Dragonlinks (14 page)

Zimak moved.

‘What did he mean, ‘Brother Jaelin'?' asked Ellien, ‘and what is all that blood and green muck on your tunic?'

‘It's nothing but spilled paint.'

‘You're limping,' Ellien fussed to cover her alarm. ‘Have you been in a fight? Are you hurt?'

Jelindel fished out her hessian bag of personal things from where she had left it behind the counter earlier that night.

‘Off the register, Ellien, I've been in a fight. I'm hurt, I've just killed something evil, and people are after me. Now please, just say that Daretor paid his account and left.'

‘Well, yes, but –'

‘Goodbye, Ellien, I
must
go now.'

Jelindel limped out into the darkness and Ellien heard scuffling and cursing from the direction of the stables. Moments later three horses clopped by in the darkness outside.

‘Don't just limp along with the fradork horse, Jaelin,' Zimak's voice called out in the darkness. ‘Get into the saddle and ride.'

‘I don't know
how
to ride, damn you!' Jelindel shouted back angrily, then the hoofbeats faded in the distance.

Ellien stared through the open door into the blackness beyond until she could hear nothing other than the shouts of the distant firefighters, then sank to a bench.

‘Goodbye, Jaelin. I'll never forget you,' she said as her eyes overflowed with tears.

Jelindel, Zimak and Daretor rode to the beach, turned, then kept riding and only stopped whenever Jelindel fell out of the saddle. The incoming tide washed the hoof-prints away as they passed, and by the time they stopped to spell the horses and tend Daretor's wound, the port was no more than a vague glow on the horizon.

‘I must be mad,' said Zimak. ‘I had a good life in D'loom.'

‘As a successful market rat,' said Jelindel.

‘Now I'm an outlaw, a fugitive. Another week and I'd have had Zeldenia Kremtil around behind her mother's drapery stall. She hugged me and kissed me yesterday, she rubbed her thigh against my –'

‘She's got the pox, one of the charm-healers told me.'

‘You're joking!' gasped Zimak.

‘I've no sense of humour. You're always telling me that.'

‘Er, can one get the pox by kissing?'

‘Only if your gums bleed. Daretor, can you go any further, or should we stop here awhile?'

‘Too exposed here,' he gasped through a haze of pain. ‘Camp in those hills ahead. How's your riding, Jaelin?'

‘I'm staying on, more or less. How did you learn to ride, Zimak?'

‘My father let me ride the carthorses around the docks ever since I could walk. It kept me safe and in view. Where are we bound for, anyway?'

‘For the next dragonlink,' replied Daretor, ‘but just for now we have to get clear of Skelt. We can pass through the Algon Mountains and into Baltoria. It will be safer there.'

‘I haven't got border papers,' muttered Zimak.

‘I'll forge you a set,' countered Jelindel.

W
hat saved Fa'red was the fact that Thull had started the fire in the room where he lay unconscious. As he lay sprawled where he had fallen, blood pouring from his head and breathing smoke, the flames spread up the drapery and melted the lead supporting brackets. A mass of blazing cloth suddenly broke free from the wall and fell across his body. The sharp shock of pain sliced through his stupor and jolted him awake.

He sat up and tried to cry out with pain but instead coughed and spluttered on the smoke. Flames were all around him, and his nightshirt was on fire, as was his hair. Somewhere, very far away it seemed, the thief-bell was ringing again and people were shouting about a fire. Fighting desperately to control his breath, he spoke a single word.

A wavering patch of blackness opened up before him,
barely wide enough to admit his bulk. He half-crawled, half-tumbled through. The patch vanished behind him. He sat slapping at his body, smothering the flames. The smell of his own burnt skin and hair was in his nostrils.

The paraworld where Fa'red had emerged was completely dark, and the ground seemed slightly unsteady, even alive underfoot. It was the closest paraworld to his own, yet the most hazardous known to all levels of Adepts. He wanted to groan with the pain of his injuries, but to do so would mean death. Somewhere nearby there was a
whoosh
,
whoosh
,
whoosh
, as if huge wings were lifting something gigantic and ponderous into the air. If he held still and silent – but no, the scent of his own burnt flesh would attract the huge winged predator!

Fa'red spoke another word and lunged for a sparkle of lights that he guessed was another breach in the fabric between paraworlds. Claws raked across his back, catching his nightshirt firmly. He was lost –

The air rippled in dark bars that resolved into an oval of darkness, and Fa'red plunged through it and fell headlong before passing out.

He awoke. He was aware of lying naked on a hard, cold surface with sleek, gleaming dragons howling past and belching acrid breath. Huge, brilliant lanterns blazed all about in the night.

Fa'red lay still. It seemed only a matter of time before one of the beasts noticed him. Minutes passed and he remained untouched. He was lying on a slightly raised area covered in white stripes, and there was a stark, geometrically perfect sign lit from within that declared something in characters that were totally alien to him. Obviously this was a refuge domain, protected from the
dragons by enchantments that he could not even begin to guess at. They were huge, these beasts that whipped the air all around him as they passed.

Inevitably, one of the dragons slowed and stopped. It regarded Fa'red with blazing, brilliant eyes. He said a rare prayer that the refuge domain would hold it back.

‘North control, we've got a suspected drive-by shooting on the median at Bell near the freeway feeder.'

The words were unintelligible to Fa'red. He watched two human-shaped beings in tight, angular robes emerge as their dragon opened its wings sideways.

‘He's moving.'

‘Hey buddy, can you talk?'

‘Naked, he's buffo – look at his skin!'

