by Wen Spencer
"Yeah, I can hear that." Tinker had microphones planted in the offices so she could trigger her computers without a headset. "Sparks, are you active?"
"Yes, boss," her office AI answered.
"Filter audio pickup into separate voiceprints and put it up on the workshop screen."
"Okay, boss."
As she had hoped, Impatience's ramblings easily divided out. "Sparks, record this track." She tapped the bass rumbles of the dragon's voice. "Convert to phonetics and indicate all pauses and breaks."
Impatience stuffed the batteries back into the casing, screwed on the lid, and tried the switch. When the flashlight didn't light, the dragon took it back apart and eyed the pieces carefully. Apparently it had spotted the "this way up" diagram stamped on the plastic as it eyed the batteries closely, repacked them into the casing and turned it on. This time it was rewarded with a beam of light. "Huuhuuhuuhuuhuuhuuhuuhuuhuuhuu."
One word down.
"Okay." Tinker pulled up the recordings she had made of Turtle Creek and directed them to her largest monitor. "Since I don't have a clue how I'm supposed to help my mother, let's see what he has to say about my biggest problem: the Ghostlands."
* * *
The great Westinghouse Bridge had fallen. The Ghostlands had lapped up against the centermost support column and toppled it. Two of its four great arching spans now lay in ruins on the valley floor, slowly leeching to blue. The remaining two spans would soon follow.
Wolf gazed down at the ruin, trying to not let dismay overtake him. "There's nothing you can do?"
Jewel Tear glared at the valley as if it personally defied her. "Not in time. At the rate it's expanding, it will involve the main river shortly."
She meant the Monongahela River, which flowed past the mouth of the Turtle Creek.
"The creek froze solid," Wolf said. "You don't think the river will freeze?"
"If I understand this correctly, the worlds are mirror images." Jewel pointed out at the river. "Where there is a river here, there is one on Onihida?"
"Yes."
"I can't predict what will happen when the force of the river meets this, but what I fear is that the oni can make use of it. As they are now, the Ghostlands are a deathtrap. The forces are funneling downward, like the pit of an ant lion. The river might allow the oni to pass unchecked through the Ghostlands."
"How soon?"
"Only a few more days." She turned away from the Ghostlands and him. "Something has to be done. They say your domi can work miracles. Since this is her fault, it would be good for her to fix her mistake."
Yes, he needed to talk to Tinker. He had faith that once she was given opportunity to study the situation, she would find a solution. He had brought a second Hand just so he could have one of the sekasha "babies" along to operate the walkie-talkie.
"Find out where domi is," Wolf said to Wraith and turned back to Jewel Tear. "I want Stone Clan to keep their distance from my domi. After what happened with the black willow, I do not trust any of you near her."
Jewel Tear looked away, giving a slight huff of indignation, but didn't deny the implication that they meant Tinker harm.
Wraith came back with unease clear on his face. Wolf bowed his leave-taking and headed for his Rolls.
"What is it?" Wolf asked Wraith once they were out of the Stone Clan's hearing.
"Domi is at the scrap yard. The dragon is there."
Wolf's heart leapt at the news. "She's fighting the dragon?"
"No. Apparently, she's—talking—to it."
"No, I'm not talking to it," Tinker said with much disgust in her voice. She smelled of apples, butter, and sugar, and her face had mysterious streaks of color paste on it—but otherwise she looked unharmed. "It's giving me math lessons—and I think my head is going to explode."
"Math lessons?" There were times he wondered if his English wasn't as strong as he thought it was.
His domi's workshop was normally ordered chaos, but it now looked like a storm front had passed through it. The digital wall boards were covered with elaborate designs and fluid pictures. Printouts were tacked to bare walls, extending the boards to each side and up onto the ceiling. A television cycled through pictures of the Ghostlands. Machines either half built or partially disassembled covered all the table surfaces and the floor was littered with magazines, engine parts, and chewed tires.
The only sign of the dragon itself was its long tail sticking out from behind the worktable, thumping against the floor with a force that shook the entire trailer.
"I think it's math." Tinker tugged at her hair as if she wanted to tear it out. "Whoever said math is the universal language should be hunted down and shot. Or maybe they thought that sentient creatures wouldn't have the attention span of a gnat."
"So you're safe with it?"
Tinker glanced toward Stormsong instead of the dragon for some reason. "I—don't know. It seems playful as a puppy, but it has sharp teeth—lots of them—in a big mouth."
Wolf shifted sideways until he could see around the table. Tinker's nagarou, Oilcan, and the dragon stared at a television screen while they manipulated something in their hands. On the television screen, a small human female in a skimpy red dress fought a tall muscle-bound creature with energetic kicks and punches. The fight ended abruptly with the words "Winner" flashing on the screen and the female bouncing around cheerfully. Oilcan groaned and slumped to one side.
