Broken by Magic: An Epic Fantasy Adventure (Dragon Gate Book 3), page 48
Malek looked sharply at her. “Is that what’s making the smell?”
“It could be.”
“I don’t see anything coming out of there,” Tezi said.
“It could be a colorless gas,” Jadora said. “There are plenty of examples of such. Take me to it, please.” Jadora shifted her backpack off. “It’ll be hard to get much of a sample of it in this state, but I should be able to get some. Too bad I don’t have more lab equipment. I could have captured it and turned it into a liquid.”
“You want to take samples now?” Rivlen gave her an incredulous look. “When we’re expecting a dragon attack at any moment?”
“Of course she does,” Malek said mildly. “Navigate our skyboard over there, Captain.”
Using her rank seemed to remind Rivlen that they weren’t equals out here. “Yes, my lord.”
Their skyboard drifted to the top of the ziggurat.
“Since we have time, you and the mercenaries can plant some explosives,” Malek told Rivlen. “Anything you can come up with that might discombobulate our enemies, even if it’s just knocking trees into their path.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Malek drew his sword and hopped off, then offered Jadora a hand. “I’ll keep an eye on our professor,” he said.
“Understood.” Rivlen and Tezi swooped back down toward Jak and the others.
Jadora might have been concerned about being left up there, when neither she nor Malek could fly the skyboard on their own, but she was too excited at the prospect of getting a sample to object. This wasn’t simply some interesting leaf or flower. This could hold the secret to working dragon steel, to possibly putting more dragon-steel weapons into the hands of terrene humans back on Torvil.
If Jadora and the rest of the normal humans in the world ever wanted a shot at changing their fates—removing the mages and wizards from power—weapons that could make them impervious to magical attacks could be a start. Nearly impervious, she amended, remembering how that guard had tripped Tezi with flying obstacles even though he hadn’t been able to touch her with magic.
As much as her peace-loving mind objected to the idea of solving problems by arming the populace, it wasn’t as if any of the other tactics that terrene humans had tried over the centuries had worked. Power was all the mages understood, the only thing that could convince them to change.
Uthari would never approve and would try to stop them, but if Jadora could enlist Sorath’s and Ferroki’s help and somehow get dragon steel back to Torvil and turned into weapons, maybe it would make a difference. Further, she had the kerzor in her pocket. If she could get that into the hands of someone who might be able to replicate the device…
She imagined ramming one of them into Uthari’s temple so he couldn’t use his power to harm her father, control Malek, or pester anyone with his magic ever again.
Malek came up beside her, and she almost dropped her backpack, abruptly afraid that he’d read her thoughts. Until she looked at his face and remembered that he couldn’t do that anymore.
“Do you want me to hold anything?” he asked, oblivious to her plotting.
“Maybe.” She licked her lips, nervous at her whirling thoughts, even if he couldn’t read them. She glanced over the edge, making sure Rivlen wasn’t close. She’d hopped off the other skyboard below and was obeying Malek’s wishes, directing the mercenaries to plant explosives in the undergrowth. “Let me see if I’ve got an empty jar. In my laboratory, I would use water displacement to capture gas, but I don’t have the equipment for that out here. I’ll see what I have and can rig up.”
“If it’s an acid, will it erode a jar? Or is glass impervious?”
“Not necessarily impervious, but it resists most acids. It’s more susceptible to corrosion from alkaline substances. I suspect the stone they chose for this area is similar.” Jadora waved at the dark gray material. The roof above the vent was stained a brownish white but didn’t appear to have suffered any structural damage. As Malek stepped closer to consider the stain, she waved for him to move back. “I don’t know if the gas is toxic to humans, but chances are it can irritate the lungs and mucous membranes, at the least.”
“I understand. I’ll stand guard while you collect a sample.” Malek moved out from under the structure and gazed out into the forest. “I expected we would find the dragons here and waiting. That they’re not is concerning.”
