Ann Gimpel

by Earth's Requiem (Earth Reclaimed)

  Rock walls glimmering with tiny lichen flashed past. The floor had slimy spots. She slipped more than once. Where the fuck am I? Leg muscles aching and a stitch cramping her side, she blundered on. Am I dreaming? Can you die in dreams? Aislinn careened around a corner. Her booted heel landed on a slick spot, and she sprawled on her ass, the breath knocked out of her.

  Terror pounded. She couldn’t run much farther. Struggling to make her lungs work, she leapt to her feet, spun, and faced the thing closing fast behind her. Aislinn yanked her dirk from her belt and grappled to find her magic. It was there—sort of—but fire, always her first preference, was missing. She dragged air and earth into the beginning of a protection spell. Fire was for fighting. If she couldn’t have that, maybe she could at least slow down whatever was after her by warding herself.

  The monster was enormous. It filled the cave-like passage nearly to its ceiling. The creature looked the way she’d always imagined dragons would, with burnished reddish scales covering a reptile’s body. A long tail curved over its head. Small forelegs and sturdy hind legs were tipped with wicked-looking red talons that had to be six inches long. It had the same eyes as the Old Ones: spinning pools of night.

  Aislinn stood tall, squaring her shoulders. If this was truly where things ended, she’d go out strong, not cowering. “What do you want with me?” She infused compulsion into her question, then wondered why she’d bothered. Surely her puny magic was no match for the thing of legend standing before her.

  A gout of fire spewed from its mouth, landing a foot shy of her boots. It stared at her. She looked anywhere but at its eyes. They were too much like the Old Ones’ for comfort. She knew that if she met its gaze, she’d be lost. It came closer, hot breath oddly comforting in the chilly air of the cave. The dragon—what else could it be?—smelled of sulfur and blood. A rough, taloned foreleg skittered down her body, first one side, then the other. Aislinn relaxed fractionally. If it wanted to kill her, she’d be dead. She tried again, “What do you want with me?”

  Did the Old Ones have gods? Was that what this was? Something even older than them?

  Without warning, the talons casing her body moved to her head. As they traveled down her cheeks, she felt searing heat on one side, followed by intense cold. Then nothing. The dragon pulled its foreleg back. Blood dripped from its talons. Aislinn intuited that it had to be hers and raised a hand to her face. A large gash traveled from eyebrow to chin, and her skin was icy to the touch. Once the flesh thawed, it would hurt like hell. The dragon lifted its foreleg to its mouth and licked the blood—her blood—off its talons.

  Great wings lifted in the still air. It could only deploy them halfway before they met the sides of the passage. On the third wing beat, the dragon twirled. Moving amazingly fast for something so large, it strode down the tunnel away from her, its feet slapping the muddy floor. Now that she wasn’t running from it, she noticed the earth shook each time one of its feet landed. Darkness settled about her like a winding sheet, and she realized the light in the tunnel had come from the creature. Can I make light without fire?

  Knees trembling, she wondered what would happen next as she coaxed a very feeble light into being. “No point in hanging around to find out,” she muttered and ran as fast as she could manage in the opposite direction. A half-formed mage light—the best she could do—clung to her. After a few steps, it felt like she was plowing through Jell-O. The cave walls moved toward her, closer and closer, until she was certain they were going to crush her, grinding her into nothingness. Her head spun. Nausea gripped her.

  Just when she was certain she was going to die in this nameless, dark place, she rose through the ceiling and flowed through stone as if it wasn’t there. She looked at her body thrashing about on the raised, earthen dais in the Old Ones’ alchemy lab and understood what had happened. It was my astral self down there. Not me. Did they send me there, or did I do it on my own? So relieved she almost couldn’t breathe, Aislinn hurtled toward her physical self. No wonder she hadn’t been able to draw fire. She needed her body to do that.

