The Ring of Five Dragons, page 66
part #1 of The Pearl Series
“My arm,” Rekkk whispered. “It feels like my arm’s on fire.”
“Just hold on,” she said. “Hold on, Rekkk.”
Noises arose like smoke from the public rooms downstairs. A single lamp was lit against the darkness, all the mean room had by way of illumination. Its flame flittered and danced, sending hunchbacked shadows up the wall.
His fingers were twitching, curling and spasming as if they had a will of their own. “Something’s… something’s happened to Nith Sahor.”
Eleana bent over him. “What do you mean?” She wished Giyan were here. What was taking her so long? She should have found the Dar Sala-at long before now. What if she had run into trouble—the crazy Khagggun in Middle Seat the roadhouse proprietor had warned them about. She bit her lip, in a knot of worry. She regretted now not insisting that she and Rekkk accompany her. But she had been adamant on going alone. Even Rekkk knew there were times you could not argue with her.
“He is under attack!” Rekkk managed to get out before another wave of fiery pain hit him. “Ah, N’Luuura take it!”
She could feel him trembling all over. He had gone cold as ice.
“He’s injured,” Rekkk panted. “Badly injured.”
He was almost doubled over in pain. All at once, the okummmon emitted an ear-piercing sound. Eleana’s teeth began to chatter. Rekkk was on the verge of passing out. The okummmon bulged outward. There was a flash of brilliant blue light, followed immediately by what sounded like a clap of thunder.
Out of the slot in the okummmon appeared a brilliantly plumaged bird.
“N’Luuura, a teyj,” Rekkk said hoarsely, as the four-winged bird swooped back and forth near the ceiling.
The colors of the teyj’s plumage began to run, dripped through the air, separating, coming apart, disassociating. And just as quickly reformed into another figure entirely.
“Nith Sahorl” Rekkk pulled himself together, shaking off the pain like an animal shakes off rain.
The Gyrgon, having morphed into his true shape, fell to one knee. As Eleana ran toward him, he held up a gloved hand. Sparks fountained through the air, and the acrid smell of burning components filled the room. His ion exomatrix appeared cracked in several places. Some of his tertium and germanium circuits glowed eerily, while others seemed blackened, fused.
Eleana turned back to Rekkk. “He’s bleeding!” she said.
Staggering to his feet, Rekkk approached the figure.
“I am sorry I caused you so much pain, Rekkk,” Nith Sahor said. His voice sounded odd, muffled, as if emanating from another dimension. “At such short notice, however, it could not be helped.”
“Do not concern yourself,” Rekkk said, kneeling in front of the Gyrgon. “What has happened?”
Nith Sahor’s head lifted, and he looked Rekkk in the eye. The amber-colored skin of his head was unhealthily mottled. His hollow cheeks were speckled with blood. “I was required to defend myself against enemies most zealous.” A small rueful smile played across his lips. “It has been some time since I needed to do that. I fear I was a trifle rusty. I was obliged to beat a strategic retreat.”
“How badly are you injured?”
“Whole inside and out, I assure you.”
But some dark undertow in his tone, a certain pallor in his startling star-sapphire eyes told Rekkk he was lying.
The Gyrgon turned his attention to Eleana, his body unfolding like that of a golden mantis until he was standing. “So this is the young Kundalan resistance leader.”
“You know about me?” the girl said uncertainly.
“Assuredly. Rekkk has been sending me periodic reports of your progress.”
“Then you’ll know I abandoned the resistance to join Giyan and Rekkk in the quest to find the Dar Sala-at. Your Khagggun have done too good a job at decimating our ranks and killing our idealism.”
“A necessary though regrettable turn of the wheel. You have my sympathies.” ‘”
“What shall I do with them?”
“Pardon me.” The Gyrgon blinked. “Is that a joke?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I suppose in a macabre way it is. This is my first encounter with a Gyrgon, though I have lost count of the times I have dreamed of this moment. I have dreamed many times of killing such as you, with my bare hands if necessary. Your kind have killed so many of my people, so cruelly, wantonly, with a detached pleasure.” Tears trembled in the corners of her eyes. “So many gone, like a river of flesh and bones emptying out into the Sea of Blood, earning it its name all over again.”
