The Dragon Circle

by Irene Radford

  The land stretched out in near endless waves of undulating hills dotted with low shrubs, covered with tall grasses, golden in the autumnal sunshine, and creased by ravines. A few lakes glinted in the distance.

  Konner decided to hide Rover behind a long hill that rose slightly higher than its fellows a few hundred meters beyond the city wall and away from the small flocks of sheep and goats that dotted the hill-sides. Did the shepherds bring all of the livestock within the protection of the wall each night?

  He circled around, banked, and cut the engines as he glided to his selected landing. He smiled as he rolled to a silent stop, completely hidden from the city. Loki could not have executed the maneuver any smoother or quieter.

  Locking down the shuttle was an easy and familiar procedure. Collecting supplies required some thought.

  “Water,” Dalleena said. She looked around the cabin.

  Konner touched the pressure panel on one of the cupboards. An array of native waterskins, cloaks, knives, and other survival gear tumbled out.

  She sighed and rolled her eyes at Konner. Immediately she began to sort, stack, and organize the jumble.

  “Water is in here.” He stepped into the head and turned on the tap. Dalleena watched every move he made.

  She quickly made sense of the sink and tap, filling the skins efficiently, with minimal waste. Then she inspected the shower with minute care. Very quickly she nodded in understanding. But the toilet seemed to mystify her.

  “For waste,” Konner informed her succinctly. A quick flush and the light of understanding dawned on her expressive face.

  He felt inordinate pride in teaching her this simple thing. This one part of civilization that seemed so elemental.

  “Hats,” Dalleena said as she emerged from her inspection of the marvels of modern plumbing.

  “Hats?” Konner looked up from his array of portable sensors and other gadgets. Almost as an afterthought he thrust six small diamonds into his pocket. The jewels were accepted as currency throughout the GTE when cash and credit limits did not cross borders into the Galactic Free Market—or black market.

  “Hats?” he asked again as Dalleena peered into the corners of the supply closet.

  “Desert sun. All of the locals will wear them as protection.”

  He nodded compliance. He added brimmed straw hats to the collection of gear.

  And then there was no more reason to stall and every reason to find that bloody beacon and destroy it. He estimated they had approximately seven hours before the IMP vessel descended upon the planet.

  After that, the history of the place, the very nature of society here would change irrevocably. For members of the Galactic Terran Empire could not leave a planet pristine. They always had to ”improve.” Improve, as in industrialize, exploit, overpopulate, pollute.

  Destroy.

  “Come on, we’re running out of time.” Konner flung the loosely woven cape of ubiquitous red cow’s wool over his shoulders and began marching up the hill. He barely remembered to touch the remote to cloak the shuttle behind its light-bending force field.

  Dalleena trotted behind him, uncomplaining, matching him long stride for long stride.

  They crested the hill quickly. Looking downslope, the city lay before them, crammed into barely ten square kilometers. Every building was made of the same reddish mud bricks. At one time, the place had begun on a square grid with a well at every major intersection. But those spacious blocks had been divided and subdivided time and again. Alleys ran between buildings at odd angles. People crowded around the wells, now too few to accommodate them all. Dust covered everything, giving it a uniform reddish-brown pallor. No trees. No flowers. Nothing living except too many people and a few stray pigs and goats.

  “Now where?” Konner asked.

  “There.” Dalleena held up her hand, palm out. She indicated an area near the port, north of center where a larger than usual congregation of people shoved and pushed their way through the narrow streets.

  Konner took a bead on her direction with his portable scanner. Dead on. He could not have pinpointed the beacon any closer with electronics.

  He hurried down the hill and through the open gate in the wall. Five gates. All open. No visible guards. Whatever the wall protected the locals from, must not come out during daylight, or this phase of the moon, or until it rained. Just not right now.

  Unchallenged, they made their way into the heart of the city. Roughly clad people with swarthy complexions and blond hair bumped against them, shoving to get past, too eager to go about their own business to pay attention to two strangers.

  But then maybe strangers were not all that unusual here. This was a port, after all.

