That barrage might be forty minutes away, maybe even an hour. She could be far outside the danger zone in an hour.
Luckily, she had an excellent sense of direction. It was rare for her to become disoriented, even in a city where the buildings were still plain white shells. Only, many of the buildings weren’t white shells any more. She was sure she wasn’t lost, but the buildings were changing, as if phantom work crews had followed along behind them. Many of the blank white walls were now bright pastel hues. Sloped red brick roofs hung off of formerly flat-roofed cubes.
Bushes and vines were growing along walls, flowers blooming in boxes sitting in windows. The city was coming to life, only there were still no people. The streets remained as vacant as ever.
By the time she reached the fountain where the water-man had appeared, her lungs were burning and hot wires of pain lined her legs. She was almost there.
She burst into the field. Now the grass was knee-deep and her view of the plane was blocked by stands of raspberry bushes. She sprinted past around them to the runway.
“No,” she said as she wiped the sweat from her eyes.
The runway was covered with ivy. Her plane was buried under the thick vegetation, like some ancient relic of a lost civilization. The light upon the dark, flat leaves shimmered.
She looked to the sky. At midday, in tropical latitudes, there was an aurora borealis. Rain began to fall around her out of a clear sky. The water pooled at her feet, then bulged, and the water-man rose before her.
“Our defenses held,” said the water-man. “We’ve stopped the missiles before they reentered the stratosphere. We’re taking defensive action against sites containing unlaunched missiles. The attack has failed. You’re safe.”
“I’m safe?” asked Cherise. “I think you might be confused as to whose side I’m on.”
“Did you want the attack to succeed?”
“I don’t know. No,” said Cherise. “I believe that you don’t mean any harm. But I think you’re so powerful, you can do damage without even meaning to. Call off your attack on our missile sites. Put me through to my commanding officers. I may be able to talk them out of attacking again.”
“I won’t halt the nullification of the warheads,” said the water-man. “But I will lift the radio silence. You can make your call.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
* * *
BORN AGAIN
THE WAR ROOM WAS ABUZZ with the latest developments. An aura of despair had hung over the room after the failure of the ICBMs to reach their target. Now, the gloom of the war room had been replaced by hopeful chatter. The radio silence had been broken. Captain Cherise Washington was alive and broadcasting from Atlantis.
General Junaluska weighed the information she reported carefully. Despite Captain Washington’s assertion that the city wasn’t overtly hostile, the most important thing she told him was the technology levels they were dealing with. The aliens could create angels from the soil and launch them into combat against missiles. Plainly, they were dealing with a technological culture far superior to anything Earth could throw at it.
The reality of the danger was obvious. Benign or hostile, prolonged contact with such an advanced technological culture would no doubt doom humanity. Just as encounters with Europeans had all but destroyed Native American civilization, so to would the American way of life be devastated.
The path was clear. It was a slender, long shot chance. He’d held the landing boats of marines at a distance from Atlantis, keeping them out of range in case the nukes had hit their target. Now, they were the last, desperate hope. His squad had high-tech toys, but they certainly weren’t dependent on them. These were the fiercest, best warriors America had to offer. Strip them naked and arm them with a knife and they could beat the best any foreign army could send against them.
Consulting the president would only waste time. It was his call to make now. The Marines were going ashore, and taking no prisoners.
“Land the boats,” he commanded. “Shoot everything that moves.”
ADAM AND JESSICA walked on the beach in the moonlight. They had their arms around each other, pulled tightly together as they walked along sand soft as talcum powder and white as pearls. Sea oats rustled along the dunes.
Despite the romance of the setting, Jessica had fallen silent and Adam could almost read her thoughts. They’d asked Atlantis to bring Chase to them and the city had promised that it would look for their son. This had cheered Jessica up some. Their argument on the balcony was put behind them.
Adam knew he’d never fully understand Jessica. It was a classic glass-half-full-or-half-empty way of looking at things. He was focused on the wonder of the here and now. But for Jessica, Atlantis was only a distraction from the things that truly mattered to her. No doubt her thoughts were on all those lost years. She hadn’t been there for the good times or the bad. She’d missed her parent’s funerals and her son’s graduation. Adam knew there was nothing he could say that would ever give those back to her.
It wasn’t that Adam didn’t understand regret. It had been his primary emotional state for some time now. But, it’s tough to feel too sorry for yourself when you have a brand-new body, when your all-but-dead wife is restored to youth and health, when you’re stranded in paradise with angels and Greek gods at your beck and call.
Though it wasn’t the time to say it to Jessica, he was relieved that the past was gone. His old life was dead. He’d even seen the corpse. He was born again. And this time, he knew what mistakes not to make. He intended to live this new life, to seize each day and shake out every last bit of joy it could offer him. He would never again be a stranger to his own son, never again keep secrets, or hold off on saying the important things in his heart because the right time never came up.
The irony that he was hesitant to share these thoughts with Jessica wasn’t lost on him.
He was pulled from his reverie by dark shapes on the shore ahead. Large, boxy boats were smashing through the waves and sliding up onto the sand. Men were spilling out the back as a steel door opened.
“Uh-oh,” said Adam. “Looks like they’ve sent in the marines.”
Adam felt too serene to let this worry him. He was sure that the marines were no threat to Atlantis, and that Atlantis would find some way of making the marines feel welcome.
One of the marines pointed in his direction. There was a jolt and a crack, and Adam fell to his knees. He touched his chest. His hand came back wet and hot. His vision blurred as the sand rushed toward him. He never had time to say the last word in his mind: “Jessica.”
Jessica screamed and fell to her knees beside her husband. Blood was everywhere. The bullet had punched straight through him. She felt faint. This was too much to take in. Her mind ground to a halt staring at the horrible scene.
A hand fell upon her shoulder. She looked up. It was the angel who’d carried her here.
“Do not be afraid,” he said, as bullets ricocheted from the shield of his wings. “Come,” said the angel, lifting her into his arms. “You should not see this.”
“Adam,” she said, staring at his body.
“He’s no longer in there,” said the angel.
He flapped his wings and they lifted into the air.
The men on the beach began to scream. The sound of gunfire intensified, becoming a single, thunderous drum roll. Jessica twisted to look below her and the angel moved to shield her eyes, but not quickly enough. The beach had grown teeth. Jagged, spike-toothed mouths were yawning open in the sand beneath the invader’s feet. One by one, the men vanished and the teeth snapped shut.
The beach was quickly calm and quiet again.
It was the most horrible thing she’d ever seen. And it satisfied her. It satisfied her in a way that shamed her to the core. These were the men who’d snatched her husband away forever, after she’d finally been reunited. No fate could be cruel enough. And yet, no amount of cruelty toward his murderers would bring him back.
She closed her eyes as hot tears streamed down her cheeks.
“There’s no reason for sorrow,” said the angel.
“Adam’s dead,” Jessica sobbed. “Oh, God.”
By now, the angel had returned her to the bedroom she’d shared with Adam only hours earlier. He placed her on the white sheets and smiled.
“Sleep,” he said. “Be at peace. Tomorrow morning you’ll see the futility of tears.”
Jessica wanted to leap up and slap the angel. But she couldn’t. Sparkling dust was falling from the angel’s wings, and she could focus on nothing but the tiny particles, and the prisms they formed in the candlelight. The horrors of the previous moments slipped from her mind. She was so drowsy. She tried to fight it, tried to focus on the pain, to claw her way back to waking grief, but it was no use. She dropped away into silent darkness.
IN A WOMB DEEP beneath the surface of the city Adam Morgan awakened. He grasped his chest, as the memory of falling to the sand returned to him. He found no wound. His chest was smooth and hairless, slippery as if covered with soap. He opened his eyes to see, but there was no light. It was as dark with his eyes open as closed. Slowly he became aware that he was suspended in liquid, warm and slightly gooey, and that the fluid even filled his lungs. He tried to speak, but couldn’t. He wished there was light.
And so there was light. The goop he floated in was translucent, faintly blue. His body vanished into haze as he looked down. Or was he looking up? In the weightless suspension, he couldn’t be sure, but it felt like he might be floating upside down. He brought his hands to his face. They looked strange and distant, unfamiliar, completely free of wrinkles and creases, without even fingernails.
Again, he tried to speak, but the fluid flowed across his vocal cords without sufficient friction to produce noise. He wanted to ask, “What’s happened?”
“Don’t be alarmed,” the fluid said. His ears didn’t hear the voice. He wondered if he imagined it.
“You are imagining it, after a fashion,” said the voice. “The section of your brain that allows you to remember and fantasize about sound is being stimulated. While you’re suspended in the aqua vita of the womb, I can communicate with you more fully than when we’re limited to sensory input.”
As if in demonstration, Adam realized he knew how to play piano. It was a strange, almost exhilarating discovery. His grandmother had owned a piano and he’d taken lessons as a child, but he’d had no particular aptitude or talent for it. The parts of his head that heard the music had always been separate from the parts of his head that saw the notes on the page, and the parts of his head that told him which fingers to move. They had never flowed together as one fluid process.
Now, he was no longer floating in goop. He was sitting at his grandmother’s piano in her living room. He wasn’t a child. He was the man he’d always wanted to be, the man who’d traded bodies with him on the ship. And he was playing piano. Mozart’s “Turkish Rondo.” The music leapt from his fingers like sparks of electricity. It was a joyful, powerful experience to know that he possessed the knowledge to make such sounds.
“But I’m not really playing, am I?” he said/thought.
The living room faded. The piano dissipated into bubbles.
“No,” said the fluid. “But the human brain is a wonderful thing. In my short exposure to it I’ve come to appreciate its possibilities. It’s a marvelous tool for the creation of realities.”
“I still know how to play piano,” said Adam looking at his hands. “I hear music in my head and feel my fingers twitch. Why? How?”
“It’s merely a demonstration,” said the fluid. “I could stimulate your brain to imbue you with any knowledge you desire. You may find the aqua vita a useful medium for entertainment or communication. While sipping your planets data streams, I’ve discovered that your species devotes a great deal of its resource to entertainment. In the aqua vita, you could be totally immersed in the amusement of your choice. You may also communicate with other humans suspended in the aqua vita on a direct level, sharing thoughts and memories beyond the limits of language.”
“I see,” Adam said. “I’m not sure that’s a good thing. In my experience, learning to keep things hidden from others spares them a lot of pain.”
“The pain will not last. Openness of emotion and the direct sharing of experience will create joys far greater than the pains,” said the fluid.
“Speaking of pain,” said Adam. “Didn’t those soldiers shoot me? What happened?”
“You were shot and your old body was damaged beyond convenient repair. It will be recycled. You inhabit a new body. It will be a perfect match for your old one.”
“I suppose I have to believe you, since you’ve done it before. But how? How do you pull my mind out of my old body and put it into this one?”
“Thoughts are nothing but data. Your memories are complex interlinked chains of information stored in the physical structures of your brain. I constantly map this information. In the event of catastrophic body failure, I transfer the data to new housing.”
“But then . . . wouldn’t that mean—”
“You’re immortal,” said the fluid.
Adam felt the same detachment he felt when the doctor told him that his wife had sleeper flu and might never awaken. It was too big to deal with immediately. He would need time to think through the ramifications. With Jessica’s illness, that process had dragged on for twenty years. How long would it take him to come to grips with immortality?
“Your body is finished, unless you would like to modify it.”
Adam could see himself in his mind’s eye. It was better than any mirror he’d ever used.
“Modify it? Like, what, change my hair color?”
“If you wish. Change your eye color. Your height, weight, skin color. More advanced modifications are also possible, though they would require starting fresh in a new shell. You could change your gender. You could grow gills, or exchange your hair for feathers. You of all people should be comfortable with the possibilities that are open with modifications to the genetic code.”
This was another item to put on the mental shelf labeled, “Deal with this later.”
He looked at his hands again. They were more familiar now, the nails had returned, and the creases around the joints.
“I’ll stick with this body for the time being, thanks,” said Adam.
“Prepare to be released from the womb,” said the fluid. “Your wife will be waking soon, and it will be a pleasant surprise for her to discover you by her side.”
“Let me out,” said Adam.
His feet gently came to rest on a grated surface. He’d been floating upright all along. The fluid flowed across his skin, quickly exposing his head to air. He felt sick as the fluid flowed up from his lungs, emptying through his mouth and nostrils. As the last of the fluid cleared his mouth he gasped, taking the first breath of air his body had ever experienced. By now, the goop was only waist deep. He was in a large, egg-shaped chamber. He placed his hands on one of the glassy walls to steady himself as his new legs felt the full weight of his body for the first time. His stomach felt tight and empty. Of course it was empty. His new mouth had never tasted food; his teeth and tongue were virgins. He’d never been kissed; he’d never scratched an itch or worn clothes or combed his hair. He was utterly new.
He grinned uncontrollably as hot water began to shower over him, washing away the last traces of the aqua vita.
The first word to pass from his new throat was, “Wow.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
* * *
DON’T HOLD BACK
PURE SAT IN THE WELL of the senate, his feet kicked up, trying to make sense of the puzzle. Why was “Atlantis rising” his problem? He supposed that his higher self, from his vantage point outside of reality, might have more information than everyone else. But how did that translate into a responsibility to act? What did he care if aliens and angels overran the world? If he could just get his body back to normal, he could manage all his moods with pills again and wouldn’t care. Alas, shortly after Jazz had secured Mount Weather, Pure had slipped away to the pharmacy and engaged in a whole buffet of medications designed to make him forget all about the crisis at hand. They’d had no effect. He’d known this would happen; it wasn’t the first time he’d gotten his hands on drugs since coming out of the warp. They were no more effective at altering his body than bullets or dragon claws. It was unfair. He’d been put on Ritalin when he was eight. Every year after that he’d added another doctor prescribed medicine to the arsenal designed to protect him from distraction, sorrow, anxiety or aggression. For twenty years, pills had provided a pleasant pillowy buffer between him and reality.
Now that this buffer was gone, he couldn’t help but miss Hammer.