“What fire!” Nith Sahor said approvingly. “I can appreciate your passion. Believe me, it will prove invaluable in the days and months to come.”
Eleana clutched her rage in tightly balled fists. “I would kill you now if I could, if Rekkk would let me.”
“I understand. There is nothing I can say that could make up for the blood that has been spilled, the pain and suffering we have caused. A single thought to carry with you through the dark time ahead. One day, it is my hope and expectation that you will see me for what I truly am.”
Eleana turned her back, would not respond even to Rekkk’s gentle touch.
Nith Sahor looked around the room. “Speaking of Lady Giyan, where is she?”
“She went to fetch the Dar Sala-at,” Rekkk said.
Nith Sahor’s face darkened momentarily. “On her own? Rekkk, I thought I made myself clear.”
“You did. It’s just that Giyan has a will of her own.”
“She also has a way of making that will manifest.” Nith Sahor nodded grudgingly. “I understand.” He went slowly and, Rekkk suspected, painfully, to the window overlooking part of the courtyard and the road leading to Middle Seat. “How long has that knife-sharpener been here?”
Rekkk shrugged. “I do not know exactly. He came sometime in the afternoon.”
“He may be a knife-sharpener,” Nith Sahor observed, “but if so he is honing his own shock-sword.”
“What?” Rekkk leapt to the window to have a look himself. “He is Khagggun?”
“Yes, Rekkk.” Nith Sahor passed a gloved hand across the window. Blue ions arced briefly, and the Gyrgon’s eyes closed, moving rapidly back and forth beneath the lids as if he were dreaming. “He is from Axis Tyr. He bears the mark of the regent’s Haaar-kyut. He has been keeping tabs on you. It would be an excellent wager to assume he is waiting for reinforcements.”
“How did he know we were here?”
“A good question, Rekkk. It goes without saying that he lacks the intelligence to have found out on his own. He must have been directed here.”
Rekkk snapped his fingers. “Malistral She found us once through a sorcerous beacon. But Giyan swore to me she had blocked it.”
“I would not bet against Lady Giyan’s sorcery.” Nith Sahor turned back into the room. “Therefore, Malistra must have found an alternative means to track you.” He began to search their meager belongings. “Tell me, Rekkk, is there anything in your possession she could have tainted? Anything that was lost and now found, something out of your sight for even a few moments?”
“No, I can’t think of anything.”
“I can.” Eleana turned around. In her palm lay the V’ornn weapon.
“A spider-mite,” Nith Sahor said.
“Malistra cast a spell on it to protect Olnnn Rydddlin from Giyan’s sorcery.”
“Put it down,” Nith Sahor said. “At once.”
Eleana did as he bade, then stepped back, moving to Rekkk’s side. Rekkk put a protective arm around her.
“Now we are faced with a fascinating conundrum.” Hands clasped at the small of his back, Nith Sahor walked slowly and meditatively around the weapon. From time to time, he paused and, again, Rekkk found himself wondering how badly the Gyrgon had been injured. “What did Malistra do to it?”
“Giyan has been trying to determine that,” Rekkk said.
Nith Sahor paused. “She handled it?”
“A number of times.”
“It is simplicity itself. One sorceress casts a spell to absorb the aura of another sorceress.” Nith Sahor nodded. “All right. We have identified our tracker.” He squatted down, hands steepled in front of his face. “Now what shall we do with it? Shall we destroy it and be done with it?” He cocked his head up, looked at Eleana. “What do you say, Resistance?”
Eleana thought a moment. “If it were up to me, I would leave it alone. When we leave here;rthe knife-sharpener won’t come with us. He’ll stay right here where the tracker is.”
“Better yet, we could send the tracker somewhere else.” Nith Sahor rose in a shower of blue sparks. Hyperexcited ions surrounded the tracker, whisked it away at the movement of his hand. “I believe we can now work unobserved.” But the smile that tinged his face was already turning into a grimace of pain.
Blood-Letting
The Ring of Five Dragons!” With avid fingers Wennn Stogggul plucked the ring from Malistra’s open palm. “Allow me, Lord.” She smiled as she slid it onto his index finger.
He grimaced. “Tight fit.”