  The pervasive odors of rotting fish, salt water, and seaweed lay atop the more subtle scents of humanity pressed into too tight quarters, dust, and a hint of exotic spices.

  “Where did all these people come from?” Dalleena asked in hushed tones. She clung to a bit of his cloak, as if she feared becoming separated from him. “Did they sail here from Coronnan?”

  “Possibly. A long time ago.” Konner did not want to give her a history lesson about the original human colonists who had fallen into civil war and genocide with a bioengineered plague. That plague still cropped up occasionally. He just hoped he’d managed to neutralize it last spring.

  The babble of voices refused to settle into a recognizable pattern. The Coros spoke a dialect of Standard GTE, slowed to a creeping drawl and mutated over the last three hundred years. The denizens of this city spoke a rapid dialect that was similar. He almost caught a word here and there. And yet . . .

  “Possibly they have been here as long as the Coros have held their lands. My brother Kim will be very interested to study the history of these people.” Perhaps the original colonists split, some coming here, others staying in Coronnan, before the devastating winter and crop failure drove Dalleena’s ancestors to fight among themselves for generations until they fell back to bronze age technology and a tribal culture.

  Perhaps there were many remnant cultures throughout this world. His feet itched to explore more. But he had to get the beacon. Now. Before the IMPs had a chance to pinpoint its location.

  But once the IMPs landed, and they certainly would, now that they were in system, how could Konner and his brothers prevent them from informing the authorities back home about this pristine little planet ready for exploitation?

  “The bee-kan is in there,” Dalleena said. She nodded discreetly toward a jumble of people and makeshift structures.

  Voices rose higher and higher as people shouted at each other, waving their arms in wild gesticulations. Konner was about to jump in and separate two men seemingly bent upon throttling each other. Then a few coins changed hands and one of the men scooped up the pile of goods between them.

  “It’s a souk!” Konner smiled with understanding.

  “A ‘sug?’ ” Dalleena asked, never taking her eyes off the arguments and exchanges.

  “A market.”

  “Ah! We have these two times each year, at end of planting and end of harvest.”

  “That is a market fair. This bazaar is open every day. All year.” They stepped beyond an invisible line that separated the normal crush of people going about their business from the frantic crush of people dealing with their business.

  “Those metal disks they exchange. Are they markers against goods and services?”

  “In a way. We call them coins where I come from. They are made of valuable metals.”

  “But what good are they?”

  How to explain the concept of money to a woman who had only known the concrete evidence of barter?

  Before he could think of a coherent sentence, she darted ahead of him. He had to hurry to keep track of her in the shouting and milling crowd. They wended their way around rickety stalls, fragrant cooking pits with roasting beasts, and cauldrons of aromatic stews. Everywhere people pushed and shoved and raised their voices, doing their best to separate
Konner from the Tracker.

  Then he caught a brief glimpse of her cloak. Good thing she stood nearly as tall as he, half a head taller than most of the shoppers and merchants. He elbowed aside an insistent purveyor of a frothy beverage that smelled strongly alcoholic, and stepped over a tumble of fabric rolls to keep her in view. Halfway around a cart piled with leather goods he saw where she had stopped.

  Crystals and rough-cut gemstones dangled from the crossbeams of the stall. Agates and polished metal pendants were strewn about the counter. A beady-eyed merchant kept one hand on a dull green object the size of his palm while fixing his gaze upon Dalleena’s face.

  Konner’s sensor went berserk, flashing lights and beeping in chords of tones.

  A second dull green object nestled into a pile of gems in the back of the stall. Two of them? Where had the second beacon come from?

  “How much?” Konner asked the merchant. His jaw trembled and his hands wanted to shake. He put Dalleena behind him, away from the lustful eyes of the thin man wearing a robe of garish-colored stripes and a matching turban. Unlike most of the people he had encountered in the souk, this man had pale eyes and sun-burned pale skin. He looked very much out of place in this land of dark-eyed and swarthy-skinned natives. Even his blond hair was too fair, almost artificial.