  But she needed her body to bleed, too. When she gazed at herself lying on the table, she was shocked to see a wicked-looking gash running the length of one side of her face. The collision of astral and physical bodies jarred her before she could figure out how the dragon had managed to carve her up when her body hadn’t actually been there. She’d already been nauseated. Dry heaves racked her as she forced herself to a sitting position.

  Aislinn wiped bile from her mouth with the back of one hand and gazed at Rune. Gratitude to find him unharmed nearly undid her, and she blinked back tears. When she’d returned to her body, he’d jumped off the platform and stood in front of her. Concern shone from his amber eyes. Craning her neck around, she identified Metae and the other two Lemurians. “I need water,” she demanded, voice raspy.

  Someone shoved a flask into her hand. It occurred to her that it might be poison. She swished some around in her mouth. It tasted okay, so she took a long drink. “Where was I?”

  “You were in the place where we learn things,” Metae said carefully.

  “Who was the dragon? One of your gods?”

  Surprise registered on all three alien faces. “You saw him?” one of them asked.

  “I just asked you about him, didn’t I?” Aislinn knew she sounded bitchy, but she didn’t care.

  “He is wise beyond reckoning,” Metae said. “It is a great honor that he has shown himself to you.”

  “Yes,” another Old One concurred, practically bowing to her. “You cannot leave us now. We need to—”

  “Oh yes, I can.” Aislinn leapt to her feet and headed for the stairs, with Rune hard on her heels. “Whatever it was scared the shit out of me. I wouldn’t go back to that subterranean tunnel system again for anything.”

  “Her face,” one muttered.

  Aislinn felt blood dripping down her cheek and neck. “Yeah,” she called over a shoulder from halfway up the stairs, “the damned thing took a swipe out of me. Except my body wasn’t there. It was up here. How the hell—?” Since it was impossible to put what she was feeling into words, she snapped, “Never mind.”

  “It tasted you.” The Old Ones crowded behind her, so she couldn’t see which one had spoken. “We noticed when the cut formed, but had no idea what happened.”

  “You must tell us,” Metae chimed in with her musical voice, “everything.”

  Aislinn nodded agreement before realizing maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to confirm that the thing had swallowed her blood. Outside again, she looked up and down the street. “Where is the best place to leave from? And where is the anti-sex charm you were supposed to make for me?”

  All three spoke at once, trying to persuade her to stay. Not for long, just for a little while. They needed more time to match her energies to a charm. They needed to tend to her wound. She was hungry, tired… Compulsion in the words had her half believing them before Rune slid into her mind.

  “I will help you.” He sent her an image of the area outside the cave where they’d spent most of the previous night.

  She shook her head, hard. Christ, they’d almost seduced her. They definitely had her number. She was weak—and stupid. Latching onto Rune’s sending like a dying man who sees all his possibilities vanishing into a fine mist, she reached for her magic. Fire. Where was fire? Thank God. Tapping into a rich vein, she pulled as much as she could, not bothering to be elegant. Fingers buried in the wolf’s ruff, she felt her spell take hold.

  “We cannot let her leave.” Though it was clicks and clacks, Aislinn realized with a start that she understood them. What had the dragon thing done to her?

  Fingers seized her. She fought to hang onto her spell.

  “We cannot hold her against her will. She would contaminate our magic in no time.” Metae’s voice was stern.

  “Orion
e has the taste of her blood. It will be simple enough to get her back.”

  “Yes, we can retrieve her whenever we want.”

  The fingers clutching her arm hard enough to draw blood loosened. Aislinn considered kicking the Old One in the crotch, but didn’t want to spare the energy. Besides, it wasn’t like he had balls, and she figured it would take everything she had to get out of Taltos.

  Aislinn didn’t know if she could have done it without Rune. The wolf in her mind steadied her. Kept her on course when she was so weary that she let go of their destination. It was dark when they tumbled out onto the packed earth in front of the cave. Aislinn fell on her face in the dirt, so tired she couldn’t keep her eyes open.

  Something sharp closed on her upper arm. “No.” Rune’s voice was harsh. “Not here.”