When they would sneak their special moments together, they weren’t wasting time with chitchat about the weather or gripes about work. Mount Weather didn’t have actual weather, and they both worked in top-secret jobs that they weren’t supposed to talk about. Their relationship hadn’t been about dealing with day-to-day drudgery, or trivia, or working out old emotional traumas. Pure had drugs for that, and Hammer had stoic repression. This meant that when they did slip away for a few stolen moments together, it was all about pleasure. Supposedly, this was the most crude and shallow form of relationship. Yet, whenever Hammer had grabbed Pure with his rough hands and pressed him up against the wall, sucking away his breath with a violent kiss, the universe hummed. The moon orbited the earth, the earth orbited the sun, all spun around the center of the universe, which turned out to be Pure. Talking would have wrecked the magic.
Pure sighed. He was supposed to be figuring out Atlantis and instead he was reminiscing about sex. That long ago diagnosis of ADD might possibly have some underlying merit.
A second distraction arose when Chase wandered into the chamber. His hands were in his pockets and his head was low.
“Howdy,” said Pure.
Chase glanced at Pure but didn’t say anything.
“Something bugging you?” Pure asked.
Chase shrugged his shoulders. “Cassie just told me to stay away from her. I think she’s just upset. She’s in a lot of pain. I just want to be there for her.”
“If she wanted you to be there, she’d say so,” said Pure. “You’re in love and she isn’t. Live and learn.”
“Cassie’s not thinking clearly,” said Chase, walking up the stairs. “She’s screaming at Jazz. She’s terrified about Atlantis. She saying it’s the end of the world.”
“Might be,” said Pure, grabbing a remote control off the seat beside him. He pressed a button and an enormous video screen lowered behind the speaker’s podium and came to life. Pure began racing through the channels. “It’s the end of decent television, anyway. I was flipping through earlier. Everything’s all Atlantis, all the time, even though no one seems to have any actual information. At least the population is taking it fairly calmly. It looks like only half the world is rioting.”
Images flashed across the screen as Pure kept clicking the clicker. The charred wreckage of an airplane. Shops with windows broken. A knife that never needed sharpening, cutting through cans. A severed arm lying in the middle of a road. Men in suits sternly addressing the camera. The Vatican, looted, smoldering. An exercise machine that would give you rock hard abs in only thirty days for a very reasonable price. The President, looking pale. Pills to enlarge your penis.
“When aliens one day intercept the last signals broadcast before the apocalypse,” said Pure, “they sure are going to see a lot of infomercials.”
“Do you think this is really the end?” asked Chase.
“Probably,” said Pure. “I think I was supposed to stop it somehow, but I’ve been out of my league from the start. I wasn’t cut out to be an action hero. If I’d known this was coming, maybe I would have . . . would have . . . I dunno. Actually, now that this is happening, I don’t see why better choices in life would have made any difference at all. Anything you wish you’d done differently?”
“Yeah.” Chase sagged into the chair next to Pure. He looked as if all life had drained out of him. “My dad. I wish . . . I wish. . . .”
“That you’d had a chance to work things out with him?” asked Pure.
“I wish I’d punched him in the nose when he told me he was leaving to sail around the world,” said Chase. “That bastard. I mean, Mom’s still in a damn coma, so sometimes I’m tempted to cut him some slack. I know he’s had a tough life. I could always kind of see the logic in him shuffling me off to boarding schools. But now he’s retired. He’s filthy rich. Set off for an around the world voyage on a brand new boat. Did he invite me to come along? Make up for lost time, blah blah blah? Bastard. I’d like to sick Morningstar on him. Watch the big lizard eat his guts while he screams for me to help. I’d just laugh and laugh and laugh.”
“Don’t hold back, Chase,” said Pure.
“How about you? You seriously wouldn’t do anything differently?”
“Nope.”
“There’s not even one regret? Not one thing you’d like to change?”
Pure started to shrug off the question. He made the mistake of letting it gain the tiniest bit of traction in a distant wrinkle of his brain. Two seconds later, his shoulders sagged.
“Everything,” he whispered. “I’d change every damn thing about me.”
Chase looked surprised. “Not the answer I was expecting. You seem pretty comfortable in your own skin.”
“I haven’t really spent that much time in my own skin. I’ve been stoned to one degree or another since before I grew pubic hair.”
“You never tried to stop?”
Pure shook his head. “Drugs gave me a structure. When I went off to college I had a whole itinerary programmed into my phone with alarms to alert me what pill I was supposed to be taking. Some people have religion to guide them through life, I had pharmaceuticals. I don’t want to pretend that it didn’t have some benefits. I was always a straight A student, very focused and studious. Most of the meds worked as advertised. And, some of the side effects were pretty helpful. Lower libido, for instance; I didn’t spend all my teen years thinking about sex.”
“I gotta get me some of them pills,” said Chase. “I’ve spent pretty much every hour thinking about it.”
“You a virgin?”
“That’s kind of a personal question.”
“You’ve confessed a desire to watch your father die violently. I’m confessing that I regret being an addict. I think we’re pretty deep in the territory of personal questions.”
Chase nodded. “Yeah. I mean, I went to a male-only high school so I didn’t have a lot of opportunity to meet girls until college.”
“I really don’t see a male-only school as an obstacle to losing one’s virginity,” said Pure.
“Don’t go there.”
“I mean, when I was your age, I’d been hooking up with other guys on the internet since I was fourteen.”
“I thought you said the pills kept you from thinking about sex.”
“I said I didn’t think about sex all the time. But the few hours each week I did think about it, I was usually just a few text messages away from a hook-up. I’d had at least fifty partners before I went off to college.”
“That sounds pretty dumb. You’re lucky you didn’t get AIDS.”
“You know there have been precautions against that for decades, right? Having anonymous sex doesn’t have to be dangerous. I’ve never caught so much as a cold.”
“That’s nothing to brag about,” said Chase. “You obviously didn’t fall in love if it was all anonymous.”
“True. At least until Hammer. I think I loved him. A little. Sort of. But maybe love is overrated, if a few pills can take its place.” Pure tilted his head back and scratched his neck. “Screw it. The more I think about it, the more I’m sure I wouldn’t want to change a thing. My life has been warped from the start, but what the hell. I’d rather face the apocalypse as a perverted warp monkey than as a love-sick virgin.”
“There’s no need to be insulting,” said Chase. “I thought we were bonding.”
“So did I. It scared me. I don’t want you begging me to make a man of you when the angels come back.”
“Dream on,” said Chase.
The door to the chamber opened with a loud clank. They looked up to the top tier and saw Jazz coming toward them.
“Great timing,” said Pure.
“Am I interrupting something?” Jazz asked.
“No, I meant ‘great timing’ on your takeover of Mount Weather. If the angel’s to be taken seriously, you’ve got about two and a half days left to enjoy your conquest.”
Jazz came down the stairs. “I’m taking the angel very seriously.”
As she spoke, she wriggled free of the backpack she was wearing. She tossed the backpack onto the desk in front of Pure. It landed with a solid thump.
“This, gentlemen, is a nuke,” said Jazz.
Chase jumped up. “Holy shit! Is it radioactive?”
“Calm down, kid,” said Pure. “It wouldn’t be hot. And you can’t detonate one by dropping it.”
“I can’t detonate it, period,” said Jazz. “You have to input a code on the keypad. Without the code, it’s only dangerous if I use it to bludgeon someone to death.”
“I thought code-breaking was your specialty,” said Pure.
“Ninety percent of hacking involves attacking the weakest link in the system, the idiots using the computers. I got plenty of the passwords I used to attack the banking system simply by calling up people and asking nicely pretending to be with their IT departments. Guessing a string of random numbers is a little time consuming. Since you worked here, I was hoping you might tell me who would know the codes.”
“Christ, how would I know? I didn’t even know we still had nukes. I thought we’d disarmed twenty years ago.”
“Why do you need a nuke?” asked Chase.
“We need nukes and worse if we’re going to stop Atlantis. This thing is the product of an alien civilization far more advanced than our own. It will destroy us if we don’t stop it.”
“What if it really is here to help?” said Chase.
“Even if it has the most altruistic of motivations, it can still destroy us,” said Jazz. “Guns and smallpox dealt Native Americans a severe blow, but it was the missionaries who came in to feed them, clothe them, and save their souls who obliterated all but the barest traces of their culture. We’ve got about forty-eight hours to figure out how to stop this thing.”
“Stop it?” The shout came from behind them, a shrill, piercing voice that made them all cringe. It was Sister Sue, who’d been coming down the steps so slowly and quietly none of them had noticed. “This isn’t something to be stopped. This is something to be embraced! Didn’t you hear this thing? It’s the vindication of what I’ve fought for my whole life. We’ve screwed up the planet so badly that we require outside intervention. I can’t see a single downside.”
Pure’s mouth slowly dropped open. He tried to think of something mean to say, but couldn’t. It wasn’t worth the effort. Sue simply lived in a different world than he did.
“Sue,” said Jazz. “Did you know you were one of my personal heroes?”
“Heard it before,” said Sue.
“That song Bob Dylan wrote about you,” Jazz said. “Man, I listened to it a million times growing up. You’re a legend. You fight for what you believe in, you speak truth to power, you answer to no earthly authority as you battle for what is right.”
“I did what I had to,” said Sue. “Anyone can see the world is going to hell. I’ve felt like Don Quixote tilting at windmills for the last eighty years. I can’t tell you how good it’s going to be to finally see those windmills fall.”
“I can respect that,” said Jazz. “But I can’t let it happen.”
“If we’re picking sides,” said Pure, “I vote for the course of action that most pisses off Sue.”
“To hell with both of you,” said Sue. “Even if you wanted to stop it, you couldn’t.”
“We’ve got a suitcase nuke and a spook door that says differently,” said Pure. “Jazz, you’re right, we have to find a way to arm this bomb. I suddenly know what it is I’m doing here.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
* * *
SWIRL
JESSICA AWOKE TO FIND Adam sitting by her bed.
“Good morning,” he said.
She sat up. “You’re . . . was I having a nightmare? It seemed so real.”
“It was real,” said Adam. “I was shot. Atlantis fixed me.”
“Fixed you? How could it fix you? You were . . . you should still be in a hospital.”
“I should be in a morgue,” said Adam. “But the rules are different here. What would you say if I told you we were immortal?”
“I’ve always assumed I was,” said Jessica. “I’ve never believed death was the end. I think there’s a world after this one.”
“You’ll never have to find out,” said Adam. “You know, back in grad school I used to hang out with people who believed immortality was possible. The cellular causes of aging are pretty well understood. It’s a matter of ever-shortening telomeres.”
“Telomeres?”
“They’re segments on the ends of our genes that serve the same purpose as the little plastic bands on the end of shoe strings. As cells divide, the telomeres grow progressively shorter, and eventually they’re gone, and the gene sort of unravels. This is a simplistic description, of course, but it helps visualize what happens to our genes as we age.”
“I’m following you,” said Jessica.
“So the guys I hung out with were working on therapies to stop the telomeres from unraveling. If the breakdown on a cellular level could be controlled, life could be prolonged indefinitely. Combine this with our ability to clone new organs from stem cells for transplants, and they believed that our generation might see the first immortal humans. It turns out they were right. It’s just that Atlantis has beat them to the punch.”
“We can’t die?”
“The body you saw shot on the beach died,” said Adam. “But Atlantis grew me a new one. The city possesses the technology to record all of our thoughts and move them to new bodies.”
“How awful,” said Jessica.
This wasn’t the reaction Adam had expected.
“Awful? I’m telling you we can’t die! How is that awful?”
“It’s recording out thoughts? What about our privacy?”
Adam raised his eyebrows. “Privacy is more important than eternal life?”
“After you were shot, the angel told me to sleep, and I did, even though I was upset. I think it was controlling my mind. How can we trust this thing if we can’t even trust our own thoughts?”
“I’m surprised this is a problem for you, given your upbringing.”
“What?”
“Being raised a Christian. Didn’t you learn as a child that you always had God watching your actions and reading your mind? Were you concerned about your privacy then?”
“I can’t believe you’re saying this,” she said.
“What?”
“Having God know what I’m thinking is one thing,” said Jessica. “But this thing isn’t God. It’s some kind of alien. It makes my skin crawl.”
Adam stood, throwing up his hands as he turned away.
“I don’t believe this,” he said. “Atlantis has awakened you from a twenty-year coma. It brought me back from the dead. How on Earth can you not trust it?”
“What if it’s controlling your mind?” said Jessica.
“If it’s controlling my mind, why isn’t it controlling yours? If it’s as sinister as you think it is, it could rewire your brain to make you love it.”
“I didn’t say it was controlling my mind now. I said it did last night.”
“And I didn’t say you’re mind was being controlled, I said it wasn’t.”
Simultaneously, they each said, “You never listen to me.”
Adam scratched the back of his neck.
“Look, I’m not sure you’re going to be open-minded about this, but what if there were a way for me to listen to you more fully than has ever been possible before?”
“What’s so tough about listening?” said Jessica. “Other people do it, but you make it seem like some impossible feat.”
“You’re right,” said Adam. “I’m a terrible listener. But when I was being, uh, regrown, I was in a . . . a machine, I guess, that can let people directly share their thoughts and emotions.”
Jessica crossed her arms. “It’s so typical of you to think that we need a machine to talk to one another.”
“Forget I mentioned it. I knew it was a mistake the second I said it.”
Jessica sighed. “I’d forgotten this,” she said. “How much we used to fight.”
“I hadn’t,” said Adam. “Every time I would go to see you at Rolling Meadow I would sit by your bed and replay every argument we ever had in my head. I’m not just a terrible listener. I’m terrible at talking. I’m terrible at keeping quiet. All our fights were because I’m just so bad at making a connection. I’m sorry. I wish I could have said it then, so I’m saying it now. I’m sorry.”
“The arguments weren’t all your fault,” said Jessica, shaking her head. “Don’t be such a martyr. Yeah, you’re screwed up. I think growing up without a father messed you up. But, everyone’s messed up. I wasn’t always an angel. You don’t have a monopoly on sorry. I’m sorry too.”