“Because you’re worried they won’t come? Or because they could be plotting something?”
“We may have guessed wrong about where their lair is. If they’re a hundred miles away, they won’t sense us—or the hatchling—here and come. Etcher Yervaa can’t have that much time before they wear down her defenses. She might already be dead.”
Jadora wouldn’t weep for the loss of the woman who’d forced that needle into Malek’s brain. If they could gather the acid sample, collect some of that interesting ore from the cliff, and leave without dealing with the dragons… she wouldn’t object.
“Jak’s coming,” Malek said, peering over the side of the ziggurat.
He arrived on the skyboard with his hatchling.
“Dragons?” Malek glanced toward the forest again.
“Do I sense them? No, not yet. But there’s a problem.” Jak waved at the ziggurat under their feet. “Rivlen and I can sense that it’s magical and has a powerful aura, like the portals, but I haven’t been able to communicate with it in any way or sense any intelligence within it.”
“Do you communicate with the dragon-steel weapons?” Malek asked. “I thought it was only the portals that seemed sentient. Or sapient?”
“Right, but the weapons still feel… alive. Aware. I’m not sure how to describe it. They give off those insights and visions.”
Malek nodded.
“I’m getting nothing from this structure. I even reached out to the portal—I did that when I was trying to get a sense of Tezi’s battle-axe.” Jak pointed in the direction of the coast. “It’s disgruntled that we left it tipped on its side, by the way.”
“The dragons knocked it over,” Jadora said. “It should be disgruntled with them.”
“It’s oozing a general sense of disgruntlement. The feeling I got when I asked it about the ziggurat is that this place has been dormant for a long time. It was made by and for the original dragons, and it has no interest in being used by the current dragons.”
“Your hatchling can’t wake it up?” Malek pointed to Shikari, who had climbed to Jak’s shoulder again and was crinkling his snout at the odor up here.
“I tried to convey to him that we wanted to wake it up, but he wandered off to look for bugs.”
“If two people hadn’t had visions about dragons attacking us here,” Malek said, “I would suggest that we’re looking in the wrong place.”
“I don’t know if the visions from the portals always come true.” Jak pointed at Malek’s sword. “Do the ones from your blades?”
“Not always, but when they don’t, it’s usually because I accepted the warning as truth and acted to alter the events that would have led to it. One insight related to this world has already come true.” Malek gazed over at Jadora.
For some reason, she thought of their kiss. She hoped his sword hadn’t shown him that.
“I came up here to tell you,” Jak said, “because if the ziggurat is dormant, it may not defend us from magical attacks. I may not be able to convince it to help in any way. When I was coming up with this plan, I envisioned us only having to worry about a few physical attacks from dragons as lightning streaked out from the ziggurat to strike down our enemies. Without that, I don’t think we can win, not against two dragons.”
“Maybe not even against one,” Malek said quietly.
“Not with you not being… fully you,” Jak said.
Malek’s grim expression did not convey disagreement.
“Since we don’t sense the dragons yet,” Jak said, “I wanted to see if you’re interested in my other idea.”
“Is that the one where your hatchling does brain surgery on me?”
Jadora shook her head. “We’re not doing that here in the middle of the forest on a foreign world, not until we’ve had a lot more time to study the discs.”
Jak watched Malek, who gazed out at the trees again, and neither of them responded to Jadora. The distressing certainty that Malek was considering it came over her, and she thought of their conversation on the skyboard.
“Not here, Malek.” She joined them and gripped his arm. “It’s too risky.”
“Riskier than going into battle against a dragon without any magic to use?” he asked, still looking at the wilds instead of her.
“Yes. You’ve got magically enhanced zidarr muscles or whatever explains your ability to jump thirty feet in the air. If you were incapacitated or died from this, we’d be a lot worse off if a dragon showed up.” And she would have lost somebody else that she’d come to care about, damn it. “Malek.”