‘North Control, we need an ambulance to Bell, east freeway feeder median. The victim has severe burns, and is bleeding from the head. He's conscious.'

‘Confirm burns and head injuries. A unit will be there in three minutes, code three. Is it a traffic accident or felony?'

‘Suspected felony. The victim appears to be a Caucasian male, about 250 pounds, and aged around his mid-fifties. He's naked, and there's no sign of debris from an accident.'

‘Hey there, can you talk?'

Fa'red recognised concern in the man's voice, but did not know what to do. The slightest movement was agony, and he was shivering in the cold air. He nodded. ‘All hail, master Adept,' he croaked.

‘What was that?'

‘Sounded Spanish.'

‘North Control, have a Spanish translator standing by at casualty. The victim does not appear to speak English.'

People were gathering at what appeared to be another refuge domain. More dragons with blue and red flashing eyes were gathering, and their Adepts established a wider refuge domain.

‘Did anyone see what happened?'

‘I seen, ah, I seen cars slowing an' guys pointing, man.'

‘Did you see what happened? Was he dumped from a car?'

‘Hey, I seen a truck stoppin', then drive on. I got his number right here.'

‘Check suspect North Control, that could be who dumped him.'

‘Negative, negative. The driver with that number called in on his mobile to report the body. He says he's parked just over the feeder if you need him but he saw nothing.'

Another, larger dragon arrived, screaming its challenge in a strident, deafening yowl.

‘Hang in there, buddy, you're going to be okay now.'

Other men in tight blue robes gathered around him, asking him questions that he could not comprehend and pressing arcane devices and amulets against his skin. A warm, pleasant haze washed over Fa'red, although he lingered in consciousness. His own rings, amulets and even nightshirt were gone. This was obviously one of those domains where only live flesh could pass through the gates. Fa'red felt himself being lifted, yet the pain of his wounds and burns had faded to a vague discomfort. Finally he gave up the fight against a rising tide of warm, comforting blackness and lapsed into sleep.

When he awoke Fa'red was lying in a high, metal bed and swathed in bandages. Women in drab blue robes brought him strongly aromatic soups and food, and a series of others asked him questions that he could not comprehend. ‘Name?' and ‘Private insurance?' featured often in their interrogations. Against one wall, an enchanted box provided a view into various other paraworlds. Fa'red lay watching worlds so alien that he could do nothing but goggle in amazement.

Days passed, and Fa'red was presently able to walk again. The people of the paraworld looked after him well, and seemed unaware that he was a very senior Adept. This was obviously a paraworld dominated by the cold sciences.

The Adept knew enough of healing charms to know that his burns were already healing amazingly fast. From all his experience of battlefield injuries he knew that he should have died from his burns, but here he was, alive and regaining his strength.

On the seventh day Fa'red stood gazing out of the huge window of clear glass that took up most of one wall. He was in a type of palace, high off the ground. He surmised that he was being held and cared for by some monarch. Fascinating though this world might be, Fa'red knew that he would never be any more than a cipher amid the plethora of cold science experts who held sway here.

He had been watching how some of the devices worked, in particular a small room that moved between floors as if at the end of a hidden pulley crane. If he spoke a word to escape this paraworld, he would need to be on the ground or he would risk a long and deadly fall once through the gate.

Fa'red walked out of his room and down the long
corridor outside. He covered quite a lot of the distance to the moving room before one of the women challenged him.

‘Excuse me, sir. Where are you going?' she called from behind a desk. He ignored her and kept walking. ‘Sir, you're not meant to go out by yourself,' she continued, but none of the words was intelligible to Fa'red.

It was only when she ducked in front of him and spread her arms to block his way that he stopped.

‘Sir, you're not meant to leave your hospital ward alone; the police have –'

Fa'red spoke a minor binding word that ensnared her legs and she screamed, struggled and overbalanced, hysterically tearing and pulling at the blue coils. As the mage had suspected, those who came running paid all their attention to the woman's plight and ignored him. He walked on to the crane room's door and pressed a stylised arrowhead that pointed downwards. It began to glow. Fa'red waited.

‘
He
did it! He's at the lift!' the fallen woman shouted now, and Fa'red noticed everyone turn towards him. Two young men in green garments started for him. They were unarmed, but they had the calm confidence of Siluvian kick-fist masters.

Two more words dropped both of them, their legs bound at the knees. Now everyone knew that it was Fa'red who was projecting the glowing blue coils. Those who were still standing shrank back. A jangling, ear-splitting sound began, just as the doors opened to the crane room.

Fa'red walked in and pressed the lowest of the studs on the panel beside the doors. It began to glow and the doors slid closed. There was a brief feeling of downward
motion, and presently the doors opened again onto a vast hallway of dormant dragons. Hesitantly he walked out among them, but none of them stirred. The place had the feel of being underground, and that was the worst pos -sible place to use a word into another paraworld.

Large chunky arrows were painted on the ground, and Fa'red followed these up a ramp and into another hallway full of dragons. Once a dragon approached him from a distant ramp, but the quick-thinking Fa'red stepped hastily onto one of the striped refuge domains. Just as he thought, the dragon was forced to ignore him and it continued on past with its human familiar sitting calmly within a protective shell on its back. Far above him the energies of his word-coils dissolved away from the legs of those whom Fa'red had snared. They plunged through the floors of the palace and returned to Fa'red's lips.

At last Fa'red emerged into open air and bright sunlight. Men that Fa'red took to be royal guards were alert as he walked out into the palace gardens filled with alien flowers and incomprehensible sculptures. Six guards came running to surround him. All were holding small, dark, angular things in an attitude that meant they could only be weapons.