Dragon Rigger (42 page)

Standing watch over the Forge of Dreams, the draconae crafted their guarding spells ceaselessly, wrapping threads of the underrealm around that one place that was everywhere and nowhere, a part of the realm and yet not a part of it. No fewer than seven draconae watched over the fires at all times, weaving their spells of protection, of creation, of preservation . . . and one
other
spell, held carefully in reserve.

The draconae were ever aware of the Enemy's desire to control the dreamfires, the powers from beyond the realm that nourished and sustained life and creation in all the realm. It was the one thing that might grant him final mastery, and it was the one thing that the draconae were utterly determined to deny him. The Enemy might imprison the Mountain, and he might bring an end to all dragon life and all iffling life in the realm; but he could not make the dreamfires do his bidding. Not yet, anyway. Not without the help of the draconae.

But what if, against all hope, he learned to use the fires himself? They could not forget the haunting Words:

. . . To tear from its midst
The fires of being,
That dragons may die,
Unknowing, unseeing.

If Tar-skel seized the dreamfires, did they have any remaining defense? Perhaps just one. They held in reserve a difficult and terrifying spell, woven in the sinews of the underrealm, to be used only in direst of need—a crafting that would release the bindings that held the dreamfires, a catastrophic release of
all
the bindings and
all
the power they contained. It would almost certainly destroy the realm—and with it the lives, not just of those in the realm now, but perhaps even those departed, those who lived beyond the realm in the soulfire of the Final Dream Mountain. That spell could sacrifice, not just the realm's future, but its living past, as well.

But if the alternative was Tar-skel's victory? Better to lose the realm.

And yet . . .

A word names the nameless
And light dawns from dread
To the heart of the darkness
Are the fearful ones led . . .

Even now, the draconae were not without hope. Those working at the Forge of Dreams wrapped their songs and words of protection not just around the fires, but around all the unborn dragons, the unhatched eggs that remained alive, but frozen in time, on the outer slopes of the Dream Mountain . . . just as the once-vibrant groves and streams where the draconae raised their young were now frozen, static, chrysalized in layer upon layer of binding energy. Those eggs, and those groves of life, were as much captive of Tar-skel's sorcery as the draconae on the inside of the mountain.

Light
dawns from dread.

More than anything, they held hope for a release into life for those unhatched draconae and draconi of the future.

Rent strode through the chasms of the Dark Vale with a pride that would have been beyond him just days ago. But everything that had happened in that time had been so
perfect—
just as his own body was perfect now, and his very existence. Around him the hardened shapes of a blasted land spoke eloquently of the power of his master, the Nail of Strength. Around him flickered the shadowy, and sometimes iridescent, shapes of the drahls as they moved about their master's business. Around him murmured the dragons who had entered the service of the Nail. Around him rose the groans of the captives, embedded in the stone prisons where the Nail's magic had sealed them—a magic that Rent himself had often wielded in the name of Tar-skel.

Rent felt a deep satisfaction in the knowledge that everything was now falling into place for the final victory, the victory of Tar-skel, and of a rigger-spirit named Rent, who had helped make the triumph possible. There was a confident power in his stride as he walked the sculpted paths of the Dark Vale, a power that he had never dreamed of as a mere human. If there was pleasure in walking in a human body, how much better it was to walk in a body shaped by Tar-skel, a body formed in a crucible of underrealm magic, a body that could be donned like a cloak or set aside at the pleasure of its owner! It was a body that could shape magic as no human being ever could. What man wouldn't give up his feeble, ordinary form, in exchange for such power?

Rent paused, resting one foot on a sharp volcanic outcropping, and surveyed the wondrous desolation of the Vale. He had had no small part in the forming of this place, with its maze of ravines and caverns, and the wondrous girding of underrealm spells that kept it intact. Life, he thought, was full of things to be proud of.

It had not always been so for Brenton Maskill, human rigger, human in another life. A past life—one from another time, another universe. It was a life of hatred and misery that he had left behind: hatred for a mother who had unwittingly exposed her child to an incurable and crippling alien disease—hatred for the other children, who had teased him, then pitied him, and finally shunned him—and hatred for his fellow adult riggers, whom he had utterly reviled, not giving them the chance to revile him first. He remembered being a rigger, and a skilled one. But what was the artistry of rigging, compared to this?

In that miserable life, rigging had provided the only outlet for a brilliant mind held captive in a ruined body. The time inevitably had come when stealing a ship seemed a more appealing prospect than working for shipowners who pitied and despised him. Killing his riggermates and his ship's master had been easier than he'd dreamed, and more satisfying. And once in possession of a ship, he had set out for the reputed dragon route, questing—with the insolence of blind and angry conceit—for a fight worthy of his skills.

Never had he imagined that the dragons would prove to be real, living inhabitants of the Flux. Never had he imagined how easily they would defeat him in battle, stripping him of his life and his form. And never had he dreamed that a silent, hidden power with a name like Tar-skel would witness the event and raise him up to a spirit-existence in the realm—and not only that, but would restore him to human form, a
perfect
human form, so that he could walk as he never had walked as an adult human. He not only walked, he strutted and worked his own mastery over the very dragons who had defeated him—a defeat that was to be his last.

Rent thought of Hodakai and laughed, shaking his head. Hodakai lusted for what Rent had. But they could not have been more unlike, either as human riggers or as spirits in the realm. Hodakai was simply unwilling to make the sacrifices that were required to become a favored one of Tar-skel. It was pitiable, but it was Hodakai's loss, not Rent's. Hodakai was one of those thoughtless riggers—not very bright, just bright enough to get himself into trouble. He was pathetically easy to manipulate; he'd not even questioned Rent's casual lie to him that his shipmate had been destroyed by the dragons. It was absurdly easy to maneuver Hodakai into doing what was needed; he was a perfect illustration of the price of weakness.

