The Dragon Circle

by Irene Radford

  “What do you think you are doing with this money program?” she demanded.

  “Just shopping for my birthday present, like you asked me to,” he answered innocently. Hopefully she wouldn’t find out until too late exactly what he planned to get for his birthday.

  “Konner, grab the beacon with your mind,” Kim called out to his brother even as he ran after the thief. They had to destroy the device before the IMPs found the jump point. Before Kim was forced to leave Coronnan and Hestiia.

  Hestiia. A gaping hole opened in his gut at the thought of leaving her. Of never coming back.

  Because once the GTE found this planet, nothing would be the same. The life they had built here would vanish as ashes from an evening campfire scattered, trampled, and drowned by invaders.

  He and his brothers would not be allowed to return.

  The black-clad figure darted through the maze of caverns. He stopped and looked at Kim from the depths of his hood.

  “Show yourself, bastard!” Loki called from right behind Kim. “Are you afraid to show your face?”

  The intruder giggled, high-pitched, hysterical. Insane. And took off again in a new direction. He danced and leaped and cavorted as if leading a festival celebration, all the while making certain Kim and Loki followed.

  “He’s toying with us,” Kim panted. He put on a burst of speed.

  “St. Bridget, and Mary, and all of God’s little angels help me!” Loki cried as he took a flying leap.

  Loki landed hard, fingers entwined in their quarry’s cloak.

  “Eeeeppp!” the man squealed. He flailed.

  Loki tugged on the sturdy cloth. Not black. The ubiquitous rust color of the local shaggy cattle.

  Kim grabbed the man’s shoulders. Must be male by the breadth and musculature. He wore soft boots made of deer hide, the same as the footprint Loki had seen earlier.

  And then the thief wiggled once and slid out of their grasp.

  The intruder left Kim holding the cloak as he disappeared into the shadows.

  Loki pounded the ground with his fist. He remained prone, shoulders slack in disappointment.

  “I can’t . . . get . . . it,” Konner panted coming up behind them. “I can’t find the beacon with my mind. And I don’t have any Tambootie to augment my powers.”

  A hum began in the back of Kim’s neck. His teeth itched and his feet did not want to remain still.

  “The dragongate,” he breathed. “It’s opening.”

  “By St. Bridget, does this ghost know how to use the gate?” Loki looked up. Horror dawned in his eyes.

  “If anyone but us knows . . .” Kim did not dare finish that thought. Instant transportation to almost anywhere on the planet offered near-limitless power. Another unscrupulous megalomaniac like Hanassa. . . .

  “Hestiia knows,” Konner reminded him.

  “So does Taneeo,” Loki added. “Hanassa sent him through the gate dozens of times while he was enslaved.”

  “We can trust them. Hestiia is my wife. Taneeo is a friend. He presided at my wedding. They understand why this must be kept secret,” Kim insisted.

  “Then who?” Loki asked. “Sure, we all want to trust everyone. But who else did Hanassa show this to?”

  “There he is.” Konner dashed after the flicker of movement at the edge of the light.

  Kim and Loki stayed at his heels. They had to catch the man now. Before the IMPs locked onto the beacon and everything he held dear crashed around him. They ran full out. Kim’s lungs began to strain in the heat. His thighs ached and his heart thundered in his ears.

  The hum in the back of his neck set his teeth on edge. “He’s headed for the dragongate!” he called out.

  Big Bertha loomed ahead of them. The eerie red light from the lava grew brighter; took on tones of gray and pale green.

  “Stop him before . . .”

  Their quarry darted into the tunnel, little more than a silhouette. Did he have only two dimensions?

  Kim blinked his eyes several times, trying to focus on the figure, find some point of familiarity, or substance in him.

  “Good-bye, my friends. Even the dragons can’t catch me.” The stranger’s voice deepened and rang through the tunnels. The soaring caverns took up the cry, twisted it, amplified the reverberating tones, and sent it back to them.

  The hair on Kim’s nape stood on end. Chill touched his heart.