“Huh,” said Adam. “Are we really going to argue about who’s most sorry?”
“Let’s not,” said Jessica.
“Okay,” said Adam.
“In fact, let’s try out this machine you’re talking about.”
“Really?” said Adam.
“I’ve twenty years to catch up on,” Jessica said. “Maybe sharing your memories will help.”
“Come on then,” said Adam. “Let’s return to the womb.”
THE ANGELS STARTED QUIETLY, delivering ballots to those most in need of deliverance. They rose from the stone floors of third world torture chambers, they walked the halls of asylums, they appeared on death rows in the dark of night.
Victor Wayne Johnson was condemned to die. He’d been on death row in Texas for seven years. His death was scheduled only a month away. He wasn’t sleeping well anymore.
He woke from a feverish dream to find an angel above him. The angel looked down at him and said, “Your mind is an awful place.”
“Jesus Christ,” said Victor, halfway swallowing his tongue as he sat up and scrambled backwards, pressing his back against the concrete wall.
“Look at it,” said the angel. “Its neural pathways are completely snarled. Your life experiences and brain chemistry allow you to delight in the suffering and pain of others. Almost require it, in fact. You’ve raped and murdered seventeen children. And I can see how much this delights you. Despite any protestations of remorse or shame, in your heart you believe your actions were justified, even heroic. You would kill again if given the chance.”
“Don’t send me to hell,” Victor blubbered. He lost all control of his bladder. He’d expected this moment all his life, lived in white-hot fear of it. Death had never held any terror, but what waited beyond strangled his heart like ice-cold, bony hands.
“I’m not here to bring you to hell,” said the angel. “I’m from Atlantis. I’m here to offer you the choice of coming with me. This is your ballot.
Victor saw the ballot as a golden key. He took it with trembling hands.
“Y-you’re saying you’re gonna get me out of here?” Victor said, wiping his tears. “Why? How?”
“Everyone will be offered the opportunity to embrace Atlantis.”
“Ain’t that the place under the sea? Where Aquaman lives?”
The angel smiled.
“What the hell—oh excuse me—what the heck am I asking questions for? Of course I want to go. I’d go to the dam—I mean darn moon to get out of here.”
“Very well.” The angel nodded. “But not in this body. Not with that poorly wired brain. You must be remade.”
The angel placed his hands upon Victor’s head. With a sharp twist, it ended Victor’s old life.
In Atlantis, Victor opened his eyes, crying. He tried to move his arms, but couldn’t control them. He tried to speak, but his lungs would do nothing but force loud bawls from his mouth. An angel moved into his field of vision and lifted him.
“Welcome to Atlantis,” said the angel. “You were once a murderer named Victor. Now you’re an infant once again. You’ll be raised under careful supervision. Families are coming who will be glad to adopt you. Memories of your previous life will fade as you focus your attention on learning to master your new form. We hope that this life will be more felicitous than your last one.”
Victor kept crying. But he had an increasingly difficult time trying to recall what he was crying for.
THE FLUID SWIRLED into Jessica’s lungs but the sensation wasn’t one of panic. She felt embraced by the fluid, hugged gently. She grew weightless. Her eyes strained to make out the dreamy, gauzy lines of her body. Even if she was young and healthy again, she still didn’t quite trust her physical form. It had failed her, allowed her to sleep for twenty years. For the first time, she realized how much she hated it.
No, hate wasn’t the right word. But her body had provided certain limits on her life. Floating in the blue fluid, she discovered that her body no longer had any hold on her. She was free. She slipped from her body with the ease of unzipping a pair of pants and letting them fall to the floor.
She was now outside of her body, outside of time itself. Her whole past life stretched out behind her, the hundreds of people she had known passed in a steady parade, and she was startled to find out how small this gathering truly was. She’d spent over half of her life asleep.
Slowly she grew aware that she wasn’t alone in the fluid. Adam was here, beside her, invisible, present only as a warmth. He was outside his body just as she was. With her own invisible, intangible hands, she reached toward him.
And then she was him. She raised her hands. They were large and masculine. She was somehow inside his body. The memories in the brain she occupied were completely new. They were his memories.
She looked around, weightless in the goop, and saw a woman floating beside her. It was her body. It’s eyes were closed as it hung, sleeping, almost lifeless. Then, the fingers twitched.
Her old eyes opened.
Both bodies smiled.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
* * *
DAY THREE
INVADING MOUNT WEATHER at the same time Atlantis had arrived had one upside. The government hadn’t been able to devote the time and resources to a counterattack. Jazz reported that all the entrances to the mountain were under heavy guard from the outside. The missile launching tubes had been welded shut. The government had taken steps to insure that nothing was getting out of the mountain, but had made no moves to get back inside.
Pure went to the infirmary to check up on Cassie.
“How’s she doing?” Pure asked.
Chase shook his head. He was sitting next to Cassie, who lay on a hospital bed under a clean white sheet. Cassie was pale, sweating profusely, her eyes half open, darting back and forth rapidly. Chase held her hand.
“She’s getting worse. She keeps drifting in and out of sleep,” Chase said. “I don’t want to leave her side. I feel so guilty about this.”
“You? Jazz is a lot more to blame than you.”
“I’m the person who told her about the dragons. I’m the person who got her all worked up about the idea of exposing my father.”
“Oh right. I guess this is your fault.”
Chase grimaced. Before the kid could say anything else, Pure asked, “Have you seen Morningstar?”
“Not for a while. Why?”
“It’s time for me to open negotiations with Jazz. If she gets to have two android supermen at the table, I should at least have a dragon.”
“I’ll come with you,” said Chase.
Pure laughed, a quick, sharp bark of surprise. “That will really tip the balance of power.”
“Don’t be such an asshole,” Chase said. “I only want to help.”
Cassie stirred, reacting to their conversation.
“Chase,” she whispered, her voice raspy.
“Yes,” he said, leaning close, tightening his grasp on her hands.
“You’re such a whiner,” she said. “I’ve never liked you.”
Taking advantage of the awkward moment, Pure left the room.
HE FOUND JAZZ before he found Morningstar. Her robotic henchmen were nowhere to be seen. Her trail had been easy enough to follow. Open door after open door led through parts of Mount Weather he’d never had clearance to visit. All the halls and rooms had the same white, sterile monotony.
He finally found her in an empty chamber large enough to serve as a hanger for a fighter jet. The ceiling, walls, and floor were studded with metal disks, sensors of some sort. Jazz stood at the bottom of a perfect hemisphere about 15 feet in diameter. The floor of the sphere was carved directly out of bedrock. Floating in the dead center of the hemisphere was a platinum donut. Jazz was underneath the donut, studying it. She held a broomstick in one hand as she reached up to tap the object. The end of the broomstick sizzled away as it made contact.
“What’s that?” Pure asked. “Some kind of anti-gravity device?”
“Nope,” said Jazz. “Gravity has nothing to do with it. The disk is being held off the ground by tachyon pressure. This is the time machine.”
“Holy cow,” said Pure. “Are you certain?”
“Duh,” said Jazz. “Walk around the perimeter. Tell me if you spot anything strange.”
Pure walked, keeping his eye on the donut. Only, as he walked, it no longer looked like a donut. Ninety degrees around the circle, the donut morphed into a cylinder. At one hundred eighty degrees, the cylinder changed into a pretzel. And at two hundred seventy degrees, it changed shape into a perfect sphere the size of a tennis ball.
“Weird,” said Pure. “Why’s it changing shape?”
“It isn’t,” said Jazz. “You’re looking at a four-dimensional object. Your three-dimensional eyes can’t make sense of it.”
And yet, he almost could make sense of it. He had a déjà vu sensation of looking down on the object from a higher place and seeing it all at once, the sphere, the pretzel, the donut, the cylinder, all merged into a single object like a twisted egg.
“Do you know what a Bose-Einstein condensate is?” Jazz asked.
“I know who Einstein was,” said Pure. “And is Bose the speaker guy?”
Jazz rolled her eyes. “I don’t waste my breath explaining this stuff to people who are never going to get it.”
“I feel that way about my entire life.”
“For what it’s worth, I doubt I’d be able to converse about this with Einstein himself. We’re way beyond spooky action at a distance at this point and well into the realm of spooky action here and now.”
“Explain it to me anyway,” he said. “I promise to ask a lot of dumb questions and you can come away from the conversation feeling all superior. It’s all upside for you.”
Jazz nodded. “The Bose-Einstein condensate is a type of matter that exists only the barest fraction of a degree above absolute zero. People have been making these things for close to half a century, but they’re pretty esoteric. They don’t have much use in the day-to-day world, but one nifty thing you can do with the condensate is stop light.”
“I can stop light with a window shade.”
“A window shade absorbs or reflects light. But the condensate actually freezes a photon dead in its tracks, until the condensate goes out of phase and lets the light move on, as if it had never been stopped.”
“Okay,” said Pure.
“The time-geeks here at the mountain have gone a trick better. They’ve created the condensate in an extra-dimensional jar and instead of stopping photons, they catch and hold tachyons.”
“I know about tachyons, in a Star Trek kind of way,” said Pure. “They move faster than light.”
“Correct,” said Jazz. “And they move backwards in time. Except for this jar, tachyons never interact with the real world.” She made little quote marks with her fingers as she said the word “real.”
“So the tachyons get caught in the jar and power the time machine,” said Pure.
“That’s somewhat simplified, but yes. You put a little energy into the time jar, the condensate goes out of phase, and the tachyons spill out. For a brief second, there’s a chain reaction. The delayed tachyons can interact with surrounding matter for a negative fraction of a second. Any atoms the tachyons hit as they come out of the jar get pushed back in time.”
“I’m either smarter than I thought or you’re good at explaining stuff. What you’re saying almost makes sense. So why did I hear so many rumors that the time machine didn’t work? And if it does work, why can’t we use it to go back and undo what you did to Cassie? That’s what I came here to talk to you about. I think I’ve kept quiet too long. I acknowledge up front that you’re presently my strongest ally if I want to stop Atlantis. But I want you to fix Cassie. You had no right to do what you did to her brain.”
“I’ve no right to do anything I ever do,” said Jazz. “I find the whole concept of rights to be a crutch. There’s no creator granting us rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The one so-called right that is universal is that we may do whatever we wish to do as long as we’re stronger than anyone who would try to stop us.”
“Are you saying might makes right?”
“That’s a bit simplified, but, yes.”
“I’m confused,” said Pure. “Are you a left wing nut or a right wing nut?”
“I’m the only sane person on the planet,” Jazz said, with a wink. “This is why I plan to rule the world. The rest of you need me to save you from yourselves. As for Cassie, I’ll help when the time is right. Believe it or not, I care for my sister. Unfortunately, Atlantis is a more urgent problem.”
“Understood,” said Pure. “And now we have a time machine. How do we use it to go back and stop all this from happening?”
“Ah, there’s the rub,” said Jazz. She ran up the side of the hemisphere and grabbed the rim, dragging herself back to the man floor. “Come to the control booth.”
Jazz led Pure into a small room filled with video screens. She tapped something out on a keyboard and pointed to one of the monitors. The room they had just been in was on screen, looking whole and unspoiled. The time jar sat on a platform, surrounded by a bird’s nest of wires and sensors. There was no hemispherical hole in the floor. Then, a flash of white. Suddenly, the platform, the wires, and a big chunk of floor were gone.
“Ah,” said Pure. “The machine disintegrates stuff.”
“Nope,” said Jazz. “It’s all intact. I’ve run the calculations, read the notes. Pump energy into the time jar and you send matter back in time. Unfortunately, due to tachyon wavelength, it turns out you don’t go back very far. Five minutes, tops. If you pump more energy in to knock loose more tachyons, you just get a bigger physical area of time displacement, not a bigger time jump. You’ll notice this first hole in the floor is only about five feet across. Luckily, they were testing with about one watt of power. If they’d pumped in enough energy to light a sixty watt bulb, they would have taken out this control booth.”
“So . . . I don’t get it. If things are going back five minutes, then what? Why don’t they appear?”
“Here’s where the Mount Weather scientists overlooked the obvious,” said Jazz. “You should see some of the math they were doing to explain their results. It’s pretty funny. They thought that, with matter moving backwards only five minutes, it was colliding with itself. Obviously, if the atoms of the floor go back in time five minutes, they must be running into the floor atoms that were already there, right?”
“Makes sense.”
“And maybe the collision of the present matter with past matter releases energy that destroys the present matter?”
“Good theory,” said Pure. “I guess that does explain why things disintegrate.”
“Nope,” said Jazz. She had a smug, satisfied look on her face. “Things are moving back in time five minutes and surviving the trip. But the tachyons move objects through time, not space. Since Earth is moving around the sun at about 18.5 miles a second, it’s traveled over 5500 miles in those five minutes. Add this to the Sun moving around the galactic center at 150 miles per second, and you get another 45,000 miles on top of that. These are just off the top of my head of course. But I’m 99.9% sure the time machine works flawlessly. It may even have some practical uses. Launching things 50,000 miles into orbit at the flip of a switch could be very useful.”
Pure frowned. The time machine was a dead end. He considered arguing with Jazz more about Cassie, but didn’t see the point. Sadly, she was right. Atlantis was the most urgent problem.
“We’d best get back to work on finding the code to that bomb, then,” Pure said. “Then I can use the warp door to deliver it to Atlantis.”
“I like that plan,” said Jazz.
IT WAS THE SEVENTY-FIRST HOUR. Pure wasn’t precisely certain what was going to happen in the seventy second hour, but it was looking more and more like he was going to find out. Ever since he’d figured out his attack plan on Atlantis, he’d been tearing up the security offices in the mountain, looking for any clue to the code to unlock the nuke. So far, he’d had one major success. He’d located a tiny electronic key that synched with the warheads. The key constantly generated random numbers, but if the right security code was put into it, it would generate a successful access code for the warheads. Jazz was attempting to hack the key, but since it was the only one they had found she didn’t want to do the sort of destructive testing that would produce guaranteed results but also destroy the hardware.