“It was meant for Kundalan fingers, Lord.” Watching him from beneath hooded lids. The tip of her tongue flicked out as she saw the single bead of blood leaking from the spot where the thorn had pricked him. She grasped his hand, wiping it away before he could see it.
“Now what do I do?” he asked her. “How do I summon the sorcery of the Kundalan?”
“In time, Lord,” she said, wrapping her arms around him. They were walking in her herb-and-mushroom garden in the regent’s palace. The sky was a canopy of cerulean blue. Butterflies danced beside Haaar-kyut in full battle armor patrolling the shanstone ramparts. A blood-fig tree she had lately planted bloomed in sorcerous abandon, releasing a scent that appealed to Stogggul particularly. She made certain to bring him here at least once a day so that his system would be infused with the perfume that made him adore her above all others. “The ring needs to become accustomed to its new master. Even as we speak it is attuning itself to you and you alone. Within twenty-four hours the sorcery will be yours to command.”
“That long?” He frowned. “I wanted to use it now against Kinnnus Morcha.” He lifted his ringed fist over his head. “I want to stamp him out like a dung beetle”
“And you will, Lord.” Malistra licked his ear. “If you grow impatient, why not lay the plans now for his demise?”
“And how would you advise I do that?”
“Enlist your son and Olnnn Rydddlin. Kurgan has the Star-Admiral’s ear, yet he has lately proved by deed the sincerity of his pledge to you. He has helped you humiliate Morcha. And Olnnn Rydddlin owes you an enormous debt of gratitude.”
Stogggul’s eyes gleamed darkly. “Your idea has merit.” He inhaled deeply the perfume of the sorcerous blood-fig tree. “I could use Kurgan to lure Morcha into a trap. That will certainly please me. But as for Olnnn Rydddlin, of what use is he to me?”
“He despises Morcha now. He will be only too eager to do what you ask of him.”
“And what would that be?”
“He is a masterful warrior. He would be honored to act as your assassin.”
“What are you talking about? He is a cripple.”
“It only appears that way,” Malistra whispered so there was no chance of being overheard. “And therein lies his advantage. He gives the appearance of a grievously wounded veteran, sadly and prematurely retired. But I have made his skeletal leg stronger than it was before. Believe me when I tell you he will be even more formidable as the regent’s assassin than ever he was as a Pack-Co’mmander.”
As usual, she was telling him as much of the truth as served her purpose. In fact, she had imbued Olnnn Rydddlin with something of herself. No one—not the least Olnnn Rydddlin himself—could possibly guess what she had done to him; it was too soon for such gifts to come to light. First, he had to struggle. He had to overcome his own revulsion of the unknowable, of the chaos that was life. He had, in essence, to transcend his limitations as a V’ornn if he was ever to come into full possession of the gifts she had given him. She had made this decision while she was healing him. He had been unconscious, hanging between life and death. She made a perilous deal with fate. If his will to live was strong enough, this would be her price, and a steep one it was.
They had come to the end of their stroll around the garden. Stogggul turned to her, bruised her lips with his. “Tell me, Malistra,” he whispered, “what need is there for me to be regent when you are doing such a neat job of it?”
“I only suggest, Lord. It is you who schemes and makes decisions.”
“Foolish female, that was a joke.” He laughed, parted her robes, exposed her firm, glowing flesh. He shivered with anticipation as she knelt in front of him. “A very funny joke, oh yes!”
When Riane thought of seeing Eleana she simply could not imagine it. As she approached the roadhouse outside Middle Seat she found herself becoming more and more apprehensive. The simple fact was, she was confused. Deep inside her core, the personality of Annon quailed, his “maleness” already anticipating the sexual charge Eleana gave “him.” But Annon was no longer Annon. Riane had no idea how her body would respond. Why should she? She had limited experience being female. Since becoming Riane, the symptoms of the hormonal changes raging through her system had been suppressed by her terror, isolation, and despair. It was anyone’s guess what would happen when she was standing next to Eleana. She was terrified of a cataclysm.
Giyan, seeing the tremors run through her, stopped them in the courtyard. Save for the group’s cthauros, it was deserted, unkempt, thoroughly unpleasant. Putting a hand on Riane’s arm, she said: “Try to relax.”
“Easy for you to say.”