  Loki made the sign of the cross without breaking stride.

  The light shifted again, going red and dark.

  Konner came to a skidding halt at the lip of the volcanic crater.

  A stream of lava flared upward coming within a thousand feet of the precipice where they stood. The heat threatened to scorch exposed skin.

  “He’s gone,” Konner whispered.

  “Where?” Kim asked. “Did you see where the dragongate took him.”

  “No place I recognized. Gray-green soil, rocks jutting through like broken bones in a compound fracture, scant plant life. Deep ravines revealing black rock beneath the soil.”

  “We have to find him.”

  “How?”

  CHAPTER 5

  KAT TALBOT yanked her safety harness across her shoulders and fastened it between her legs. All around her, the bridge crew copied her movements. All except Lucinda Baines, the diplomatic attaché. That august personage, not much older than herself, continued to brace herself behind Kat’s chair, staring eagerly at the sensor readings.

  “Are we truly on the trail of the infamous O’Hara brothers,” Ms. Baines breathed.

  “You won’t be unless you find a place to strap in,” Kat warned her. The woman’s beauty and pedigree did not grant her special dispensation from the laws of physics. Scientists had yet to figure out how jump points worked. They only knew that they opened holes in space to distant places and that they were dangerous.

  “Strap in, Ms. Baines, or get off my bridge,” Commander Leonard ordered.

  Ms. Baines flashed the ship’s captain a resentful glare. Then she flounced over to a jump seat with a harness.

  Kat slapped the jump alarm. A loud klaxon resounded throughout the ship three times, followed by the captain’s prerecorded voice. “Prepare for jump. All personnel, prepare for jump.” Thirty long seconds later, each section of the ship reported in; med bay, judiciary, anthropology, Marines, engineering, and all the other smaller departments that kept the judiciary cruiser running. If anyone aboard was out of position and injured in the coming minutes, they had only themselves to blame.

  “I certainly hope this means we have finished this wild-goose chase and can proceed toward civilization,” Judge Balinakas intoned from the hatchway. His stout body filled the portal, his black judicial robes draped about him with majesty, reflecting the glossy black of his hair. His swarthy skin had higher color on cheekbones and nose than usual.

  “Strap in, Judge,” Leonard ordered. She gripped the arms of her chair until her knuckles turned white. “I am taking this ship in pursuit of criminals wherever I must follow them. That is, of course, our mission.”

  “We are well overdue for our rendezvous, Commander Leonard. Not even the infamous O’Hara brothers are worth yet another fruitless side trip.” The judge looked down his beakish nose at the captain of the ship.

  “Take a seat, Judge, or suffer the consequences of jump.” She turned her head back to the screens, clearly dismissing the man who represented a rival authority aboard ship.

  “I shall report you, Commander, for this deviation.” The judge did not seek the jump seat on the opposite side of the hatch from Ms. Baines.

  “Your conduct goes into my official report. Need I remind you again that I am in command of this vessel? You command only the judiciary process for any criminals we apprehend.” Leonard’s voice gained intensity and volume.

  “Need I remind you that I have absolute authority over this mission?” The judge remained calm.

  “Bridge personnel secure, Lieutenant Talbot,” Commander Leonard reported. “Ta
ke us into jump.”

  Kat slapped the final alarm.

  Judge Balinakas remained standing.

  Kat took a deep breath and began the sequence of commands transferring control to the central computer. No human could react fast enough during the sensory overloads of jump to navigate. Three hundred lives depended upon the computer’s judgment.

  “Someday, I’m going to prove that I can fly a jump by myself,” Kat muttered to herself.

  The klaxon sounded again. Three loud and annoying blasts that no one could ignore, including Judge Balinakas. He threw himself into the jump seat and secured his safety harness, every millimeter of his posture shouting resentment. He’d called the captain’s bluff and lost the bet.

  Lights flashed red and dimmed with each blast.

  Kat’s own jaw began to ache from clamping her teeth together to avoid biting her tongue.