Pure felt certain that he’d find the password. In addition to housing top-secret black ops projects and a shadow government, Mount Weather also warehoused an astonishing collection of paper. Imagine duplicating every form ever collected by the government. Double that number, then triple that. Mount Weather had so many stuffed filing cabinets it was difficult to believe there was a tree left standing on the planet. In one of these filing cabinets, Pure hoped he’d find the answer he needed. The population of the mountain had a fair share of compulsive note keepers. Somewhere there was a yellow sticky note on the inside of a folder with a string of numbers that would solve all their problems. Why else would his higher self have led him here?
As Pure dug through the folders, he heard a slight scuff of a shoe against a floor. He turned around. He had an excellent view of the barrel of a pistol, held by a familiar hand, and beyond this a familiar face.
“I would have not a single regret if I killed you,” said Hammer Morgan.
“I’m glad to see you too,” said Pure. “I thought Morningstar had finished you.”
Hammer looked half-dead, about as dead as Pure felt. He was pale, haggard, and covered with bandages. He wore a greenish hospital gown with a large brown stain plastered to his stomach. He was shivering, although years of practice kept his gun hand rock steady.
“They med-evaced me back to the mountain. I’d come out of surgery when Jazz told everyone to evacuate or get gassed. I’ve been holed up since, crawling through vents, looking for a clear shot at Jazz. Then I saw you. You’re going to take me to her, or I’ll kill you.”
“Don’t be like that,” said Pure. “Look, if you were going to kill me, you wouldn’t have made the speech. Put that silly thing down and let’s make up.”
“After all the damage you’ve caused?” asked Hammer. “Why have you done all this? Why have you betrayed your country? Why did you betray me? How did you get involved with a terrorist like Jasmine Robertson without me knowing about it?”
“Your arm’s going to be tired by the time I explain everything,” said Pure.
“Make it fast.”
“I know this is a leap of faith, but I think my soul is trapped in a higher dimension and has been guiding me toward something important. A series of weird clues led me around the country until I met Jazz. I think all along I was being guided here to help her stop Atlantis. Wanna help?”
Hammer lowered his gun.
“I can’t do it,” he said.
“Can’t help?”
“Can’t kill you, damn it. Your crazy weirdness was always the aspect that charmed me.”
Pure held open his arms, inviting a hug. Hammer didn’t move toward him. Hammer no longer even looked at him. Pure stepped forward and embraced him. For a few seconds, Hammer was stiff and unresponsive, like hugging a telephone pole. Then Hammer softened and sagged into the hug, wrapping his arms around Pure. Pure felt the weight of the gun against the small of his back.
“I never meant for you to get hurt,” Pure whispered.
“I really thought I could shoot you,” Hammer whispered back.
Hammer broke the embrace. “Look, I’m dead serious. You know I have to stop you, right? You and your friends have had a good run, but you can’t honestly hope to get away with this in the long term.”
Pure glanced at his watch. “Long term is about ten minutes. Then Atlantis delivers the ballots. Whatever that means.”
“I caught some of this Atlantis nonsense on the TV in the infirmary. I assume it’s some kind of media hoax?”
“That would certainly be convenient, but, no.” Pure filled Hammer in as best he could. He was frustrated by how few actual facts he had, how much was mere speculation. He concluded with his plan for taking a nuke through the warp door to kill Atlantis before it could destroy human civilization.
“That’s not a bad plan,” said Hammer. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe you should have turned Mount Weather over to the rightful authorities so that they could implement it?”
“Huh,” said Pure. “What a strangely obvious idea. Somehow, I don’t think Jazz will play along. But I wonder if—”
An announcement over the loudspeaker interrupted him.
“Everybody get to the senate chamber,” said Jazz. “We’re under attack by a damn angel.”
Later, Pure would learn that the electronically sealed doors had simply swung open as the angel approached. The angel had first visited all the soldiers guarding the outer doors and given them their ballots. Some of the men had fired on the angel. It had no effect.
The angel had then moved into the mountain. The members of the West Virginia Underground had provided no resistance. They’d simply bowed before the angel, accepted their ballots, and let the angel pass.
In the senate, Jazz was waiting with Cassie. Cassie was in a wheel chair, her arms strapped down to the chair arms, her legs also bound. Her scalp had been shaved and wires ran into ugly blue bruises. She gurgled inarticulately as Jazz sat behind her, tapping furiously on a keyboard. Stacked all around them were dozens of computers and monitors, displaying streams of numbers.
“About time you got here,” Jazz said without looking up as Pure helped Hammer into the senate chamber. “Things are about to get exciting.”
“This is inhumane,” snarled Sue from where she sat. She and Chase were sitting in seats reserved for the senators from New York. They were being guarded by Gabe and Hezekiah. “How can you do this to your own sister?”
“You’re killing her,” said Chase, choking up. He attempted to rise but Gabe pushed him back into his chair.
“Let’s hope not,” said Jazz. “If she dies, we’re screwed. Who’s your friend, Pure?”
Pure helped Hammer into a seat.
“I’m Hammer Morgan.” With an effort that showed on his face, Hammer lifted his gun and sat it on the table in front of him. “You’re all under arrest.”
Jazz laughed. “You must be the patient that went missing from the infirmary. Evacuation records showed the head count was off by one. You’re pretty good at hiding, though. I couldn’t find you in any of my scans.”
“I’m head of security,” said Hammer. “I know this place better than anyone.”
“What are you doing to her?” Pure asked, approaching Jazz.
“I’ve almost got that signal decoded. I think I can dupe it now. And, as much as I hate to do this to Cass, her brain is the only computer I have access to that has a hope of handling this. I hope you’re not as squeamish as those two, Pure.”
“Where’s Morningstar?” asked Pure.
“I was going to ask you the same . . .”
Her voice trailed off as she looked up the stairs.
Pure followed her gaze.
There was an angel in the room.
In utter silence, the angel approached Pure and handed him a ballot. The ballot looked like it had been carved from a seashell. One side had a button that said “yes” and the other had a button that said “no.” The angel moved on, handing a ballot to Hammer, who accepted it without saying a word.
The angel then moved toward Sister Sue.
Jazz yelled, “Gotcha!”
The angel paused. “Curious,” he said. “I can no longer hear Atlantis.”
“I’ve jammed the signal!” said Jazz. “Take him, boys.”
Gabe and Hezekiah attacked. Hezekiah was the fastest, swinging the enormous axe over his head, producing a loud crack as the metal bit into the angel’s stony face. As the angel staggered backwards, Gabe followed up with a kick to its chest. Before Gabe’s leg could move away from the chest, the angel grabbed it with both hands. The angel steadied itself with spread wings, then gave the leg a fierce yank. The leg came free of Gabe’s body in a shower of sparks and a gush of fluids.
“Shit,” said Jazz, as Gabe tumbled to the floor.
Hezekiah struck again, and again the axe found purchase in the angel’s head. The angel countered by punching out, placing his fist into Hezekiah’s huge torso. When the angel drew out its hand, it held a mass of wires and tubes that burst and sparked as the angel squeezed. The mighty prophet Hezekiah went weak in the knees, then fell.
The angel looked a little unsteady itself. It placed its hands on the huge gash in its forehead and said, “Local damage severe. Request repairs.”
“They aren’t coming,” said Jazz. “I’ve cut you off from your alien masters. Now I’m hitting you with signals that disrupt those tiny machines you are made of. You’re dead.”
The angel shook its head. “I’m designed to serve and protect humanity, but your assault on me cannot be tolerated.”
The angel flapped its wings and flew across the room in a single bound, landing in front of Jazz and Cassie. The angel’s skin was beginning to crack and flake, but it showed no sign of pain. The angel took Cassie’s head into his stony fingers and said, “She’s the source of the signal. I apologize for what I must do.”
Then a snarl, and a flash of feathers, and the angel was no longer standing in front of Cassie. Instead, the angel was on the floor underneath a large, angry dragon. Morningstar raked furiously at the angel’s guts with his hindclaws as he gnawed the angel’s skull between his saw-tooth jaws. With a snap, the angel’s head burst, shattering to gravel. This made the angel mad. Its vocal qualities unimpeded by its missing mouth, the angel growled, “Graaaaaagh!” as it grabbed Morningstar by the throat and tossed him roughly across the chamber. Morningstar spread his wings in the middle of the arc of his involuntary flight, whirling up and around, flapping to gain altitude. Then it dived as the angel struggled to its feet. With a sound like a tree trunk snapping, Morningstar collided with the angel’s left wing, tearing it off. Morningstar whirled again, raking his hind claws across the angel’s damaged back. Large seams were spreading across the angel’s torso. The damaged angel swung out at the dragon, but his left arm fell off just below the shoulder. Morningstar struck again and the angel shattered, falling to the floor as a mound of gravel.
Everyone stared silently as the dragon stood in the midst of the settling dust, its eyes fiery with reflected light.
“Now that I’m not on the receiving end,” said Hammer, “that’s one impressive lizard.”
“I like him,” Pure said. “Good job, Morningstar.”
“I don’t want your praise, Pure,” said Morningstar. “I sought you out because I grow impatient. When will you keep the promise you made to me in the forest? When will I see my attorney and my agent?”
“Agent?” asked Hammer.
“Don’t ask,” said Pure.
ON THE DAWN of the third day, the world was pulled apart, as Atlantis had promised. The angels rose from the island’s still changing sky line and moved ever higher, above the levels where they’d destroyed the missiles, high into the vacuum of space. They sought out the satellites that allowed the inhabitants of the blue world beneath them to communicate with one another. One by one, they shoved them from orbit, to burn in the atmosphere below.
Around the world, phones went dead, radios fell silent, and televisions broadcast only static.
When the last of the satellites fell, the angels moved to carefully calculated positions around the globe. They unfurled their wings. Then they exploded, in fantastic bursts of electromagnetic radiation.
Around the world, lights went out. The static-tuned televisions went black. Cars ground to a halt and the thick air that hung over the roads stank with the odor of burnt wire.
Boats chugging across the ocean had their propellers fall lifeless. Inspections of fuel tanks found all the fuel gone, replaced with pale blue dust.
Planes lost all response from their engines and began to fall. Angels appeared and positioned themselves beneath the wings of the crippled aircraft and guided them to the ground.
In the powerless hospitals, where even the backup generators had failed, nurses rushed into rooms to check on their most seriously ill patients to find them sitting upright in bed, healthy and whole, with angel feathers still drifting from the open windows.
It was around then that people began to discover their ballots.
Mariah experienced a typical discovery. She’d finally left the bedside of her daughter and had been fixing coffee when the lights went out. She’d looked out the window, noticing that the whole neighborhood appeared to be without power. This wasn’t ground for panic. There’d been rolling blackouts all summer long.
She had gone in to check on Anna.
Anna was no longer in her bed.
“Anna?” Mariah had cried out.
“Mother?” Anna had said from the bathroom.
Mariah went in. Anna stood before the mirror, staring at her face. Her skin was flush, her eyes wide open and clear. Anna’s legs were sturdy and supported her without a trace of weakness. Only moments before she’d been a pale, blind, skeletal thing.
“It’s happened!” Mariah shouted.
“I’m better,” said Anna. “I thought I was going to die and then I dreamed there was an angel telling me I would be well and then I woke up. I-I don’t think I’m sick any more.”
“It’s a miracle,” said Mariah.
Anna looked at her, her face a mixture of fear and joy. “And there’s something else strange,” said Anna. “When I woke up, I had this in my hand.”
Anna held out her palm. In it lay a pale pinkish spiral disk, like a snail’s shell, only much thinner. It was about the size and thickness of a half dollar. There was writing on the surface and in the center of the disk there was a button.
Mariah recognized it instantly. Though she had never seen it before, she knew there was one in the pocket of her apron. She took it out. On one side it read “yes” and on the other it read “no.”
And, never having seen it before, she understood fully what it was and how it worked. If you pressed the button on the yes side, you would be taken away to Paradise. If she pressed the side that said no, she would remain here, in the world she knew, only it would no longer be the world she knew. There would no longer be cars or busses or trains, no longer be supermarkets or television, no phones or fire trucks or credit cards.
What shocked Mariah the most was discovering what a difficult choice that was.
PRESIDENT LOPEZ-NELSON looked at the ballot he held with the same expression he might have possessed if he’d found a scorpion in his hand. Atlantis was taking away all of the foundations of human civilization, like electricity and communications. He would never again address the American people via television. All the things that made America great, the armies, the banks, the teaming cities, were crippled or gone, flicked off like a light switch.
In the silent White House, Lopez-Nelson leaned back in his chair and sat the ballot on his desk. He knew he would press “no,” if he bothered to press the thing at all. America was more than its tanks and fighter jets, more than balance sheets and budgets with nearly endless strings of zeroes. He wouldn’t abandon the country he loved in the time of its greatest need.
If Atlantis thought that by crippling the nation’s technological infrastructure it would draw citizens to it, it had greatly miscalculated. People would fight this. He was sure of it. He was ready to lead that fight.
CHAPTER TWENTY
* * *
ONE SMALL HITCH
“SO I GUESS YOU AND I should talk,” said Hammer.
Hammer was in the large kitchen off from the research quarters. The room was dim, the lights half out. He’d been restless, in too much pain to sleep, yet feeling good about the pain. His body was knitting itself back together. That always hurt, but pain and progress were intertwined in matters of healing. He’d come to the kitchen to get some water and found Chase there, standing in front of the open refrigerator.
Chase looked back at him. “So it’s true,” he said. “You’re my grandfather.”
“Yeah.”
“Does Dad know the truth?” asked Chase. “Was I the only one kept in the dark?”
“No one knows,” said Hammer. “When I was approached to work in the security force here, I was offered a variety of cover stories. Nobody is allowed to put Mount Weather on their resume. So the residents here have cover stories that allow for a certain remoteness. For the short timers, some claim to be stationed in Antarctica, others claim to be part of submarine crews, and, of course, for lifers, there’s the option I took. Once you’ve been declared dead, there’s no going back. You’re part of the mountain forever.”
