She glimpsed a movement near the foot of her bed, near the holographic rainforest. "Who's there?" she cried.
Ed flapped awake in the stondai, sputtering as he hopped to a higher branch. "Hawwwk! What is it? Hawwk!"
"I don't—" . . . know, she meant to say, but her breath was cut off by a sudden glimmer of light near a tree at the edge of the forest. It wasn't Ed, and it wasn't the tree holo. A malfunction in the projector? Then why was she suddenly gasping again, unable to move her head or lift a hand to shield herself?
The dream . . .There had been a struggle, a terrible struggle between two glimmering forces, between hope and despair.
Through the blur of her confusion, she glimpsed something moving in the air—like a shadow, or a light—like neither, and both. Ed was flapping his wings in alarm. But she couldn't tell what she was seeing.
"Rawk! Jayl! What is it?" The parrot's voice drew her to full consciousness.
She answered without taking her eyes off the moving forms. "I don't know, Ed," she whispered. "Do you see it?" It was clearer now; it was like watching two ghosts of flame and shadow twisting around one another, in a tortuous ballet. They shifted and interchanged, the movement too quick, too intense to follow.
The parrot's voice dropped to a low gargle. Out of the corner of her eye, she was aware of the parrot hopping back and forth on the branch, clucking and muttering, "Urrr, see it . . . but what . . . what?"
Jael couldn't answer. She was transfixed. The ghostly dancers moved closer. She heard voices, as though from a great distance. She heard hissing, as of water touching flame. She heard a groan, and a dim, distant screeching. She leaned forward, straining to hear the voices, to hear any recognizable sound. Who are you? she mouthed. What do you want? She could not force the words from her throat.
The air itself seemed to murmur, and she caught the words, "N-needs-s-s you-u-u . . ."
What? she mouthed. Who?
There was a moan, and out of it, the words rose: "Go-o-o to-o-o him-m-m."
"Go to whom?" she whispered, barely making the words audible.
"W-wind-d-d-d-rushhhh—"
Her breath went out as though she'd been punched.
"—n-needs-s-s youuuu . . ." And then the air stirred oddly, and she caught a sharp, familiar tang; and then the voices were lost in a cacophony of groans. She thought she heard a cry, and the words, "Windrush-h betray-y-y-s . . ." and then the voice faded, and silence and darkness swallowed her, and she was alone in the gloom of her room.
She could not move or breathe. It was as though, for an instant, the air before her had opened up, offering her a breath of another world, the smell of another world. If she had not heard the name Windrush, she still would have recognized that tang in the air.
Dear God! she thought. What just happened?
The darkness of her room surrounded her like a cloak, closing in upon her. An instant later it seemed to open up with a great wrench, not a suffocating darkness, but a vast and endless space. Her lungs were burning. She took a sharp breath, panting in desperate lungfuls of air. Had she really just seen . . . and heard . . . ?
Windrush needs you . . .
She shuddered, feeling two years' grief and worry welling up in her. Was this another nightmare—or was Windrush really, somehow, calling out to her? Could this be another astonishing dragon magic, her friend crying to her across the gulfs of time and space? "Windrush!" she whispered, clutching her bed sheet around her. "Highwing! Windrush!"
But where had those voices come from? Had she really heard them, or had she dreamed the whole thing, in a terrible fever? She was sweating, her heart pounding in her ears. Could she have imagined it all?
But I heard it. Windrush needs you . . .She was aware suddenly of Ed's voice, rasping across the room. "Jayl—rawwk!—what was it? What was it? Rawwwwwwk . . . Jayyyl . . . what's wronnnnng?"
Letting her breath out with a sigh, she turned to Ed. The holoparrot was jumping from branch to branch in agitation, a flutter of scarlet and green. Her voice came out as a dry croak as she said, "I don't know, Ed! I don't know!"
The parrot folded his wings and settled down on a branch, listening to the air. "No more, Jayl. It's gone. Gone."
She nodded wearily. Then, with a jolt, she realized what Ed had just said. It was not her imagination. He had heard it, too. "Ed—" she whispered, "what exactly did you hear?"