“Like I said before,” Jak said, “if Shikari and I can destroy the disc and the needle with all the little strands its inserted into Malek’s brain… that shouldn’t harm him, right? It would just be removing something that never should have been there.”
“We don’t know what the device has done in the time it’s been inserted,” Jadora said. “Removing the needle and its tendrils could cause hemorrhaging in his brain, and Dr. Fret can’t stop that with bandages.”
“I might be able to heal it,” Jak said.
“All you’ve practiced on so far is cut fingers.”
“And claw marks.” Jak pointed at Malek’s torso.
“That’s a lot different from a human brain,” Jadora said.
“If I could regain my power, I could heal any damage myself,” Malek said.
“With your great familiarity with brains?” Jadora asked.
He shrugged. “I don’t need conscious knowledge of how to repair something in my own body. One of the methods I can employ is simply to energize and feed power into my own immune system so that it does what it already knows how to do but more quickly and efficiently.”
“Jak.” Jadora turned her attention to him, realizing she had more power to sway her son than Malek, Malek who would rather die than live as an invalid. “You don’t know enough to do this, to risk him.”
Jak looked from Malek to her and back. “I know it’s risky, Mother, but I don’t think we can win without Malek, Malek the zidarr, not just Malek the swordsman.”
“We don’t have to win anything. We can take the acid sample—” Jadora pointed at the vent, “—grab some ore, and leave before the dragons know we’re here.”
“We agreed to help the ambassador get their ruler back,” Malek said.
“Their dragon problem shouldn’t be our problem,” Jadora said. “She was only captured because she was trying to keep us from going home.”
Malek regarded Jak for a moment, then the hatchling for an even longer moment.
Jadora clenched her jaw. Neither man was listening to reason.
“What if he goes off to hunt insects in the middle of this surgery?” she asked.
“I would be far more inclined to trust an adult dragon to perform the procedure,” Malek admitted.
“One of the good ones. Me too. But I’ll guide him.” Jak looked earnestly at Malek and at Jadora. “I’m confident we can do this.”
“Let’s try,” Malek said before Jadora could object further. He patted Jadora’s hand, then gently but firmly extricated his arm from her grip. “Thank you for caring,” he said quietly.
“Malek,” she whispered, but she let it stop there. She was out of arguments, and he wouldn’t listen regardless. He wanted this too badly.
Malek stepped onto the skyboard with Jak. “Call Rivlen up to protect Jadora while she gathers her sample.”
Jadora could only watch as they sailed over the edge, but she was certain they were making a mistake. If she were a dragon who wanted nothing more than to kill a hatchling protected by enemies, wouldn’t she wait until half of them were thoroughly distracted by some endeavor from which they couldn’t easily extricate themselves?
Nightfall found Sorath crouching in the branches of a tree a hundred yards from the pool and what had become a tent city sprawled out around it. The leaves would have hidden him from view even if he hadn’t had magic, but he felt more comfortable cloaked by more than foliage. From here, he could safely see the camp and the portal and keep an eye on everything. On Ferroki and Thorn Company.
Vinjo’s stealth device was active on his wrist, a sword and pistol hung from his weapons belt, and three magelock rifles and a pack full of supplies rested on the ground below. Not positive what he planned, he’d grabbed as much gear as made sense on his way out of camp.
No, that wasn’t true. He knew what he wanted to accomplish with this new advantage. It was the thing he should have accomplished when Vinjo gave him the first creeper, as soon as Sorath had realized what he had. But it hadn’t been until Sasko dropped the second one in his lap—and after Uthari had tortured him for a second time—that the idea had solidified in his mind. He just had to figure out how he could pull it off.
Kill Uthari.
Sorath wanted to use the stealth device to sneak onto his yacht, slip into his suite, and slit his throat while he slept, while his defenses were down.
He would likely die partaking in the mission, but at least he’d kissed Ferroki first. And not only as some ruse in the woods but for real. He wished they’d gotten a chance for more, but if he could take out the wizard who’d been driving everything since that portal had been discovered, it would be worth dying for.