  Knowing he was right, that this place wasn’t safe, Aislinn staggered down the mountainside after him. She sprawled on her ass because she couldn’t see and then tried to raise her mage light, but it wouldn’t come. Not so much as a flicker. Tapped out. Got to eat and sleep. Every time she fell, thinking she didn’t have enough starch to lurch back to her feet, the wolf was there. Sometimes licking, sometimes biting, he urged her along. Finally, she recognized the willows and understood he’d herded her toward the crystal cave. Her last thought before blackness took her was how wretchedly uncomfortable the cave floor was pressed against her butt and legs.

  Pain from hundreds of sharp spines poking into her chivied her awake. Light spilled into the cave’s entrance. Rune wasn’t there. Groaning, she flipped over, pulled herself along on her belly and crawled out onto the dirt. She scuttled along until the willows eased enough for her to stand upright.

  Her wolf sat next to a couple of freshly killed rabbits. He must have stood guard over her while she was passed out. Now he’d gotten her food. A wave of appreciation so profound that it brought tears washed through her. “Thank you.”

  “You would have done the same for me,” he said gruffly. “Eat. The quicker we are away from here, the better.” Shucking her pack, she pulled a water bottle out and drank deeply. Her hands shook as she gutted and skinned the rabbits, hungrily sucking raw meat off the tiny bones.

  She was midway through the second rabbit when she looked up guiltily. “Was one of these supposed to be yours?”

  “I ate while you slept.”

  She wanted to talk with Rune, but knew how dangerous that could be. And she didn’t want to waste time retreating to the crystal cave to have a conversation. Once she’d eaten, she reached for her magic to see if she had enough to jump them out of there. If possible, she wanted to be much farther away than Castle Crags. Maybe, if she planned well, she could get close enough to Fionn for him to come meet them.

  Pushing to her feet, she put her things in her pack. “Ready?”

  Rune moved to her side. Aislinn waited until she felt the magic build inside her. Her reserves were still dangerously low. It would take more than half a single night’s sleep and one meal to bring her back to full strength. Weightlessness took her. Rune claimed what was starting to feel like his place in her mind. For once, this jump was easy. They came out on the banks of a fast-running creek. A deserted building nearby sported a faded sign announcing, Welcome to the McCloud Fishing Lodge.

  Aislinn felt dirty from her time in Taltos. She glanced at the winter sun. It was high in the sky, so her clothes might have time to dry if she washed them. Hastily stripping, she walked into the creek, enjoying the feel of the sand against her bare feet. A deeper pool gave her what she needed. She sank into the icy waters and let them close over her head. Aislinn surfaced, gasping a bit from the cold, and grabbed handfuls of sand from the bottom to scrub her hair and herself. The gash on her face ached, but at least it was clean. She wondered if she could Heal herself, then discarded the idea. She’d need a mirror to do a good job. More importantly, she didn’t want to spare the magic. In another life, she would have gone to an Emergency Room for stitches. “Ha.” She snorted. “Another life indeed.”

  “What?” Rune, who’d been sunning himself on the bank, raised his head off his paws.

  “Nothing.” I was just feeling sorry for myself. She gathered the clothes she’d scattered around the bank and dragged them into the water, scrubbing at them. She couldn’t get them really clean without soap, but at least they wouldn’t smell quite so bad. When she was done, she wrung them out and draped her long johns, wool pants, and flannel shirt over bushes. She hefted the pants, grimaced at how heavy they still were, and tried to wring more water out. Gathering wood, she started a fire, moved her clothes closer to it, and set about cooking more rabbits Rune had caught while she’d been bathing and doing laundry.

  The wolf lay on the riverbank in scrub grass. He waited until she was done eating before asking, “What happened?”