“Why did you do it?”
Hammer leaned against one of the stainless steel tables. He looked down at the floor and took a deep breath. He focused momentarily on the ripping sensations within him, as if his insides had been fastened together with fishing hooks that dug deeper with each breath.
He sighed. . “You’ve heard by now that I’m . . . I have . . . a preference. For men.”
“Yeah,” said Chase. “That doesn’t matter to me. Does it matter to anyone anymore?”
“I grew up in a different time,” said Hammer. “Things weren’t as clear cut. From an early age, I wanted to be a soldier, but back then, homosexuals weren’t allowed in the military, not openly. And, at the time I wasn’t a hundred percent sure of my orientation. A lot of decisions I made in my life were decisions of convenience. It was more convenient to be heterosexual. My parents thought I was straight, and I did what I could not to disappoint them. Your grandmother was a girl I’d known since grade school. I even took her to the prom. She was the first person I kissed. It wasn’t a tough decision to marry her. Our sex life was kind of pathetic, but I didn’t have anything to compare it too. It wasn’t until I hooked up with a guy overseas that I discovered what satisfying sex was supposed to feel like.”
“Lately, everyone is being far more blunt with me than they need to be,” said Chase.
“Sorry. Suffice it to say my home life was a mess as I began to explore my . . . um, interests. The fact that your grandmother had gotten pregnant only dug the hole I was in even deeper. I devoted my energies to my career to avoid being home as much as possible, since I had this terror that one day in a moment of weakness I would tell her the truth. My dedication to my career caught the attention of covert services. When I was offered the chance to shed my old life . . . I took it. I don’t know of any more concise way to say it.”
“You abandoned your son,” said Chase.
“Yes,” said Hammer. “It was the best decision possible. I would have been a lousy father if I’d kept living a lie. But when Mount Weather faked my death, my family received a very generous insurance settlement. I was a better provider dead than alive. I’ve followed Adam’s career. It looks like he made good use of the education the money bought him.”
“That sounds like something my Dad would say to me,” Chase said. “That his selfishness and distance is all for my benefit. Meeting you explains a lot.”
“Sorry,” said Hammer. “I wasn’t a good role model.”
“It’s too late for sorry,” Chase said. As he uttered the words, his voice broke, as if on the verge of crying. Setting his jaw, Chase closed the refrigerator and walked out of the room.
Hammer took another deep breath, just to feel the fishhooks.
MORNINGSTAR MOVED through the mountain with the grace and silence of a cat. His serpentine body was perfect for slithering through ventilation shafts. No part of the mountain was closed to him. He remembered the fairy tales of his youth. Dragons made their homes in caves. Morningstar could see the appeal.
It had been a few days since he’d last eaten. Earlier he’d talked with Pure in the kitchen, where Pure was making something he called a “burger.” Pure had tried to explain the advantages of cooking meat, something about microbes, but Morningstar hadn’t paid close attention. Fresh killed meat was his menu of choice. Since there were no horses in the mountain, he found himself idly wondering which of the humans he would devour. Probably Sue. Morningstar had never eaten a woman, but most of the horses he’d eaten had been female, and he wondered if female humans tasted better than the males. Plus, Morningstar liked Pure and Pure hated Sue. No doubt Pure would be grateful. Perhaps he’d even like to share the liver or some other choice morsel.
As he contemplated his future meal, Morningstar caught Sue’s scent. Curious, he crept through the vents until he found the room her smell was coming from. Even without looking inside, he could tell she wasn’t alone. The girl was with her, Cassie.
He peeked through the vent.
Cassie was stretched out in on a hospital bed with tubes in her arm. Cassie was paler than when Morningstar had last seen her. Morningstar instinctively recognized that her condition was worsening. She would be dead soon without intervention.
Sue stood beside Cassie, holding something in her hand. Morningstar looked closer. It was one of the small disks the angel had dropped. A ballot.
Sue placed the ballot into Cassie’s hand.
“I don’t know if you can hear me,” said Sue. “But I want you to use this. I want you to go to Atlantis. I think they can help you there. They can fix what your sister has done to you.”
Cassie said nothing. The ballot lay in her limp fingers.
“I can’t go with you,” said Sue. “Atlantis sounds wonderful, but the promise of what will happen to the rest of the world . . . that truly sounds like Heaven. Think of it. A world without automobiles or phones or skyscrapers, a world without highways or television or plastic. A paradise as fresh and pure as the one the Lord created. It’s a dream I’ve had all my life, but never believed I would see.”
Morningstar’s nostril’s twitched. Someone else was approaching, the boy. Chase was low on his list of people to eat. He struck Morningstar as bland and unappetizing.
Chase entered the room and asked, “How’s she doing?”
“I don’t know,” said Sue. “I don’t even know if she can hear me.”
“I can’t believe Jazz did this. You know, all the months I’ve known Cassie, it’s always been Jazz this and Jazz that. Her sister was her hero. But this is the most awful thing I’ve ever seen one person do to another. Given my own family history, that’s saying a lot.”
“We have to get her out,” said Sue. “I’m a little unclear on the specifics, but Jazz is hiding us from Atlantis. We need to get her outside the mountain, so that Cassie can use the ballot and get to Atlantis.”
“I’ll help if you have a plan,” said Chase. “But I don’t have a clue how to get out of here. This place is like a maze. Plus there’s all of those militia guys to get past. But I’ll do whatever it takes.”
Morningstar thought the matter through. He’d studied the vents and passageways sufficiently to know that leaving the compound was simple. You could follow the vents to one of the missile silos and leave without ever encountering one of the militiamen. He could see that the silos had been welded shut, but this didn’t strike him as an insurmountable obstacle. Assisting a damsel in distress was the purest form of chivalry.
He pushed aside the vent cover and lowered his head into the room. Chase jumped backwards as Morningstar hissed, “Might I be of assistance?”
EVENTS WERE NOW MOVING at a rapid clip. The world finally made perfect sense to Alex Pure. All the random pinball careening around the country finally stood revealed as part of an important and urgent mission. Obviously, his higher self in the warp had some ability to see the future. It knew Atlantis was coming, and had put together all of these elements to stop it. He’d collected the dragon to stop the angel. He’d hooked up with Chase to get to the dragon, which hooked him up with Cassie, which hooked him up with Jazz to get him into Mount Weather, which happened to have the best weaponry to stop Atlantis in its tracks. As near as Jazz could determine, Mount Weather was the only place left on Earth with electric lights. She’d refined the signal jamming, so now Mount Weather was invisible to Atlantis. The EMP’s that had wiped out power above ground were harmless against Mount Weather’s shielding. They were Earth’s last, best hope. There was, sadly, one small hitch.
“I don’t have the codes,” said Hammer, toying with the nuke key in his hand. “I’m chief of security, not the president. I can’t unlock this.”
Pure couldn’t believe his higher self was playing with him like this.
He turned to Jazz. “You say if you attempt to hack the code, the bomb will detonate?”
“Yes. This isn’t like the movies. This isn’t a ‘should I snip the blue wire or the green wire’ situation. You touch any wire on this thing without inputting the right code and it will go off. The government was worried about terrorists getting their hands on these and back-engineering them.”
“Then triggering it really isn’t a problem,” said Pure. “It must be what I’m here for. I go to Atlantis, yank wires, and boom. Pretty obvious.”
“I see where you’re making your mistake,” said Jazz. “When I say it will explode, I mean the detonation charge, not the nuclear material. It will blow up everything within fifty feet and spray plutonium everywhere, but we aren’t talking doomsday device.”
“Yeah,” said Hammer. “It’s not like they let someone trigger a nuclear warhead simply by yanking on a long string.”
“Then we’re screwed,” said Pure. “What a colossal waste of time.”
Jazz snapped fingers. “Time!”
“What?” said Pure.
“We don’t need an atom bomb,” Jazz said. “We need a time-bomb.”
Hammer asked, “This helps us how?”
“The time field back in the chrono-lab. It spreads out from the actuator in a distance proportional to the energy that’s put into it. We can hook the actuator to the bomb. The detonation charge will spread the field for miles. I need to do the math, but I think we can shove the whole damn island into space.”
“What if Atlantis came from space?” asked Hammer. “Will that kill it?”
“You got a better idea?” Jazz asked.
“It will work,” Pure said. “I feel it. It’s like the last piece of the puzzle. I’m here to carry the time-bomb through the warp.”
“That is an option,” said Jazz. “But a better option is to have one of my robots do it. I’ve got Hezekiah and Gabriel in the repair tanks right now. Hez should be operational a few hours. He can take the time-bomb through.”
“Won’t work,” Pure said. “The higher dimension responds to consciousness. Your robots will probably work the same way that tossing in a baseball does. They’ll just come out in Texas.”
“I’ve been to Texas,” Jazz said. “I wouldn’t mind throwing it into outer space.”
“Stay focused,” said Pure.
“You’re right,” said Jazz. “This is the best plan I got. If you’re willing to die to make this happen, I’m not going to stop you.”
“Your plan sucks,” said Hammer.
“Why?” asked Pure. “What won’t work?”
“I didn’t say it wouldn’t work.”
PURE LIFTED THE BACKPACK. It was heavy as hell, easily a hundred pounds, but not all that big, really. Strip away the Kevlar covering and it was a metal sphere about a foot around. The actuator for the time-bomb was barely the size of a donut, wired into the metal sphere in what looked like the Gordian knots uglier older sister. Pure was glad that Jazz understood how this crap worked. He sure didn’t.
“I’ve rechecked the figures,” she said. “This thing is going to create a field a dozen miles in radius. It’s going to shove Atlantis, plus a hefty chunk of ocean out into space. Anything left of the island will be destroyed in the resulting tidal wave.”
“Let’s do this,” said Pure, slinging the pack over one arm.
It was a long, quiet walk to the spook lab. The codes had been changed since Pure had worked there, but Jazz made short work of all the pass codes and security locks. Ten minutes later, they were back in the control room. Jazz took her seat behind the main controls.
“Everything is fired up,” she said. “I’m going to try tracking you from here. The Houston end of the connection is off line, obviously, but if what you’re saying is right that shouldn’t matter. If we power up the door here, the duplicate door also powers up, right?”
“That’s how I understand it. It’s not a duplicate door. It’s another aspect of the same door.”
“Alex,” said Hammer, placing a hand on his shoulder. “This is a brave thing you’re doing. I’m proud of you.”
Pure took Hammer’s hand and held it against his cheek. It was rough and warm. It reminded him of earthly pleasures almost forgotten. Was he really going to be dead in five minutes? Not zombie-dead but actual dead-dead? Or could he survive even this, and wind up drifting among frozen ruins in orbit? Would he ever have another moment of tenderness with another human?
“Let’s make this one count,” Pure said, kissing Hammer.
Hammer resisted at first. Hammer wasn’t the sort of person who engaged in public displays of affection. But then, just as Hammer had surrendered to the hug in the filing room, he surrendered to the kiss. It wasn’t long. No tongues were pushed around, no lips nibbled. This wasn’t a kiss to arouse passion. This was a kiss to say something that had never been said between them. A kiss to say something neither of them would ever be able to say.
Pure pulled away. Without a word, he turned, as Hammer turned away as well.
Through the open door, there was a shadow. Sister Sue stepped into the doorway, her hands behind her back.
“Off to bomb Atlantis, eh?” said Sue.
“Yeah,” said Pure. “Here to wish me good luck?”
“I thought you knew me better than that,” said Sue.
She moved her arms in front of her, revealing her shotgun.
She placed the double barrel under Pure’s chin.
Pure felt the cold, hard metal circles against his throat. “Is there something you’re trying to tell me?” he asked.
Sue fired both barrels and Pure’s head became a gleaming pink mural against the ceiling.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
* * *
YOU IDIOT
HAMMER TACKLED SUE, who went down hard. Hammer felt the stitches in his gut tear loose, but he couldn’t stop. With a grunt, he pried the shotgun from her hands and flung it across the room.
“Are you crazy?” he shouted. “Do you know what you’ve done?”
“I saved the damn world,” Sue said, before biting Hammer on his wrist.
“Ow,” Hammer said. The old woman had sharp teeth. Hammer used his free fist to clock her in the side of the head. He didn’t knock her out, but the blow did shake her free.
“Saved the damn world,” she muttered.
An alarm went off on the phone Jazz had holstered on her hip. “What the hell?” she asked, looking at the screen.
“What is it?” asked Hammer.
“An Atlantean signal,” said Jazz. “Coming from just outside one of the silos.”
“It’s the ballot,” said Sue. “The angel dropped one when your robots attacked. I gave it to Cassie once you left her alone. Chase and Morningstar are helping her reach Atlantis. They’ll save her there, undo the harm you’ve done.”
“Damn it,” said Jazz, slamming her fist down on the console in front of her. “I need to stop her.”
Jazz got up and stalked toward the door as Hammer ripped away bits of Sue’s habit and used them to tie the old woman’s hands.
“There’s no time to deal with that now,” said Hammer. “Let Cassie go. Atlantis will be a gone in another two minutes. I’m taking the time-bomb there. I’ll finish Alex’s mission.”
“Let’s hope you can navigate the higher space,” said Jazz. “No offense to your boyfriend, but Pure was a little insane from the experience.”
“He wasn’t a poster boy for sanity before,” said Hammer. “The only thing that kept his thoughts organized were the pills. But, if he could navigate the warp, I’m sure I can.”
“What do we have to lose?” asked Jazz.
“My life. The world,” Hammer said. “But we’re out of options.”
Jazz pulled a small plastic capsule from behind her left ear.
“This is a long shot,” she said. “But take this. I’ve been using it to listen to the Atlantis signal. Normal Earth signaling technology couldn’t penetrate the warp, but maybe this will. With luck it can serve as a homing beacon.”
“Luck? I haven’t heard you leave anything to chance yet.”
“There’s a first for everything.”