No such weakness for Rent. For him, and for the Nail of Strength, there was no longer any possibility of failure. There was only the long savoring, the anticipation of victory. With the conquest of the Deep Caverns, and the tapping of the power that had lain buried there, Tar-skel had brought almost to full strength the web of magic that was binding this realm to his will. It was true that the ultimate fulcrum of his power, the control of the singularity within the Dream Mountain, was not yet in his grasp; but that too was drawing closer with each passing day.

The dragons were enfeebled with despair, and yet the one thing they still did not comprehend was how perfectly their despair fitted into the Nail's sorcery. Tar-skel
wielded
despair, letting the dragons watch as their realm crumbled, piece by piece. Despair was his yeast, worked through his plan with infinite care, causing it to live and grow. Tar-skel
thrived
on the dragons' despair, and he was using it to create a work of such power, such sorcery, such magnificence and artistry, that Rent practically wept at the thought of it—and the thought of his own participation in it.

One day Rent would walk with his Master in bodily form on the world-surfaces of other realms, other universes. Perhaps he would even assist in the rule of the universe he had once called home.

* Rent. *

He blinked, his reverie interrupted. He thought he had heard a voice, deep in his mind. He wasn't certain; but it would not do to take chances. Turning from the view, he started up the long ascending path that zigzagged up one wall of the vale, toward the Voice Stone. He moved expeditiously, but without betraying haste. The land below him was broken and sectored like a great, shattered moon, where a blast of sorcery had fragmented the crust into the chasms that provided quarters for the servants of the Nail, and for the captives. He glimpsed a few of the latter stirring at his passage, and he smiled.

At the top of the path, he stepped onto a ledge that had been carved there, a platform edged by a low parapet overlooking the vale. A single guardian drahl waited there, cloaked in shadow. The drahl bobbed its head at Rent's arrival and withdrew into concealment.

Rent paused before the Voice Stone. It was a massive, finely polished slab of obsidian, embedded in the base of a towering wall. It was pierced by a star-shaped opening, as though a tremendous bolt of lightning had punched a hole into its heart. Far from looking burned, however, the inside of the hole was polished to a black-mirror sheen. It bored unfathomably deep into the stone, into the bedrock, into some place that was not
here
. From somewhere in the remote reaches of the underrealm, there flickered the glow of a distant and powerful fire.

Rent knelt before the stone. He dropped his gaze for a moment, drawing a slow and measured breath. Then he raised his eyes and peered down into the hole, staring deep, toward the distant fire. He could not focus upon the fire; it would not
allow
his eyes to focus. Slowly he released control of his sight, and with great deliberation, emptied his thoughts.

His mind filled quickly, but not from his own thoughts.

* * *

The underrealm shimmered around him as he sank toward what had been a fire, but was now the invisible center of a cyclone. He was drawn to a point of focus that he could not see, yet which he knew instinctively was the presence of Tar-skel. He never knew what form the Nail's presence would take. Darkness swirled around him, enclosing him in the eye of the storm. As he was about to speak, to acknowledge the call that had brought him here, there was a sudden flash of lightning in the clouds. The storm vanished and he was floating among stars, surrounded by the vast, rotating disk of a blazing spiral galaxy. And out of the galaxy, he heard the voice of the Nail.

* Servant, there is much to do. The time approaches when the realm will tremble!
Tremble!
*

Rent could not speak, even in his thoughts. His breath was caught, frozen.

* There is fear in the hearts of the winged serpents.
Fear!
But not yet
enough
fear. *

Rent struggled to swallow, to think.
But
, he whispered,
how
could their fear be greater? Their groves are
vanishing, they suffer dissension and betrayal, they have lost a spring of power that they were too dull even to realize they owned, they have lost many of their own number—

*
Are you reporting to me that which I already know? *

I—no—not
at all!

* Have you forgotten the promise of the words of vision, which even the female serpents acknowledge? When the realm trembles, when the one falls in battle, then will come the ending. And the beginning. *

Exactly as we have hoped—as you have planned.

The majestic galaxy seemed to turn with greater speed, as though driven by an enormous urgency.
* Yes. But we must be certain. Their despair grows, but not quickly enough! They must not even dream that they might prevail. We must cause their fear to mount until the very end, when the hope of even the female serpents will be crushed. Only when their hope is
gone
will we command them, and the power of their mountain. *

Rent was silent. It was true that although the pieces were now in place, the final victory had not yet been won. But he could not understand the concern over the prophecy. The "one" was in the hands of Rent's servants at this very moment. What could possibly interrupt the plan? The rigger Jael would be brought forth to die, in a final battle with the dragons—and there would die the dragons' last conceivable hope: the rigger whom they believed would set them free. Jael was powerless in his hands. And her death would seal Tar-skel's web of power forever.

The words of his master intruded.

* Servant, I perceive your thoughts. *

Yes
, he whispered.

* Stop thinking—and do something for me.
*

Of
course. By your
command
. Though puzzled, Rent was not displeased. It had occurred to him, in moments of doubt, that in the instant of victory the Nail might be so satisfied with his own achievement that he would not fully recall the assistance that his servant, Rent, had provided. Rent would be happy to do whatever he could to reinforce his worth in his master's eyes.

* Create more terror for me. *

Rent smiled inwardly as he listened to his master's wishes. His kuutekka flickered and twisted, revealing his smile in the underrealm.

* Walk among the captives. Enrage them. They despair now. See that they despair more. *

Yes
, Rent whispered.

Shadows flashed and surged in the coiling galaxy.
* One thing more. *

Yes?

* Bring me ASSURANCE that the
one
 . . . the
rigger . . .
has been secured. Then let the
serpents
know. Use that pathetic excuse for a spirit—*