  The ship surged forward. Two gs, three gs. Acceleration pushed Kat hard against her chair. The high back kept her neck from whiplashing. Pressure built. She fought for every gulp of air.

  Black stars crowded her vision. She forced her eyes open. She had to watch. Just once she had to see what jump was truly like.

  Dry grit weighed heavily against her eyelids. She had to blink. Just once.

  Before she could open her eyes again the pressure ceased. Gravity dissolved. Light vanished.

  Kat lost contact with her body. She was only a soul drifting in a vast nothingness. Her mind tricked her into believing she witnessed bright coils of light pulsing with life. Each coil was a different color and brightness. They chained and twined together, braided and looped back upon themselves in an intricate mesh.

  She could almost reach out and touch them. If the harness did not restrain her. If she had a body to be restrained.

  Time passed. Aeons of memories flitted past her mind’s eye. She tried to sort them, catch hold of one for longer than a single heartbeat. Each evaporated. Space ghosts without form or substance or purpose.

  (Why do you come?) a deep sonorous voice that was many voices and minds combined echoed around her skull.

  “Who are you?” She could not hear her words. A space ghost? Who else inhabited the empty places between the stars?

  (We are who we are. Who are you and why do you come?)

  “I come to find . . . myself.”

  (Welcome.)

  The ship burst free of jump. Sensations slammed back into Kat’s body, all at once, too quickly to absorb. She welcomed the headache as proof that she lived. The moment she had something to see, and eyes to see with, she scanned her instruments. Nothing looked familiar. The computer looped through incoming data from the ship’s sensors. It found nothing familiar and repeated measuring the scan.

  “That was definitely a jump point,” Commander Leonard said. Her voice shook. The unflappable captain looked disoriented and uncertain.

  “That was one hell of a jump,” Chief Navigator Kohler said. He rubbed his eyes with trembling hands. His normally dusky skin looked gray.

  “Longest jump I’ve ever endured.” Ensign James Englebert, the communications officer on duty, said on a choking laugh, as if he had more than two or three jumps notched on his belt.

  But he was right. The jump had lasted longer than usual. Although the ship’s chronometer showed the passage of only a few seconds, Kat knew her body had passed through perhaps as much as an hour.

  Jumps played hell with linear space and time.

  “So where in Murphy’s continuum are we?” Commander Leonard asked.

  “I wish I knew, Captain,” Kat whispered. “I think we are lost.”

  “I track the Stargods,” Dalleena Farseer stated simply to the village headman. She had observed the protocols and sought him out first. But the tug on her senses drove her onward. Those she must find did not dwell here.

  “Many seek the brothers from the sky. Why do you track our lords?” The middle-aged man with the heavy muscles of a warrior looked her up and down with care. The interest in his eyes had little to do with her femininity and a lot to do with her choice of words.

  Not much of her body showed beneath her leather breeches, boots, vest, and linen shirt. Unlike most women of her acquaintance, she did not need to highlight the swell of her breast or the nip in her waist to earn her keep. She had other talents.

  “ ’Tis something I need to do,” she replied.

  “Why?”

  “I need not explain anything to you without the courtesy of a name or hospitality.” She stood firm, not wavering under his fierce gaze.

  “Forgive my lack of manners, Tracker.” The headman bowed his head slightly. But he never took his gaze from her eyes. “We have learned caution. Many seek the Stargods and their chosen people, the Coros. Some do not wish our saviors well.”

  “I have heard that the three brothers descended from the stars to save your people from a deadly plague. They also ended slavery among you.” She scanned the array of houses behind the headman. The town was nestled between the bay and the river, a half hour’s walk above the flood line of either. Nearly one hundred sturdily built homes and a temple. No mistaking the huge building with the silver bloodwood columns topped by carvings of dragons. These people had worshiped the bloodthirsty Simurgh before the coming of the Stargods.

  “My father still resents the loss of his slaves.” A younger man with a hooked nose to match the headman’s and a similar cast to the brown eyes, sauntered over from the largest of the homes, at the opposite end of the town from the temple. “I am Yaakke. My ill-mannered father is called Yaaccob the Usurper. You will not find the Stargods here.”