Hammer rose, leaving Sue struggling and cursing against her bonds. He went to Pure’s body. Only the hands were recognizable as the man he once knew. There was nothing left above the neck but a few stringy remnants of flesh and hair. Hammer rolled the corpse over and worked the backpack loose. He struggled to lift it. With all the blood he’d lost, he felt dizzy, about to topple. He was shaking hard, dead on his feet. Only sheer will allowed him to pull the straps over his shoulder. Spots danced before his eyes. His legs turned to rubber. He fell, but strong hands caught him and lowered him gently to the floor.
“Sir,” said Morningstar, as Hammer’s vision cleared to find the big lizard’s face right before his. “What’s happened to my friend Pure?”
“This bitch blew his head off,” Jazz said, pointing at Sue.
“That settles the matter. I’d debated eating her prior to this. Now I shall do so to avenge the death of my friend.”
“Later,” Hammer said. “There’s no time now. You need to help me. Pure would want you to help me.”
“He’s right,” said Jazz. “You must help Hammer get to Atlantis.”
“Very well,” Morningstar said, lifting the pack from Hammer’s shoulder. “I saw that Pure had a great deal of affection for you. I shall assist you.”
Morningstar held the hundred pound pack like it was weightless. Hammer rose, steadying himself. Then he willed one foot in front of the other as he leaned toward the pitch-black spook door.
PURE FELL. THAT IN ITSELF was a novel experience. His previous excursions into the warp had felt like rising. But this time, as his headless body hit the floor, his consciousness had kept falling, passing through the ceiling of the room below, into the test animal enclosure, through the empty monkey cages, through the floor, and into the bedrock. He was falling through darkness and heat, through brimstone and silence, and for the first time in a long time he was genuinely afraid. He’d failed. He hadn’t stopped Atlantis, hadn’t saved the world, hadn’t accomplished one damn thing that his higher self had spent so long orchestrating. He’d earned this fall into hell.
“Oh, don’t be so melodramatic,” said a voice he recognized.
Pure emerged from the darkness into a womb of light. He blinked (a curious act, given that he had no eyelids, or eyes) and struggled to see anything amid the glare.
“I should have figured you’d fuck this up,” said the voice again.
Now Pure could see the source, a vaguely human outline, glowing brightly, but not as bright as his background. It was the higher Pure, glorified and naked, sitting on a throne made of subservient monkeys.
“I’m having a hard time seeing you,” Pure said, raising his non-existent arm to shield his non-existent face.
“That’s because you’re still conceptualizing sight in terms of organs. You’re thinking of the kind of sight that uses corneas and retinas and brain activity. Too bad you don’t have those things any more.”
“I remember . . . I remember Sue and her shotgun,” Pure said. “The cold metal under my chin, a loud noise. I think . . .”
“You think she blew your brains out,” said the purified Pure. “Your memories are dripping from the ceiling even now.”
“Can you fix me?” said Pure. “You fixed my other injuries.”
“No. A physical brain isn’t all that important here in the warp. But back in the physical world, it’s a necessary vessel of consciousness. It housed the memory your body used to repair itself. You won’t be going back to that body now.”
“Oh,” said Pure.
“Bummer, huh?”
“I was prepared to die,” Pure said. “I figured the bomb would kill me. But I hate that I didn’t stop Atlantis.”
“You idiot,” said purified Pure. “I’m so ashamed of you I could spit. I worked so hard putting all this together and you blew it.”
“I tried to get the bomb through the warp,” said Pure.
“Yeah. Good thing Sue stopped you.”
“Good thing? But I thought . . .”
“What? You thought what? That I was trying to guide you toward stopping the salvation of Earth? Idiot. You weren’t there to stop Atlantis. You were there to stop Jazz! You picked the wrong damn side!”
“Huh?”
“Good thing I have a backup plan,” said purified Pure. “Here, let me help you out with that brain thing.”
Suddenly the world around Pure snapped into focus. Only it was two worlds. One world was dark and cold and heavy, the ocean-floor world he would sometimes dream of, while the other world was the here and now of light and rainbows where he was weightless and alive. The purified Pure held out his arms, beckoning him closer.
Pure moved toward his higher self. He felt like he had a body again, although that body was cold and stiff and damp. But his higher self still glowed with radiance, his higher self was still angelic and beautiful.
Pure reached him, on the monkey throne, and held out his stiff, cold fingers to stroke the glorious, beatified face. The mask of illusion fell away, revealing his higher self as something far from Pure.
The man sitting on the throne was little more than a bloated cadaver. His skin was splotchy with bruises and boils, his red eyes sagged in their dark orbs, his lips were swollen and cracked, revealing a mouth full of rotten, snaggled teeth. Long needle tracks scabbed both arms.
“Lovely, yes?” the Pure on the throne said.
“My god,” said Pure. “What happened?”
“You happened, idiot. I happened. This is what we’ve done to ourselves.”
“I don’t understand . . .”
“What? You thought years of swallowing horse pills were good for you? You hid it well. You knew how to balance, how to maintain. But the damage was always there, underneath the surface. When you stepped into that warp, you were a year away from dying and didn’t even know it. You had tumors in your liver. If you’d gone sober for even one day you might have noticed how damn rotten you felt. For the record, this is how damn rotten you felt.” The diseased Pure waved his bony hands over his awful body.
“My God,” said Pure.
“Don’t talk about God,” said diseased Pure. “You don’t believe in him. You don’t believe in anything. You’re selfish, shallow, weak-willed, and dumb. No wonder you couldn’t figure out the clues.”
“Hey,” said Pure. “In my defense you’re a damn lousy clue maker. Why the fortune cookies and crossword puzzles? Couldn’t you just send me a damn e-mail?”
“You see a computer in here? I can’t affect anything in the real world, other than occasionally putting ideas in your head.”
“What about the earthquake in Charleston?” asked Pure. “Didn’t you cause that?”
“No. But I did know it was going to happen. And I knew you’d survive it. I steered you there in hopes of getting Hammer off your trail. In one version of events, he assumed you were dead after the quake. Alas, the events collapsed differently.”
“Events collapsed differently?” asked Pure. “What do you mean?”
“Look around you,” said the Pure on the throne.
Pure looked at all of the rainbows that swirled around him. He looked down at his feet and felt suddenly like he was surfing on the swirling light, riding a wave of windows each opening into tiny glimpses of the real world.
“What am I looking at?” Pure asked.
“Everything,” said the other Pure. “Literally everything. Through these windows you can see every point on Earth. Even more intriguingly, you can see every point in the present, and the futures.”
“Futures?”
“It’s difficult to comprehend. But from inside the warp, reality looks like a funnel. There’s a vast ocean of possibilities lying ahead of us. The present plows into this ocean, tossing most of it aside, forcing some of it into the narrow stream that turns into the past. I’m still learning to look at the future. It’s not easy. It’s like, I don’t know, trying to look at every last bit of information on the internet in one glance. You can track down one bit of information, but that information is tied into other bits, which are tied to other bits, and before you know it there is too much information to ever follow or comprehend. But, intriguingly, the future also has a funnel. All these possible futures start to hit a wall about fifteen minutes from now. Take a look.”
Pure tried. He couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing. Fields of lava, forest on fire, clouds of ash. Then ice. Ice everywhere.
“You are looking at the mass extinction of life on Earth,” said other Pure.
“Why?”
“Jazz’s time bomb works. But she hasn’t thought through the implications. She’s about to carve a giant chunk out of the planet. She’s taking not just Atlantis and a bunch of water and atmosphere, but miles of ocean floor and bedrock. The world will experience tidal waves like it’s never seen.”
“Actually, she mentioned tidal waves.”
“Did she mention what happens when the Atlantis chunk smashes back into the planet?”
“I don’t think she mentioned that.”
“This huge block of rock and ice is going to be spinning wildly in a shadow path of Earth’s orbit. Eventually, gravity is going to pull it back. In seventy-five days, it lands smack in the middle of Colorado. A global wildfire is triggered by the impact. The dust from the collision plus the smoke from the fires plunge earth into endless winter. Not even the cockroaches survive.”
“Wow,” said Pure. “When I screw up, I do it in style.”
“I hate that about you,” said other Pure. “This flip attitude. I show you the doom of mankind and all you can offer is a glib remark?”
“You hate that about me? I am you! And you got something better to offer than my attempt at levity? ’Cause I don’t have a lot of ideas.”
“Of course I have something better to offer. Watch the windows. In one future, you’ve stopped Jazz. Human civilization thrives on the city of Atlantis. It’s humanity’s golden age. Soon, people leave Atlantis to terraform and colonize other planets. Thanks to the city, mankind doesn’t merely survive, it flourishes. And you were going to put a bomb in the middle of it? Unbelievable.”
Pure tried to make sense of the chaotic images swirling before him. He was seeing dragons sitting on gilded thrones, and medieval castles rising high over a rocky river. In another window he saw himself, sitting by a campfire, sharing a cup of coffee with Sister Sue, who was wearing buckskin pants. Not exactly heaven on earth. Still, it beat mass extinction.
“I guess Sue comes out of this looking pretty good,” said Pure. “She stopped me from taking the bomb through, and by extension she’s stopped Jazz. Atlantis wins, right?”
“Wrong,” said other Pure. “Take a look.”
Through one of the rainbow windows, Hammer Morgan was staggering toward the warp door. Morningstar was by his side, steadying him, and carrying the time bomb.
“I should have known,” said Pure. “So, stop him. Sick the warp monkeys on him.”
“The warp monkeys helped you out because they like you. They act on their own urges. They don’t have any clue of the larger stakes here. If I’d been watching the right window to the future, maybe they would have stopped Sue. I didn’t anticipate her getting back from helping Cassie so quickly.”
“Then let’s talk to Hammer when he comes into the warp. We can convince him to stop.”
“Wrong again. Atlantis has introduced a new factor into the warp equation. It uses tesseract-like higher dimensions to facilitate travel through this underspace we dwell in. It has warp doors that actually work, unlike the crude toy we were playing with. Jazz is sending the Atlantis carrier signal into the warp. Hammer will be guided by this signal to the tesseract gates. His warp experience will be nothing like ours.”
Hammer hit the door and vanished.
“We’re screwed,” said Pure.
“Not completely,” said other Pure. “Remember the thing that makes spooky action at a distance so intriguing is that a single particle on a higher realm has two reflections in the material world.”
“Yeah? So?”
“So there’s another one of you. I’ve had your second body walking along the ocean floor to reach Atlantis for months now. You’re floating to the surface even as we speak.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
* * *
TELL ME ABOUT IT
HAMMER CLOSED HIS EYES but it didn’t help. Warp space was a maddening kaleidoscope of color and fractured images. The waves of possible destinations whipped past at cyclone speed. The signal from the radio receiver in his ear could be seen pulsing before him like a serpent, moving too fast for him to reach out and catch it.
Then Morningstar caught his right arm in the iron grip of his hindclaws. The dragon’s magnificent wings were spread, slowing their headlong plummet through the shattered dimensions.
“This is most unpleasant,” Morningstar shouted.
“Do you see the signal?” Hammer asked, pointing to the writhing rope that lay beyond his grasp.
“Yes. And I can see in the distance, it exits through a window, and beyond that window is a city.”
“Follow it,” said Hammer.
Then, before he felt any sense of motion, they were rudely dumped back into the real world, landing in the middle of a marble floor with a rib-cracking smack.
Hammer rolled to his back, looking up into blue sky. He was in what looked to be a Greek temple, with marble pillars framing the view. Everything was still, save for the gentle noise of distant surf.
Morningstar rose from his rough landing with a series of grunts. He untangled the backpack that held the bomb. Looming over Hammer, he said, “Let us make haste. The stone beneath us is murmuring. The city knows we’re here.”
PURE FELT AS IF his chest would burst.
He’d been pushed from the warp, back into the physical world. He was underwater, his lungs full of fluid, his eyes straining against the darkness. His guts felt distorted, full of sharp knives; his limbs were leaden. He kicked and waved as best he could, though he moved with turtle slowness. Above him, the faintest lessening of darkness could be seen. He rose, lifted by gasses in his swollen belly. He floated up to the light.
Pure calmed. The ocean was beautiful, the light filtering down to reach him like a gossamer curtain. He brought his hands toward his face. His fingers were swollen and wrinkled, as if he’d been in a tub for the last year. Algae darkened his nails. He brushed his tangled hair, pulling away chunks of seaweed.
Then, air. He tried to gasp, but couldn’t. His lungs were still full of water. He bobbed on the surface, disoriented and dizzy, as the waves carried him toward shore. In the corner of his vision, the city loomed, a land of tall crystal spires beneath a cerulean sky.
Slowly, he remembered why he was here. Hammer was coming, was possibly here already. He had a bomb. Pure needed to act, but he felt so cold, so slow, so lost.
His back bumped against sand. He flailed about, feeling ground beneath him, and soon was on his feet, knee deep in surf, stumbling toward a shore white as sugar.
On dry ground at last, he fell to his knees and coughed up gallons of dark, salty water. Tiny shrimp writhed in the run-off. He kept belching between coughs, as the gas in his belly fought to free itself. The sun was hot on his back. He felt like a bloated corpse, but, thanks to the sun, a warming, bloated corpse. The extra heat gave him strength. Pure pulled himself up and began to walk. He didn’t know his destination. He had no idea how to find Hammer. He could only wander and trust that the part of him still in the warp would guide him.
He staggered onto streets paved with pearl. All around him were throngs of people, laughing, singing, weeping with joy. It looked as if all the people of the world had pressed yes on the ballot. There were men and women of all races and nationalities. Pure blinked, wondering if he was dreaming. The scene was chaotic and beautiful. Women in snazzy business suits stood next to pygmies in loincloths. An Inuit man peeled off his seal parka in the shade of an orange tree. A group of Japanese schoolgirls in tidy uniforms ran around giggling. Any second now, every one of these people would be dead, freezing in the vacuum of space.
Pure moved on, gaining speed with each moment spent beneath the hot sun. He wandered through streets filled with music and light, past tables heaped high with delicacies, past pools in which children splashed. He wandered near a garden of sculptures that sang his favorite songs as he passed. He crossed through an orchard, filled with lemons and apples and kiwis and pears, grapefruit and cherries and plums and bananas, and countless other fruit he couldn’t recognize. The air around him fractured into little rainbows. Bony monkey hands snatched greedily at the bananas. Pure kept moving. Ahead of him was something like a Greek temple, a square rimmed with marble columns.