Giyan smiled. “As a matter of fact, it’s not. I am every bit as apprehensive as you are.” She did not have to give voice to her apprehension: Eleana posed the biggest potential threat to them, because she would prove the greatest temptation to Riane to reveal who she really was. Thigpen, lying across Riane’s shoulders, placidly observed this exchange between them. Riane was grateful that she had never asked what the two of them had talked about inside the Abbey of Warm Current. The creature seemed to accept with preternatural equanimity these brief enigmatic conversations that pointedly excluded her. “We all harbor secrets, Riane,” was all she had said. “This is how the Cosmos continues to manufacture Chaos.”
Rekkk was waiting anxiously for them in the courtyard of the road-house.
“So this is the Dar Sala-at,” he said.
Riane stared at him. Tall and rangy, with a handsome lined face, he seemed not at all the fierce Pack-Commander Annon had seen that day in the forest. His eyes were alive and curious, with none of the cruel remoteness typical of Khagggun. What would he think if he knew Annon Ashera still lived, existing inside this female Kundalan body?
“Rekkk Hacilar,” Giyan said, firmly putting a hand on each of Riane’s shoulders, “this is Riane.”
Rekkk smiled. “We have spent many days trying to find you.”
On the other hand, the irony of the situation—being allied with the former Pack-Commander who had chased Annon and Giyan from Axis Tyr to Stone Border—was not lost on her. It was decidedly eerie to have this knowledge—to have known Rekkk without him being aware of it. She remembered Thigpen telling her that it was the Dar Sala-at’s fate to be apart from all others. This, her first taste of the enormity of the isolation, made her feel empty inside, a hollow bowl waiting to be filled by rainwater in a place of eternal drought.
“I have never met a Rhynnnon before,” she said, “though I have heard much about them.”
“You have?” Rekkk frowned. “How would a Kundalan girl—?”
“Rekkk, what has happened?” Giyan said hastily as she gave Riane a warning look. “Why have you risked showing yourself instead of waiting for us upstairs?”
“Nith Sahor is here,” he said quickly. “He denies it, but I am certain he has been in a major battle of some sort, doubtless involving Gyrgon technomancy. He is wounded, Giyan, grievously, I believe. Can you help him?”
“I do not know,” she said, leading them across the roadhouse’s scarred and battered front door. “But I will try.”
“Lady,” Nith Sahor said the moment they entered the room, “I am gratified that you and Rekkk have fulfilled the commission I asked of you. This, I take it, is the Dar Sala-at. It is an honor to meet a legend in the flesh.” His star-sapphire eyes swung from Riane back to Giyan. “I can feel what you are doing, but you waste your time,” he told her flatly. “What has been done to me cannot be undone by your sorcery.” His gloved forefinger pointed at his skull. “The circuits are damaged. Since they are a part of me…” He shrugged. “But we must not talk about this. There are far more pressing matters to attend to.”
“But—“
“The Gyrgon is right,” Riane said. “The ides of Lonon begin tomorrow. We must direct all our energies and resources on the survival of Kundala.” She turned to Nith Sahor. “Giyan tells me you can transport us to Axis Tyr.”
“In the blink of an eye,” Nith Sahor said. “The rest will be up to you. Once you are in the city I can no longer help you. I am anathema there. Hunted just as you will be if your identity is discovered.”
“And once there, how will we enter the regent’s palace?”
“Eleana and I have taken care of that matter,” Rekkk said. And now, at last, the moment that Riane had been anticipating and dreading had come. Eleana had been hanging back in the corner of the room, but now she stepped forward. “I never imagined I would ever see the Dar Sala-at, let alone meet her.”
Riane wanted to say something, anything. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Giyan watching her intently. Eleana had not changed much from the image Annon had kept with him from their first meeting. It was curious. Riane still saw her through “male” eyes. She took in the curve of her breast, the narrowness of her waist, the length and strength of her legs. And her face—well, her face seemed, if possible, even more beautiful than it had been in Annon’s memory, as if suffused with an inner glow. She exuded a warrior’s aplomb, a female’s sensuality. It was a potent mix. The attraction had not ebbed one iota. Riane’s knees felt weak, and she could not quite catch her breath. She was overrun with an emotion that had nowhere to go.