"Awk?"
"What did you hear? You heard it, didn't you?"
"Urr—something—"
Jael patted the blanket beside her. "Come here, Ed." The ghostly parrot fluttered across to her, landing on her shoulder. She patted the blanket more insistently. With a mutter, Ed hopped down beside her. "Listen, Ed, I need your help. Now. I need you to tell me exactly what you saw. And what you heard."
"Urk!" The bird clacked his beak, looking around. "Saw—Jayl sit up, not happy. Saw—not sure, not sure." He shook his head violently.
"But you saw—"
"Something—rawwwwwk. Not sure what."
"And you heard—"
"Scrawwwww. Voices. Someone. Urrk." The parrot cocked his head, fixing Jael with a stare. "Who, Jayl?"
She drew a breath. "I'm . . . not sure. Tell me everything you can remember, Ed."
"Rawk." The bird pranced in agitation on the blanket.
"Did you hear . . . any words? Any words you recognized?" She wanted to plead with him. She wanted to grab him and shake him until he either confirmed what she had heard or told her she was crazy. "Please, Ed?"
The bird cocked his head one way, then the other, then sputtered for a moment. "Not sure. Thought I . . . urk." Jael's heart pounded as he paused. "Someone . . . needs you. Sounded like . . . someone needs you. Urk." Ed shook his wing feathers.
Jael stared at him. "What'd you just say?"
"Not sure," Ed croaked. "Sounded like . . . need. Heard need, maybe. Not sure. Go, they said. Go to him."
Jael began to shake somewhere deep inside, and then to weep. Ed hopped frantically beside her, cawing and murmuring, asking what was wrong. She could not answer; she didn't even know if her tears came from sadness or joy, or both. A terrible loneliness and pain was welling up inside her. A friend needed her, and she was too far away to do anything except weep for his need.
Eventually, the tears subsided and she sat back, snuffling and telling Ed that it was okay, he could stop worrying. She took a deep breath and began to review what had happened. Windrush, somehow, had reached out to her. How, she could not imagine—nor could she imagine the need that might impel the dragon to do that. Even Highwing, imprisoned and facing death, had not reached into her universe to tell her. She would never have dreamed that such a thing was possible.
And yet it had happened.
But what could she do about it? What could she do?
She thought long and fruitlessly, and finally sighed. Ar would be back in a week or two. Perhaps he would have an idea. Please, Ar! The only way to go to Windrush was to get a ship. And how could she possibly get a ship? Hijack one to the mountain route, to the dragon realm? Surely Ar would have a better idea. Surely.
And just as surely, this was going to be the longest night of her life—the longest week of her life.
Chapter 11
"Windrush Needs You . . ."
IN THE terrifying swirl of light and dark, the iffling-children tried to strike back at the false-ones, to hurl them away, to extinguish their flame; but the true-ones had no experience in killing, no knowledge of fighting. In sheer desperation they had penetrated the false-ones' gauntlet and cried out their message to Jael. One of the enemy had flickered out in the storm of their passage, a fortuitous accident that showed them how their foes might be killed. But now the others boiled toward them in a rage. They had to fight or flee.
—Escape!—
—Where? Where?—
—The false-ones block us—
—Release your fire!—
Driven by stark terror, they caught one of the false-ones and burned
it to silent darkness. But an instant later another loomed blazing, and this time an iffling cried out and died. The surviving ifflings, in a panic, surrounded the foe and crushed the fire from it before the rest of the false-ones could intervene.
—Opening—
—That way!—
The three ifflings darted away, fleeing across the underrealm. The enemy gave chase. The living flames, all of them, burned bright in this strange arid underrealm. But in the darkness behind them, the ifflings sensed the human alone once more, temporarily abandoned by the false-ones.
—Make contact again!—
—She must be led!—
The ifflings swept back in a great arc. But the two remaining enemies flew quickly to block the way. The ifflings veered. Before the false-ones could intercept them, they skated around the human and flanked it from the opposite side. Now three true-ifflings and two false-ifflings surrounded the human. The ifflings darted and jockeyed; but they could not approach closer without drawing a new attack. The false-ones were equally wary.