And in the square, a man hunched over a shiny bomb, as a dragon spread his wings to shelter the man from the sun.
Pure tried to shout, but his voice didn’t find any traction. Slime clogged his vocal cords. He coughed and spat, darkening the marble squares with gobs of green spittle. At last he managed the barest squeak as he tried to shout, “Hammer!”
It was enough. Hammer looked up, then recoiled at the sight of Pure approaching, seaweed draped, barnacle encrusted, corpse-pale. Hammer drew his gun as Pure attempted to run toward him. Pure’s legs couldn’t quite master the task, and he only staggered a bit faster.
Hammer lowered the gun.
“Alex?”
Pure was only a few yards away now.
“It’s me,” Pure said, with his broken voice. “Don’t use the bomb.”
Hammer shook his head. He knelt back over the bomb and said, “I don’t care what kind of trick this is.”
“It’s not a trick,” Pure said. “I’ve seen the future. Use the bomb and the whole world dies.”
“The real Pure is dead.” Hammer removed the cover plate of the bomb to reveal its tangled internal wiring. Hammer dug his fingers into the wire.
Pure lunged forward, falling, his hand reaching out to grab Hammer’s wrist. His momentum pushed Hammer’s hand away, luckily without damaging any wires.
“Please,” Pure said, dragging himself over the exposed wiring. “Give me five minutes to explain.”
“Get off,” Hammer said, tugging at Pure’s shoulders.
“Angel,” said Morningstar.
A shadow fell over them as a lone angel descended from the sky. The angel was frowning.
Hammer raised his gun and shot the angel in the face.
The angel didn’t flinch.
Morningstar leapt up to meet the angel, grappling with it, worrying the angel’s head within his toothy jaws.
“Morningstar,” Pure croaked. “Don’t fight him. Listen to me.”
But events, and bodies, had their own momentum. Morningstar and the angel smashed against a marble pillar, toppling it. Morningstar tried to leap free as the bulk of the pillar tumbled onto the angel, hiding it in a cloud of dust. A chunk of marble the size of a basketball caught Morningstar in the back of the neck. He crashed to the courtyard and lay still.
Hammer grabbed Pure by the hair and began to pull. He grunted and grumbled as he tugged Pure off the bomb.
“Another thing you got wrong,” he said, panting. “Pure wasn’t this heavy.”
“That’s sweet, but I’m not letting you trigger the explosion,” Pure said, rising to his feet, placing himself between Hammer and the bomb.
Hammer calmly aimed his gun and put a bullet into Pure’s left kneecap.
Pure toppled, cursing. He struggled to rise to a sitting position.
“This place is going to be swarming with angels any second,” said Hammer, kneeling before the bomb. “Maybe you are the real Alex. I don’t know. But there’s no time left for debate. At least we’ll die together. That has a certain romance, doesn’t it?”
With a grunt, Hammer tugged away a fistful of wire.
Nothing happened.
As the dust of the collapsed pillar settled, the angel was revealed to be unharmed.
“That’s a dangerous toy,” said the angel, as he strode toward Morgan. “Primitive, easily aborted, but still dangerous.”
Hammer snarled and punched the angel hard in the stomach. Pure winced as he heard bones crack all the way up to Hammer’s shoulder. Hammer fell backward on the white stone of the square, sucking in his breath.
“We can fix you,” said the angel, smiling at Hammer. The angel lifted the bomb. The outline of the metal began to shimmer. It turned into pink blossoms and blew away on the breeze.
Hammer fired three bullets into the angel’s torso.
The angel shook his head sadly. “There’s no need to struggle any more. Sleep.”
Hammer closed his eyes and went limp.
“Don’t hurt him,” Pure said. “He’s a good man.”
The angel looked at Pure. A quizzical expression crossed his face.
“You aren’t completely here,” said the angel.
“Tell me about it,” said Pure.
The angel’s stony eyes cut angles and arcs as it studied the air around Pure. “Your math is broken. You’re trapped outside conventional dimensionality.”
“That’s one impressive diagnosis,” Pure said.
“Here,” said the angel, reaching into the air near Pure. “Take my hand.”
Pure didn’t move. The world twisted and shattered around him as if he were standing in a kaleidoscope. He realized his hand was now in the angel’s hand. He was standing up, his body no longer waterlogged, his knee whole again. The shards of the world slipped and clicked together like a puzzle. His vision cleared. A dozen monkeys fell from the air around him, yelping and chattering as they scampered away.
Pure felt dizzy. Spots danced in front of his eyes.
“Now that you’re no longer in the warp,” the angel said, “you’ll need to breathe again.”
Pure gasped, tasting the sea breeze, feeling the blood in his veins. He felt strange. But it was a familiar strangeness.
“I’m alive!” he said.
“I’ve removed the dimensional paradox that kept you divided,” said the angel. “Welcome to Atlantis.”
Pure looked up into the bright sky, lifted his strong, healthy, unblemished arms and shouted, “I’m alive!”
“Alive, and with a choice to make,” said the angel. “Do you accept the promise of Atlantis? Do you wish to dwell here forever?”
“Gee,” said Pure. “This is a no brainer.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
* * *
ONE MONTH LATER
I-77 THROUGH WEST VIRGINIA was a good road for biking now that the traffic was gone. Chase had been riding 70 to 80 miles a day for the last three weeks and his body was starting to show it. His legs were thicker and there wasn’t a hint of fat anywhere on his torso. All in all, Chase felt better physically than he ever had before.
Chase was part of the communications system for the town of Billings. His job was to travel the highways in search of people who’d chosen to stay behind. In the aftermath of the Atlantis ballots, three quarters of the population of the town had simply vanished. Those who stayed behind had enlisted able-bodied men like Chase to help contact scattered relatives they suspected might also have refused the offer of Atlantis. The people who remained behind were an odd bunch, mostly from groups who had existed on the fringes of the community. There were a surprising number of Wiccans coming out of the woodwork, and he would never have guessed West Virginia had such a large population of Buddhists. In any case, the remaining townspeople had pulled together to deal with the day-to-day problems of survival.
Problem one: No electricity. Atlantis had unleashed electromagnetic pulses that had crippled the entire North American grid. No one knew if it would ever be up and running, or if power did return, what would keep Atlantis from shutting it down again.
Problem two: No gasoline. Some sort of chemical agent unleashed by Atlantis had turned all gasoline into powder. The electromagnetic pulse had fried the motors of electric cars, save for a few sheltered in underground garages, but these had no convenient way of being recharged. People were once again traveling by horseback, or bicycle, or on foot.
Problem three: No phones, or radio, or television. No one was sure what was happening in the broader world. This was the strangest thing to get used to. His whole life, Chase lived in a culture that took instantaneous dissemination of information for granted. There was something exciting about living in a world where you didn’t have twenty different ways of finding out tomorrow’s weather.
Chase coasted down an exit ramp. There was a gas station at the bottom of the ramp, abandoned and looted. The windows were smashed in, glass and trash littered the pavement. Chase pulled to a stop near the open door, and called out, “Hello?”
The rustle of wind was the only answer.
The place looked pretty well smashed up but Chase thought it might be worth looking around. He unstrapped the pistol from under the seat of the bike. He stepped cautiously into the gloomy interior, his eyes adjusting to the shadows. The interior was gutted. The drywall had been pulled loose, wires and light fixtures had been stolen, for who knows what purpose. The shelves were completely empty save for some empty cardboard boxes and tons of candy wrappers. Chase quickly came to the conclusion he was wasting his time. He went back into the light.
An angel and two strangers were waiting by his bike. Chase kept his pistol held low, careful not to make any aggressive moves. He knew the weapon would be useless against the angel, and he didn’t want to give this creature any excuse to take the weapon away. The two humans with him, a man and a woman, were smiling, yet also looked slightly scared. There was something familiar about them, especially about the man. Chase realized with a start that the reason the man looked familiar was that he’d seen the face in the mirror. The guy looked a lot like him. And the woman . . . actually, she kind of looked the way his mother had looked in old pictures, back before she fell into a coma.
“Son,” said the man.
“Oh, Chase,” said the woman, rushing forward suddenly and wrapping her arms around him.
“Do I know you?” he asked.
“Yes,” the man said, moving closer. “I’m your father, Chase. And this is your mother. The angels have healed us.”
“Mom?” Chase said, pushing her away and holding her arms. He studied her face. Her eyes were wet with tear of joy. “Oh my God, Mom! You’re awake!”
“I’m all better,” said Jessica. “The angel fixed me. But, oh, Chase, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there all those years. It had to be so hard on you.”
Chase let go of the woman who claimed to be his mother and turned away, gritting his teeth. “No,” he said. “I don’t believe this. This isn’t happening.”
“It’s true, Chase,” said Adam. “Atlantis can cure any wound. Your mother and I are fresh and new, healthier even than the day we were married.”
“Atlantis told us you didn’t choose to come,” said Jessica. “Why?”
“I know you couldn’t know that we were there,” said Adam. “And I know that I hadn’t given you a lot of reasons to come visit me. I wasn’t the best father. That can change now. We have all of eternity to be a family.”
Chase swallowed hard. He scrunched his eyes closed, not daring to look back.
“You’re not them,” he said, his voice trembling.
“Chase, please listen,” said Adam. “This is a second chance. Atlantis doesn’t give second chances. The ballots were a one-time process only. The city used them to select people who would be open to a new life, and to eliminate people who might not adapt well. Millions of people have begged for a second chance to contact loved ones and relatives who didn’t come to Atlantis. We were only given this chance because Atlantis feels a special connection to me. Come back with us.”
“No,” said Chase. “I knew what I was doing when I decided to stay behind. Whoever you are, I ask you to respect that.”
“But why?” asked Jessica.
“Not so long ago I thought I was in love with this girl,” Chase said. “I wasn’t. She didn’t love me. But because of what I thought I felt, I did some pretty stupid things. Now that I’ve had time to think about it, I can see how I fooled myself so badly. I wanted to love and be loved. So pardon me if I’m a little skeptical of an alien city coming to Earth and promising love, love, love. I’m not falling for it.”
“Son,” said Adam. “Don’t be so bitter. I truly did love you.”
“I love you too,” said Jessica. “I know I haven’t been there for you, but you’re my son. Please come back to Atlantis with us. Atlantis is giving us forever. We can make up for lost time.”
“It’s perfect there,” said Adam. “Like Heaven. There’s no hate or want, there’s no need the city doesn’t provide. Whatever pain or emotional scars I’ve inflicted on you over the years . . . Atlantis can help. It can help us understand each other in ways I can’t even describe. We can be a family there, Chase. We can be whole.”
Chase chuckled, and turned back to the people claiming to be his parents. Looking at their faces, their hopeful eyes, he knew it was all true.
“I believe you,” said Chase. “I believe you’re my mother and father. And I believe in that Atlantis is like Heaven. Maybe it is Heaven, and everyone there can love because no one’s hungry, or hurting, or sad.”
“So you’ll come back with us,” said Jessica, her voice bright and happy as if he’d already said yes.
“No,” said Chase. “It’s seductive, it’s tempting, but it’s wrong. So people love each other in paradise. So people love each other when all their physical and emotional needs are met, when they’ve got nothing to worry about. Big fucking deal. It’s learning to love here in the real world that’s the challenge. It’s learning to love when you’re sick, or traumatized, or just too damn busy. Because if you don’t have to work at love, then what’s it worth?”
“You don’t understand,” said Adam.
“I think I do. And . . . I want it. I want us to be a family. So; let’s do it,” said Chase. “Let’s be the family we should have been, living together, sharing everything, getting to really know each other. But let’s do it here. Forget Atlantis. Love me in my world.”
“If that’s what it takes,” said Jessica, opening her arms once more to hug her son. “I’ll stay. There’s no promise of eternity that can keep me from you after this second chance.”
Chase wrapped his arms around her and started to sob. Something in his chest had snapped, a floodgate opened as he thought of what she was sacrificing. Was he being selfish? Selfish or not, this was more than he’d ever dreamed of. His mother was alive, and she loved him, and nothing could ever go wrong in the world.
Chase kept expecting his father to join in the hug.
He opened his eyes.
Through a blur of tears, he could see that his father and the angel were gone.
CASSIE WAS SITTING on the beach, watching the waves. The sensation of vision was still a miracle to her. The city offered countless seductions and distractions, riots of colors among flower gardens, sleek and graceful lines in the architecture, and sometimes it was just too much to take in, and Cassie would come down to the beach to reduce the world to a blue-gray plane of water fading to a blue-white plane of sky, with a handful of sails dotting the horizon.
It hadn’t only been her sight that Atlantis had fixed. She’d always considered herself healthy, but Atlantis had fine tuned her body, correcting a minor curvature of her spine that had sometimes given her back aches, restoring upper ranges of hearing she didn’t know she’d damaged with her tastes in loud music.
The only thing Atlantis couldn’t fix was her sister’s betrayal. All the physical evidence was gone now, but Cassie still couldn’t believe her sister had treated her so callously, like another one of her toy robots. Jazz hadn’t come to Atlantis as near as she could tell. It was strange. Other people could instantly find out which of their friends and relatives had come to Atlantis and which had not. But the statues she’d talked with acted like they didn’t even understand her question when she inquired about Jazz. Jazz seemed to be the one person on the planet they’d lost track of.
A crab was scuttling over the sand toward her. Cassie took a closer look. The crab was strangely shiny, like it was made of metal. She looked again. It was made of metal. It was a little robotic crab.
The crab stopped on the sand before her and said, “Hi.”
It was her sister’s voice.
“Jazz?” Cassie asked.
“You busy?” the Jazz/crab asked. “I was hoping we could get together.”
“Get together? Where are you?”
“I’m here. On Atlantis. It was a bitch to track you down. So, how about it? You busy?”