  “But they have been here. Recently.”

  “Your tracking senses are correct,” Yaakke replied. “They came to bless the pregnancy of my wife. My sister is mate to the youngest of the Stargod brothers.”

  “Ah,” Dalleena said. She turned in a slow circle, right arm extended, palm raised. West of this riverside town. Not far. Too far after a long journey afoot before sunset.

  “I go to visit my sister,” Yaakke said. “Would you care to join me in the boat journey? Company relieves the tedium of the travel.”

  “Boat? Yes, I will join you,” Dalleena said with a sigh of relief. She could rest her aching feet. Gratefully, she followed the man to the riverbank.

  After weeks on the road, he had offered the first evidence of actually having seen the Stargods. But everyone who lived south of the big river and north of the fiery mountains had heard of the three brothers who descended from the stars on a cloud of silver fire. Their great deeds done liberating the tribe of the Coros had become the subject of song and ritual.

  Dalleena settled into the hollowed-out log of a boat. “How did you smooth the inside so evenly?” She ran a hand along the inner sides, amazed that no splinters pierced her skin. Even the outside remained free of bark or ragged patches.

  “A miracle of the Stargods.” Yaakke grinned hugely. “There are advantages to allowing Stargod Kim to marry my sister.” Then he handed Dalleena a paddle.

  She looked at it skeptically. Tracking sometimes required her to travel long distances over a variety of terrain. The people who required a Tracker to find lost livestock, errant children, or missing lovers usually did all the work.

  This time the quest was her own. Therefore she must work for herself. She dug the paddle into the water with strength equal to Yaakke’s stroke.

  Before long, her back and shoulders began to ache. Her palms blistered. The sight of the setting sun sparkling red upon the waters of the river numbed her mind and her talent. She knew nothing, felt nothing but the pressure upon her body each time she pushed the boat a little farther upstream.

  “Nearly there,” Yaakke told her. He pointed to a muddy embankment. Many feet and more than a few boats had slid up and down it. Two rafts and another log boat were tied to large stakes driven into the dirt on either side of the slippery access.

  To Dalleena’s surprise, Yaakke continued paddling beyond the point. H
er shoulders ached even more. They had passed their objective and her guide expected more work from her. This was more tiring than if she’d walked!

  “Ease up on the paddle,” Yaakke called.

  Finally. She obeyed him, resting the paddle across the boat sides. Her back slumped and her head felt a little too heavy. She should not be this tired. She worked hard every day on the family farm when she was not tracking. She could match muscle and stamina with any warrior.

  Why?

  Yaakke let the boat drift back toward the landing area, using his paddle to steer them closer and closer to the bank.

  At last the boat grounded. Yaakke jumped out, calf-deep in the water. He grabbed the bow of the craft and waited.

  “Are you getting out or not?” he asked testily.

  “Oh,” she replied dumbly. Heavily, she dragged herself out of the bottom of the little boat and into the water. The current tugged at her. She grabbed the boat for balance.

  “Push,” Yaakke ordered.

  She did so. He hauled. Together they brought the craft up onto the bank. A crowd of people gathered above them, watching. When Yaakke had tied his craft to one of the stakes protruding out of the mud, a young woman jumped down and grabbed him in an embrace. She had the same set to her eyes as both Yaakke and his father, but a more delicate nose structure. Her thick brown hair cascaded down her back, covering most of her body. At first Dalleena thought she and the other women adhered to the old custom of not covering their breasts until a man had claimed them. Slave women were never allowed to cover themselves except out of doors in deep winter. A shift in Hestiia’s posture, a ripple in her hair, revealed a halter woven of red cow wool above her leather sarong. All the women seemed to wear the same clothing with little variation.

  Dalleena suddenly felt too tall, too awkward and out of place.

  “My sister, Hestiia,” Yaakke introduced them.

  Dalleena gave her own name and talent, nodding her head.