Hovering in an uneasy truce, they waited and watched, calling out, hoping that even from a distance, the human might hear their voices and follow.
* * *
Jarvorus watched his adversaries with gnawing apprehension. No longer was he so certain of his ability to sweep them away! Three of his fellows were gone, destroyed! He had been too confident. But no more. He would not drop his vigil even for an instant. And if the chance came, he would crush the ifflings once and for all.
At the same time, he felt drawn to the shimmering presence of the human. Her awareness in the underrealm was a flickering and uncertain thing. The ifflings had gotten through to her briefly; but now neither they nor he could get close enough to speak directly. He would call out to her in the underrealm anyway—call from a distance. That way might not be so subtle as he wished, but his message would be heard.
She would know: Windrush was a traitor who sought only to entrap her. Jarvorus's mission was clear and he would see to it that he was heard.
* * *
Jael got no more sleep that night. Voices seemed to keep calling to her in the night, voices that she could not quite make out, voices that would give her no peace.
She spent the following day in solitude, overcome by feelings of déjà vu. She remembered her feelings two years ago, between her first encounter in the dragon realm—the trip that culminated in her killing her own captain in self-defense—and her first meeting with Ar in the port of Lexis, a meeting that ultimately led her back to Highwing's mountains. Then, as now, she'd been alone on a world that was not home, waiting and hoping the impossible hope, for circumstances that would permit her to return to those harsh, alien, beautiful mountains.
Now she could only await Ar's arrival. She could not conceive of returning to the dragon realm without him. In the meantime, she desperately wished she had someone she could talk to about it. There was Ed, of course. But Ed, her beloved cyberparrot, was not human and not what she needed now. She felt terribly alone.
It helped a little to get out and walk around. The port of Krakow on Cargeeling was more a town than a city, with a large park at its center, surrounding a lake. She walked in the park in the afternoon, watching the birds and recording images of them for Ed, who accompanied her in a small memory-device hung on her neck chain. She slowly began to be able to think.
How could she get a ship so that she might go to Windrush? There was no doubt in her mind that she must go. The question was how. And how would she find the dragon, if he was in trouble? She had an unsettling feeling that someone meant to lead her.
Her thoughts returned, as well, to last night and that strange man Kan-Kon. He was a sad case, perhaps, but he knew of the dragons and believed in them. That was more than anyone else here could offer.
That night she returned to the Green Tap, but to her disappointment, there was no sign of Kan-Kon. She approached some people who had the look of regulars. A polite query brought only shrugs, and a muttered deprecation about Kan-Kon. Sitting down at a table, she sat drumming her fingers, wondering what time Kan-Kon was likely to come in. Finally she sought out the human manager and asked him. He told her that Kan-Kon had been in the 'lucie room earlier. He hooked a thumb toward the rear of the bar.
Jael frowned and hesitated at the entrance to the 'lucie room, wrinkling her nose at the stale, smoky smells coming through the curtained doorway. She took a deep breath of fresh air and ducked in. It was a close, dim room, the air stifling with incense, tobacco, and God knew what other substances. Colored lights and holos danced in her eyes, making it hard to focus. There was a grumbling undertone of music, leaking from the headsets worn by the half dozen or so patrons, all of whom were under 'lucie wires or tabs. None of them, with the exception of a horse-headed Swert, paid her the slightest attention. The Swert's large-eyed, penetrating gaze caused her to shiver and look away.
Kan-Kon was sitting cross-legged in the far corner, looking even more disheveled than he had the night before. Synaptic auggie wires streamed from his head, and he was smoking a hookah from which a sweet, greenish white smoke curled into the already thick air. She exhaled with a cough and took another dizzying lungful. She picked her way past the other motionless bodies, stepping carefully over the bare stick-legs of a sallow-faced man who was puffing energetically in and out through a seemingly empty glass cylinder. Jael didn't even want to know what he was doing. She reached the ex-rigger and crouched in front of him. "Hey," she said. "Kan-Kon!"