"He—he learns fast." Tinker shook her head. "I've never met anyone that intimidated me with their intellect before—but I always thought that the person that did would be more—"
"Human?"
Tinker waved her hand, as if trying to sift out a better word, and then nodded. "I suppose that would work. The language is a huge barrier to understanding what's he's trying to explain to me."
"Have you learned anything useful?"
"This was educational." Tinker caught Wolf's arm and pulled him to the kitchen. On the counter was an odd sculpture. A rainbow of creamy paste whirled upward like a tornado with paper plates dividing the various colors. It was supported by a silvery aluminum plate, which had been balanced on a base of soda cans.
The paste was the source of the color streaks on Tinker's face, and the smell of butter and sugar. Wolf smeared some off her face. "And this is . . . ?"
"Frosting. Long story. Doesn't matter anymore. This—" Tinker pointed to the structure. "I think this is a model of the Ghostlands. Look, he's sculpted the frosting into a Roy G. Biv spectrum and at each color shift there's a universe marker—the paper plates. Well—at least I think that's what they are."
Tinker took out a camera from her dress pocket, and flipped up the screen. "I filmed it all." She played a minute of the dragon building the sculpture, rumbling in a low steady tone. "What we need is someone that speaks dragon. But, until then—" She folded the camera back up and stuffed it into her dress pocket. "This is what I think it's trying to tell me. Look, can you see down into the middle of this? He made a big production of dropping a lug nut down into there, and did a lot of pointing and talking. He took it out and dropped it a couple of times. And then the math started. I think—he's trying—maybe—to say that my gate is still active."
"Can you stop the Ghostlands from expanding?"
"If I can figure out a way to remove my gate, yes, I think it might close the Ghostlands completely. What I think is happening is this." She dragged him to the whiteboard.
Tinker swept her hand across dragon writing and the English words "save: yes no" appeared. She touched the "yes" and the board went white. Drawing a straight horizonal line, she turned to him. "This is Turtle Creek before the chaos started. According to Stormsong, when you originally surveyed this area a hundred years ago, there was a fiutana here." She added a large purple oval under the line. "Now, Lord Tomtom talked about protective spells that the oni had cloaking their compound, so I think this is why the oni were based here—which also might indicate where their other camps are and why you can't find them
."
Yes, that would explain much. "If the other springs in the area are cloaked, then we know that the oni are using them. Look for what is missing instead of what is there."
"Huh? Oh, yes, that would work. Now, my gate was here." She drew in a black circle above the line, and then added a second black circle at the bottom of the board. "And that's the gate in orbit. I set up a resonance between then." The resonance was represented by a wavy line connecting the two black circles that ran through the heart of the purple oval. "I think what Impatience is telling me is that along this line, a discontinuity emerged, which immediately affected the land under my gate."
She turned and typed on a keyboard. The television, which had been cycling pictures of Turtle Creek, stopped on a blur of blue. "This is thermal readings of the Discontinuity. It's hard to see, but this area here—" She tapped a circle at the heart of the screen. "That's the same size and shape as my gate, lying on its side."
Tinker turned back to the whiteboard, and drew a series of black circles stacked inside the pool of purple. "See, as it sinks, the area affected by the gate would expand." She stepped back from the board, gazing at it. "I'm not a hundred percent sure this is an accurate model, but it explains why the effect is growing."
"Even though the gate in orbit was destroyed?"
"Each gate was designed to operate independently."
"So if we remove the gate, the Discontinuity will heal?"
Tinker sighed. "I don't know. If I'm right, and we can get the gate out, it will at least stop the Ghostlands from growing."
Wolf considered what Jewel Tear claimed about the current forces working in the valley. "That would be good enough for now. We need to do something quickly."
"Well, I'm not getting anything done here." She picked up various items and slipped them into her pocket. "I can get to work on the retrieval now."
20: FOLLOW THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD
Stone Clan chose to wait until the next morning to protest Wind Clan's actions. Wolf wasn't sure why they had delayed, so he stood and listened to Earth Son rant on about protocol and etiquette.
"Wind Clan is insulting us at every step. Look." Earth Son pointed up the tall ironwood scaffolding to where Tinker stood, overseeing the installation of her scrap yard crane. Little Horse was up in the scaffolding with her, but the rest of her Hand were keeping to the ground. "Wind Clan's domi hasn't come down to hear our complaints."
Wolf made a show of glancing around. "We did not know this was to be a formal aumani. I see the rock, but where is the incense and the flame?"
Wolf surprised True Flame into a smile, but the prince caught himself and gave him a hard look.
"Do we need to call an aumani?" True Flame's look warned him not to make light of it.
Wolf spread his hands to show that he didn't know. "Jewel Tear came to me and stated that the Stone Clan could not solve this problem before—"
"It was not her place to make that decision!" Earth Son snapped. "I will say when the Stone Clan can or cannot do something."