“Not particularly,” said Cassie. “But I don’t know if I want to see you.”
“Yeah,” said Jazz. “I thought that might be the case. Look, I know there’s no excuse for what I did. I’d like to talk about it with you.”
“Fine,” said Cassie. “Where?”
“There’s a marina on the east side of the island. All kinds of sailboats. I’m on a Chinese junk with a green sail. The crab can lead you.”
Cassie followed the crab for miles. As she wandered the pristine beaches, she was again struck by the emptiness. In a city of billions, she’d expected people to be jammed in elbow to elbow, for space to be at a premium. She’d anticipated crowd scenes like Hindus packed up against the Ganges.
“The city won’t let you crowd,” said the crab.
“What?” asked Cassie.
“You were noticing how open the city was. There’s a sinister reason for this. The city monitors and shapes thoughts. It prevents a billion people from simultaneously having the urge to hit the beaches.”
“It’s reading my mind? You’re reading my mind?”
“Yeah,” said the crab. “I have to in order to feed the city false data from your senses. I don’t want it to hear us talking, do I?”
“Get out of my head,” said Cassie. “Get out or I turn around right now.”
“Okay. Jeez. Don’t be so shy. You have nice thoughts. Nothing to be ashamed of. There. I’m not watching them any more.”
Cassie wondered if she should believe this. At the same time, there was no way she was turning back. Jazz had revealed an underlying mystery of the city, something that had bothered Cassie ever since she’d arrived. She’d never stood in line at a restaurant here, never been to a concert so crowded and noisy you couldn’t hear the band. Could the city really be controlling everyone?
The green sail of the Chinese junk was now visible. There were a thousand sailboats here, of all sizes and styles, from single sail catamarans to six-masted windjammers. As she walked down the dock she spotted Jazz on the deck of the ship, in a hammock strung between the mast and the cabin. She was sunbathing in a green bathing suit that matched the sails. She also wore a jade bead necklace, with a long slender black pendant. She took a sip from a tall glass of iced tea as Cassie approached. Gabe, still dressed in the same long black trench coat he’d worn when he robbed the Piggly Wiggly, stood next to Jazz and waved as he spotted Cassie.
Cassie stepped aboard the gently rocking boat, accepting Gabe’s hand for balance. The crab nimbly leapt between the dock and the deck, then disappeared into the cabin.
“Weird,” said Cassie, looking at Jazz. “I’ve never, ever seen you in a bathing suit. Is it my imagination, or are you getting a tan?”
Jazz shrugged. “I’ve gone native.”
“I’m really surprised you pressed ‘yes’ on the ballot.”
“I didn’t,” said Jazz. “I sailed here on my own. Well, not entirely on my own. Gabe did most of the work. Whipping up a little sailing code wasn’t too tough.”
“Where’s Hezekiah?” asked Cassie.
“I had to leave him behind,” said Jazz. “Sadly, he’d developed a weird system glitch and I didn’t have time to debug him. He was stuck in his fire-and-brimstone prophet mode after his self-repairing circuit brought him back on-line. I could have wiped his drives and reprogrammed, but I was kind of pressed for time. Since Hammer and Morningstar obviously blew the mission, I’m the last, best hope of stopping this thing.”
“You’ve come here to destroy Atlantis,” Cassie said.
“Maybe,” said Jazz. “First I plan on stealing everything I can. There’s an astonishing machine intelligence behind all this. It’s going to take years to figure everything out.”
“I thought you needed my brain to understand Atlantis. Well, tough luck. You can’t use it. Atlantis has taken out the circuitry anyway.”
“I’m using my own brain. Now that I’ve had time to study the signal it’s no longer destructive.”
Cassie wanted to scream. What her sister had done to her was unimaginably cruel and arrogant. But something else was bothering her.
“It’s really controlling our minds?” asked Cassie.
“Control might be a little strong,” said Jazz. “Let’s just say it coordinates the scheduling of your urges. For instance, you won’t get hungry until around 8:17 tonight. You’ll walk into the café just as the person who was hungry at 7:17 has left.”
“If it reads my thoughts, why are you telling me this? Even if it can’t hear us now, won’t it find this conversation in my memories later?”
“Nah,” said Jazz. “I’m invisible to the city. I’ve hacked a dead zone into its perceptions. Since I’m using the city’s own codes to hide myself, I’m like a cancer in a body that can hide from the immune system because it’s part of the body.”
“The one thing I don’t understand about the city is why?” Cassie said. “It’s confused me ever since I got here. It’s done so much for me, and so far has asked nothing in return. But it must want something.”
As she spoke, Gabe vanished into the cabin.
“You’re the city’s pet,” said Jazz. “It keeps you happy for the same reason some people have a dozen cats. I don’t know why it’s been designed this way, but the city feels pleasure when it’s helping others. It’s happy making you happy.”
“I guess,” said Cassie. She sat against the ship’s rail. “But . . . I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m happy.”
“I doubt it,” said Jazz. “Living in this city is like a permanent vacation. But vacations are meant to refresh you, to revive you so you can get back to more challenging things in life. The city has erased challenges. I mean, there are still things that look like challenges. Right now, there are people climbing those huge spires from the outside. There are people who’ve gotten gills from the city and are now swimming alongside sharks. There are people mastering musical instruments, writing novels, painting pictures. But life’s big struggles, to find food, shelter, safety . . . these are gone forever. And I don’t know that most people can be satisfied with that. There’s a difference between challenge and entertainment.”
“Maybe we can learn to be satisfied,” said Cassie. “Maybe even you can learn. You look pretty relaxed.”
“I am relaxed,” said Jazz. “And I’m not a hundred percent certain that I’m going to destroy Atlantis. Eighty percent, maybe. But maybe a city where the biggest challenge is boredom is the fate most of mankind deserves. I’m open-minded. I’m thinking it through.”
“You haven’t changed,” said Cassie. Gabe had returned from the cabin now, and handed Cassie a glass of iced-tea. “What makes you think you could destroy Atlantis if you wanted to?”
“Electronically, I think I can hit its systems pretty hard. And physically . . . it’s pretty humid here,” said Jazz, picking up the ebony pendant that lay between her breasts. She lifted it, so that Cassie could see that it was actually a tiny vial, packed with black powder. “Mega-mold spores. This place would be one big puff ball inside a week.”
THE WEST VIRGINIA MOUNTAINTOP was the picture of serenity. No one who ever walked among the forest could ever guess that beneath a thin layer of soil a heavy steel gate covered a missile silo. No one was there to witness it when the soil began to shake, flying wildly in response to a powerful knocking from beneath the earth. As the soil danced away, the steel plate was exposed, denting outward with each blow, the bulge rising, rising, until it burst, and the head of an axe poked through. The chopping continued, widening the rift. At last the noise stopped, and two sets of thick fingers grabbed the rent edges of the metal, tearing the hole wider. The metal groaned, then snapped, leaving a jagged hole as wide as a manhole cover. A thick, heavy Bible was lifted from the hole and laid upon the ground. An axe was tossed through. Then Hezekiah, the prophet, crawled from his tomb. He stood, gathered up his book and axe, wiped the dust from his black robes, and wandered into the night to find his flock.
THE INSIDE OF THE TANK smelled worse than a locker room by the time General Junaluska and his men reached the Smoky Mountains. Atlantis had somehow wiped out petroleum products, but Junaluska’s handpicked team had scavenged enough vegetable oil from abandoned restaurants along the way to keep the diesel engine chugging along for the long trip back to his home.
The other thing they’d scavenged had been books. Bookstores had all but disappeared years ago, but there were still public libraries filled with these paper relics. Of course, now they weren’t relics; for the time being, they were the most advanced means of storing and transmitting data left to mankind.
Atlantis may have thought it had dealt a deathblow to mankind by destroying modern infrastructure, but it was mistaken. Sometimes, ancient infrastructure was more resilient. Everything mankind knew had been written down. The books of the world contained all the knowledge they would need to rebuild. His mission would be to protect those books, and that knowledge, so that mankind would one day return to glory. It might take ten years, or fifty, or five hundred. But Junaluska was prepared to play the long game. He might not live to see Atlantis fall, but perhaps his grandchildren would, or their grandchildren. When the time came for men to once again take their rightful place in the world, he would make certain that his descendents were ready.
MORNINGSTAR WEDGED the deer carcass into the fork of the tree. He slipped among the branches, all but invisible against the setting sun. He watched the two riders in the distance growing closer. He could smell their horses on the wind. He glanced back at the deer above him, its glassy eyes staring at him. He loved deer, especially their livers, and a fine meal awaited him this night. Still, every time he caught the scent of horse, his mouth watered.
The riders drew nearer. Morningstar sprang, stretching his wings, catching the wind in his feather-scales. The wind was warm, tempting him to rise higher, ever higher, but dinner awaited.
Morningstar dropped to the ground before the two humans. The horses stayed calm. By now they were used to him. It hurt him a little. He missed the fear-scent he’d engendered in the old days. Of course, Pure and Sue would be upset with him if he ever actually ate the horses. Sue, especially, would give him an earful.
“So,” said Pure. “How was hunting?”
“Magnificent. A fine buck is lodged in the oak up ahead.”
“Sounds good,” said Sue. “I’m starved. I’ll start the fire.”
Pure admired the deftness with which Sue’s aged hands could coax fire out of a piece of flint and a pocket-knife. Pure hadn’t mastered the skill, and probably never would. Fortunately, he had about fifty boxes of matches stashed in his saddlebag. He’d never mentioned them to Sue. He didn’t want to spoil her fun.
It had taken the end of the world to reveal Sue’s better qualities to Pure. She could start fires, tan leather, tell time by the sun, and navigate by stars. She was a 107-year-old girl scout.
Since the collapse of civilization, Sue had gotten over her vegetarianism. Hunting deer and catching fish for sustenance apparently was morally acceptable in a way that raising cows and chickens hadn’t been. Sue had discarded her habit and robes for buckskins and moccasins, her white hair tied into long braids.
When the angels had first taken Pure and Morningstar back to Mount Weather, there had been some hard feelings between Pure and Sue. The whole business about shooting his brains out had made their conversations awkward at first. But Pure had wanted to go out and explore the new world and Sue had a destination in mind. Since Hammer had decided to stay in Atlantis, Sue had proven to be a sympathetic ear during those long nights of Pure griping about how he could have been so wrong about a person. He’d never pegged Hammer as the sort who would choose to be coddled and comforted, to turn into a docile pet for the big bad city from outer space.
Sue didn’t grate on him now that she wasn’t calling for the overthrow of western civilization. And he had to admit, he’d changed as well, becoming less abrasive with her, less of a smart-Alex. He’d been given a second shot at life. When the angels had put him back together, he felt better than he could remember, better than the best high he’d ever gotten on any drug he’d tinkered with. His newly repaired body was uncontaminated by pharmaceuticals and he planned to keep it that way.
That night, they were looking up at the stars, and Sue said, “We’re close. A day or two more, at most.”
Morningstar paused from gnawing on the deer’s skull and said, “I concur. I smell it on the wind.”
“The Ozarks do have a certain aroma,” said Pure.
The following noon, they found a knight’s rusted armor in the bend of a stream, and Morningstar let out a yelp of joy. Pure scanned the horizon, at last spotting the castle.
They were back in the park where they’d found Morningstar. Pure and Sue pushed the horses to full gallop, trying to keep up with Morningstar as he flew toward the castle. The huge stone mansion was abandoned now, with weeds and vines already intruding upon what must have once been carefully landscaped grounds.
Inside, the castle looked more like a movie set than the real thing. When Pure tapped the stone walls, they gave a thud that indicated they were thin concrete over a hollow form. But the upper levels of the castle were only for show, a little flair for the super-rich hunters who’d flocked to the place. Like Disney World, the real heart of the operation lay below, in the depths of the earth.
Within the basements were labs, and within these labs were dragons. Pure didn’t know if they would still be alive after so long without power or lights. Then again, Morningstar was so resourceful and clever that if the dragons below had a fraction of his intelligence, some of them would have found some way to survive.
They descended the emergency stairs near the elevators, until they arrived at the hospital-clean corridors below. Pure carried a lantern to help guide them through the darkness. Morningstar scurried ahead, his eyes suited to seeing in the gloom.
“I smell them,” said Morningstar, stopping before a metal door. “I hear them.”
Pure studied the door. It looked like something you might find on a submarine, riveted together with thick steel plates, with a wheel for a handle. Pressing his ear against the door, Pure could hear distant voices, faint murmurs, though he couldn’t make out the words.
Pure handed the lantern to Sue and grabbed the wheel.
“You’re sure about this?” she asked.
“Me?” said Pure. “I thought coming here to free any surviving dragons was your idea.”
“Open it,” said Morningstar, impatiently.
“It was,” said Sue. “You’re right. Do it.”
Pure hesitated. Who knew what would happen when he turned the wheel? It could be that a flood of hungry dragons would pour forth, and his brief, wonderful life would come to a rapid and messy end.
But Pure liked living in a world where getting up in the morning was a gamble. The safe, rounded corners of Atlantis could never provide him the rushes of adrenaline that were his one remaining high. Grinning broadly, Pure spun the wheel.
Also by James Maxey
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SuperHero Novels
Nobody Gets the Girl
Burn Baby Burn
The Adventures of Cut-Up Girl (2013)
The Dragon Apocalypse Series
Greatshadow
Hush
Witchbreaker
Soulless (2014)
Short Story Collections
There is No Wheel
About the Author
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JAMES MAXEY LIVES IN HILLSBOROUGH, NC with his wife Cheryl and a clowder of unruly cats. As a child, his mother was concerned that his obsessive reading of comic book and pulp science fiction would warp his mind, a concern that has sadly proven valid. His inability to stop daydreaming about superhumans and toothy reptiles has left him unsuited for decent work. Fortunately, he can type, and a few kind editors have, over the years, been kind enough to publish his deranged musings. For more information about James, visit his blog at dragonprophet.blogspot.com.
An E-QUALITY PRESS BOOK
E-QUALITY PRESS
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