He sighed, rocking his head from side to side. He looked as though a deep fog lay about his brain.
"Kan-Kon!" she said sharply. She hesitated, then reached out, wondering if she could just remove the wires from his head.
"It is not permitted to touch the wires of another patron," said a voice from overhead. "Please respect the privacy of others and do not disturb their sessions."
She craned her neck to look up. The voice was coming from a speaker in the ceiling. A long plastic robot arm, also attached to the ceiling, was shaking a finger at her. She flushed, feeling foolish. Was she going to argue with a robot? She dropped her hands to her sides.
"Thank you, ma'am."
Kan-Kon was still oblivious to her presence. Clearly she could give up on him tonight. She turned away in distaste and fled from the room, trying not to breathe, until she escaped from the bar by the rear exit.
In the alley, panting to clear her lungs, she walked out toward the street and then into the park where she and Kan-Kon had sat last night. She wanted both to cry and to scream. Resting on a bench, she inhaled the night air, smelling the lake and the dark-cedars and spider-blossoms. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes, wishing she could blot the farmsat's light from the sky so that she could see the stars.
She felt a profound loneliness, and she wept silently for her friends who needed her, who were so far away. Eventually she dozed off. When she awoke, the town was quiet, the clubs were mostly dark, and she had a terrific neckache. She trudged back to the dorm, got a sandwich from a dispenser, and returned to her room, where she ate one bite before falling into a deep and dreamless sleep.
* * *
She spent the next day in the rigger nav library, running sims of various routes to the mountain region of Aeregian space. Later, she again went looking for Kan-Kon, hoping to find him before he could lose himself in drink, drugs, or wires. But her search was fruitless; no one in any of the clubs had seen him all evening. One woman told Jael that she'd seen him sitting in the park that morning and he'd looked . . . scared, she'd thought. But where he'd gone, the woman had no idea.
Jael gave up. On an impulse, she went to the depot and caught a night train out of Krakow to one of the small tourist towns out beyond the radius of the farmsat's light. She took a room, but spent most of the night sitting out under the stars, watching the rotation of the sky until it brought the constellations of Aeregian space blazing high over the horizon. Somewhere out there, among the stars scattered like
motes of glowing dust in the sky, was the mountain route leading to the port of Lexis. Somewhere in that region, dipping into the Flux, one could find the realm of dragons. She gazed for a long time, and felt her hopes and fears rise and fall like an invisible tide.
The feeling persisted that someone, or some spirit, not of this world, lingered nearby—trying to speak to her across an unbreachable barrier. When she finally slept that night, she dreamed of voices booming and rushing about her, like water in a stream pounding down a carved channel. She dreamed that someone was calling Windrush a traitor to the realm. She dreamed that Windrush was calling out to her in his sleep. She dreamed of someone calling: They are trying to entrap you! and she woke up with those words echoing in her mind.
Returning to Krakow, she renewed her search for Kan-Kon. No one seemed to think it unusual for him to drop out of sight. Who could predict the habits of a rigger turned lush—and who cared, besides Jael? She began to wonder if she had imagined her conversation with the man. She checked with registry and verified that Ar had not yet returned. She fumed and went to the nav library and ran another sim. She went to a holoshow and left in the middle. Finally she went to a bar and, uncharacteristically, got stinking drunk, telling at least three potential suitors to drop dead.
The next morning, waking with ringing ears and a splitting headache, she could remember nothing of the previous night's dreams. She decided that perhaps it would be smart to forget Kan-Kon, as well. She spent the day in the park, thinking through various options for getting back into space. The most obvious was to seek an assignment on an unaccompanied single-rigger to Lexis. But her memories of begging work alone in the rigger halls were as vivid today as ever—and anyway, she didn't seriously intend to go anywhere without Ar. And yet, she feared waiting too long.
They are trying to entrap you! The words swirled in her mind. Windrush needs you.
Dragon Space Page 41