Thorn Company would no longer be bound, Yidar might turn opportunistic and fly off to try to claim Uthari’s kingdom, and Malek… Sorath didn’t know what Malek would do, but he was the most reasonable of Uthari’s people. He might make a deal with the druids. At the least, he would probably agree to deactivate the portal until Jadora could study it further and perhaps figure out a way to keep threats from coming through.
Sorath’s gaze shifted upward. Through the branches, he could make out Uthari’s yacht floating over the pool. He couldn’t get up there without a skyboard—and even if he stole one, he lacked the magic to operate it—but he had a plan for that. No fewer than a half dozen fleet commanders were down here, officers working for other kings and queens, and they would be delighted to help Sorath kill Uthari. He ought to be able to talk one of them into levitating him over to the Serene Waters—what a ridiculous name for a ship commanded by a tyrant. From there, Sorath could strike.
Maybe he could do it this very night. But it would be better if he could hide out until Tinder, Fret, Tezi, and the others returned. If they did soon, and if he could make contact with Tezi without revealing himself, he wanted to borrow her axe.
Sorath might be able to assassinate Uthari in his sleep if he used a mundane weapon, but he worried that anyone who had survived centuries of rule would have booby traps and defenses in his bedroom, if not in the entire suite. If something woke Uthari up, Sorath wouldn’t stand a chance.
Unless he carried a weapon that protected him from magical attacks and could cut through a wizard’s defenses.
The sense that he wasn’t alone came over Sorath. He looked down, half-expecting to spot a Thorn Company patrol passing through. If one did, he would have to resist the urge to make contact. Right now, none of them had any idea where he’d gone or what he intended to do. If Ferroki or any of the others found out, and if Uthari read the truth in their minds, he would double up his defenses and sleep with one eye open. The chances of Sorath succeeding, even with the stealth device, would plummet.
Something stirred in the undergrowth to the side of his tree. He gripped the hilt of his pistol.
A furry blur sprang past his tree to land on a boulder. A massive gray wolf. It appeared similar to the ones that had harried the mages during the battle the night before.
It gazed toward the camp instead of up at him, so he released his pistol. But he was careful not to move or make a noise. He had little doubt that the animal was spying for another druid. Maybe looking for the man who’d been taken prisoner?
Sorath had no idea if that druid was still alive. He’d been gone when Sorath roused from his own torture.
A part of him was tempted to seek out the druids, since Kywatha had been interested in talking to him, but to what end? Helping them remove the portal would likely make matters worse for Thorn Company—Sorath could envision an enraged Uthari lashing out at the mercenaries. Getting rid of the head of the snake would be best. Then the druids and the other fleets could squabble over the portal. Sorath didn’t care. As long as Ferroki and the others were able to get out of that odious contract and leave the jungle.
The wolf lifted its snout and sniffed. Catching Sorath’s scent?
He hadn’t moved, and he tried to breathe as shallowly as he could. From his experience, the stealth device camouflaged its wearer from magical senses and eyesight, but if it could fool other senses, he didn’t know. Vinjo might not have thought of scent.
After another minute, the wolf sprang off the boulder, heading away from camp. Maybe it would be best if Sorath did the same. He wanted to keep an eye on Thorn Company, but most of the mercenaries had gone to bed for the night, and there was little activity.
Or so he thought. A cloaked and hooded figure on a skyboard flew over the railing of the Serene Waters and down to the portal.
The branches kept Sorath from seeing the reaction from the mages on guard down there, but they must not have objected, for when the figure came back into view, he stood right beside the portal. He withdrew a thick tome from under his cloak, opening it to a bookmarked page then withdrawing his hands. The book remained open, floating parallel to the ground so he could read from it.
Sorath was too far away to have a shot at seeing the title or anything on the pages, but the tome appeared old. A few ships had come and gone, resupplying Uthari’s fleet. Maybe one had delivered a new resource?