  Well, what did happen? She sorted through her thoughts. “I think we came within an angstrom of being trapped there. If you hadn’t gone into my mind when we were all standing outside that travesty they called a lab, we would never have gotten away. Before that, though, my astral self separated from the rest of me.” Rune opened his mouth to ask a question, but she shook her head. “Wait till I’m done. I don’t know how the separation happened. If I did it, or they forced it. Anyway, I was in some sort of long, curving tunnel, and this dragon thing was chasing me. It’s what bloodied my face. Then it tasted my blood. I thought I was dreaming, but I wasn’t. Ugh.” She shivered. The paltry warmth of the day wasn’t enough to keep a chill from marching down her spine.

  Needing to do something to force her mind away from the tunnel and the dragon, she checked how dry her clothing was. Satisfied that at least her long underwear would be dry soon, she turned them over and stoked the fire.

  “It was them,” the wolf offered. “The one with his claws in your hair forced your astral self out of your body. I felt it.”

  That solves one riddle. “So they must have wanted me to go somewhere, but they looked surprised as hell when I told them what I’d seen.” A thought surfaced, and she stared at Rune. “Would you have had a way out of there if I’d been trapped?”

  “No.”

  Wish I’d known that. She opened her mouth to berate him, but then bit her tongue. Yes, he’d pushed his way onto this journey, but the truth of things was he’d saved them both. If not for him, she’d still be locked in Taltos, at the mercy of the Old Ones.

  “The Old Ones were arguing right before we finally left.” Rune sounded thoughtful. “I wonder what they said and why they decided to let us go.”

  “I know why.”

  “You can understand them? When did that happen? When I was in your mind earlier, you couldn’t.”

  She nodded. “That’s right. Something happened when I was in that tunnel.”

  “Are you going to tell me?” He came to his feet and padded to where she stood.

  “I suspect the dragon had something to do with why I can understand the Old Ones now.” A corner of her mouth quirked into a grin. “I’m not complaining. I’ll take my gifts where they fall. In terms of what they said to one another, apparently they cannot hold us against our will. It’s like what you told me in the crystal cave. It creates some problem with their magic to have a bunch of reluctant recruits gumming up the works. Must be why they kill everyone.”

  “That’s not all.” Keen intelligence shone from the depths of Rune’s lupine eyes. “I’m waiting.”

  “The thing I met up with is named Orione. The Old Ones said he could retrieve me for them anytime they want me. I really didn’t like the sound of that.”

  Rune growled. “Neither do I.”

  “Not much I can do about it.” She shrugged pragmatically. “I’m sure not going to hide behind wards for the rest of my life.”

  “That’s eerily similar to what Marta said.” Rune blew out a whuffly growl. “Are you
r things dry?”

  She felt them again. “Not really. They can dry the rest of the way on my body. Why?”

  “Let’s walk a bit.”Aislinn shimmied into her damp long johns and dragged the wool pants over them. She tugged her faded flannel shirt over her head and slipped into her vest and jacket. She’d given up on panties and bras long ago. She blessed her woolen clothing. It was still wet, but it warmed almost immediately next to her skin. She sat in the scrub grass and pulled on wool socks, followed by her battered boots.

  The sun disappeared behind a bank of clouds, almost as if it sensed she didn’t need it anymore. A stiff breeze blew her still-wet hair into her face. With a sigh, she gathered it together, fished in her rucksack for a length of leather, and tied it out of the way. “Ready.” She got to her feet and shouldered her pack. “But I want to look through that old fishing lodge first.”

  “Why?”

  “Maybe there’s food or something.” Because she had to scrounge for everything, she always searched abandoned buildings, particularly those in the middle of nowhere like this one. The door hung half off its hinges; it made a creaking sound in the wind. She took a tentative step inside, realized the flooring was rotten, and determined where the support beams were. She didn’t find food, but on the second floor, consisting of four large bedrooms, she found clothes. Pants and shirts and a Gore-Tex jacket that looked as if it hadn’t ever been worn. It still had a plastic bag around it. Shoving a dusty coverlet off one of the beds, she tried things on. Nearly everything fit, even the silk panties and lacy bras.