Wolf glanced at Jewel Tear but she had her court mask on, letting none of her emotions show. There was no way to judge if this was an honest miscommunication within the Stone Clan, or a contrived situation. If it was the latter, then politically it had been a mistake to act.
Wolf would have to salvage the situation by forcing True Flame to disregard political protocol for the sake of military imperative. "If the information she gave us was accurate, then what is important is that the oni are prevented from using the Ghostlands—"
"Are you saying that I'm lying?" Earth Son seemed eager for Wolf to slander him.
Wolf considered Earth Son for a minute. Was he that blind to the dangers that they were facing? "I'm saying that there are tens of thousands of oni and an oni dragon on the other side of the Ghostlands, and it would be good to keep them there."
Earth Son waved that concern aside. "Your untrained domi and her Hand survived the first dragon."
"Do not mistake that creature for a true oni dragon." True Flame had studied Impatience at Tinker's workshop. The prince pointed out that not only was the "dragon" much smaller than the creatures he had fought; it also had one more digit per foot.
Tinker theorized that since the spell painted onto Impatience's scales had been washed or rubbed away, the dragon might be free from the oni's control. Regardless, they still didn't know how to cage or effectively fight the beast. All options weighed, it was decided to leave the creature in Oilcan's care as an ally instead of treating it as a foe. According to the tengu, however, and confirmed by some mysterious means by the NSA agents, there was a second, larger dragon by the name of Malice still on Onihida. Plans to update the Stone Clan on the dragons, however, had been waylaid by Earth Son's attack on Tinker's operation.
Wolf pushed the conversation back to the military implications. "Jewel Tear stated that if the Ghostlands expand to the river, there will be a shift in forces that will allow the oni to push their army through."
Jewel Tear's mask slipped and she gave him a look of pure hatred.
Earth Son scoffed. "They'll be pinned between the river and the Ghostlands. With five domana, seventy sekasha, the dreadnaught, and the royal troops, we can easily deal with the oni as they emerge . . ."
True Flame lost his patience. "If the oni send a dragon across first, we will be too engaged with it to block the oni. We will do whatever it takes to close the Ghostlands before anything more can come through."
Earth Son recognized that he was treading on an edge with the prince and retreated with, "I am not saying we ignore the Ghostlands. I am saying that this is a Stone Clan specialty—"
"Are you being hampered by the Wind Clan domi?" True Flame snapped. "She will not be using magic, since, as you pointed out, she is untrained."
Earth Son smoothed his face to court mask to consider his options. Finally he said, "No, we will not be hampered."
True Flame nodded and turned to Wolf. "Have you found the maps?"
"Yes. There are four possible sites not counting the fiutana that was located here and the one at the icehouse."
"What maps?" Earth Son growled.
"My domi believes that the oni are camping on fiutana. I had my people pull up the original survey maps for this area, showing the fiutana."
"Have you scryed out any fiutana?" True Flame asked Earth Son.
"No."
They waited for Earth Son to elaborate, but he didn't.
Behind them were shouts and the crack of splintering wood.
Wolf turned to see a massive oni dragon surge up out of the Ghostlands. It shouldered aside the scaffolding, shattering it to pieces. Tinker and Little Horse were falling from their high perch. Little Horse had been near the ladder and was falling with the tumble of heavy timbers. Tinker, though, had been far out at the end of the boom, over the liquid blue.
"No!" Wolf shouted as a call on the Wind Clan spell stones thrummed across his senses.
Tinker hit the ground, sending up a spray of blue, and then sank down into the ground. Ripples spread out from where she disappeared. And then all sense of her vanished. The Ghostland went smooth and her call on the stones broke off abruptly.
"Wolf!" Stormsong struggled with Little Horse, who had fallen to the "shore" of the Ghostlands and was now trying to fling himself into the blue. "Stop him! He'll only die! She's gone already."
Wolf gasped, feeling her words stab through him. No, Tinker couldn't be gone.
The dragon scrambled out of the blue, clawing up the shore with feet as large as the Rolls Royce. It shook dirt from its massive head, growling low and loud as thunder. Its seemingly endless body heaved up out of the chaos.
"Wolf!" Stormsong had Little Horse pinned, but it left her vulnerable to the dragon now turning its attention to the small figures at its feet.
Wolf called the wind. The dragon's head whipped toward him as if it sensed the magic gathering around Wolf. He aimed a force strike on the dragon and flung the spell at the b
east. As the magic arrowed at the dragon, it crouched low and its mane lifted. A shield effect shimmered into existence. The force strike slammed into the shield and was swallowed up.
Jewel Tear flung up a force wall between the dragon and the elves, curving it to include Stormsong and Little Horse. A fire strike from True Flame hit the dragon's shield; the blaze curled harmless around it.
The dragon sprang away, landing among the rubble of the fallen bridge.
Wolf started to summon lightning when it leaped again, landing this time on the far section of the bridge still standing, high above the valley. A third leap took it out of sight.