  “The girl. I trade you the artifact for the girl.” He grinned, revealing too-white, too-perfect teeth.

  CHAPTER 12

  LOKI THRUST aside the leather curtain from the doorway of Taneeo’s hut. He did not bother rattling the strands of wooden and clay beads hanging outside, nor did he ask permission to enter.

  “Taneeo?” Loki called as he ducked beneath the low lintel of the circular reed hut. For some reason these people seemed to think that priests needed a dwelling without corners. Or amenities, by the look of the spartan interior. A reed mat on the floor. A single blanket of cowhide. A fired clay beaker of water on the dirt floor, and nothing else.

  Nothing.

  Not so much as a window to let in the glorious sunshine and fresh air.

  The place smelled of sweat and vomit and sickness.

  Loki did not believe Kim’s tale of Taneeo possessing a second aura that separated from his body. Not one little bit. The boy had hit the Tambootie a little too hard in his magical experiments.

  Taneeo hated Hanassa. He’d never allow his old master’s spirit to possess his body. Never!

  Loki refused to believe Taneeo capable of harboring the enemy in any form. If he did, then that would mean . . . that would mean that Taneeo had beaten himself in order to get rid of the offending spirit.

  Impossible. No one could inflict that degree of injury to themselves.

  Loki squinted and blinked, trying to force his eyes to adjust to the dimness. His mind knew Taneeo was here. He could “feel” the man’s fearful shrinking against the wall.

  Where else could the young man be but here where Kim had left him last night. He could not walk. Not with a broken leg and various other injuries.

  “Taneeo,” Loki said again, more gently.

  A startled gasp came from the farthest curve of the hut.

  “Didn’t mean to scare you, Taneeo.” Heat flushed Loki’s ears. He squatted down, closer to eye level with the man.

  Taneeo struggled to sit, dragging his splinted leg. He nearly collapsed twice as his arms and shoulders weakened with the effort. The pain in his cracked ribs must be excruciating.

  Loki rubbed his side in memory of a vicious brawl on a bush planet notable only for its horse-piss beer and ugly women. He’d fought with a man twice his size, over the “honor” of a barmaid who did not want either man’s attentions. Loki was lucky to walk away with only a cracked rib and a few bruises. The pain had taken his breath away and made his knees wobble until Konner got him to an ER. The medicos had bombarded his body with micro amps of electricity and ultrasound tuned to healing frequencies. Loki had whistled as he left the hospital mere hours after entering.

  Taneeo did not have the luxury of modern medicine. Only Kim’s limited magical talent that sped healing but did not cure. The portable ultrasound unit in Sirius’ medi kit did not have enough power or life in its batteries to do more than indicate if Kim had set the bones properly.

  Loki moved to help Taneeo to a sitting position.

  The priest’s instinctive jerk away from him kept him in place. “What do you want?” Taneeo’s voice cracked with dryness. “To accuse me of treachery, as your brother did?” He glared at Loki with resentment.

  Loki pushed the water beaker closer to him. The priest lifted it and drank long and deep. When he put the vessel down, he looked at a point above Loki’s head and to the left.

  “What do you want?” His voice was stronger, and clearer. “I am clean of the tainted spirit. I have fought him off and suffered the consequences.”

  “I need to know what happened to you,” Loki said, careful to keep his voice even. “Who beat you?”

  “I do not remember.”

  “You have to know something. Our enemy fought with you, broke your leg, cracked two of your ribs, and left you with a black eye that might permanently impair your vision. How could you forget that experience.”

  “I . . . I fainted. He came from behind.”

  A growl tried to climb from Loki’s gut to his throat. He swallowed heavily to suppress it. “Did you see the man who attacked you?”

  “Dark. Too dark.” Taneeo turned his head away.

  He started to slip back down to his previous reclining position.

  “Was the man dark?” Loki seized upon the adjective. “Dark hair, dark eyes, swarthy skin, like a Rover?”

  Rovers, the local version of Terran Gypsies, used the blown-out volcano and the cave system as a way station in their endless wandering. They would have been the first humans to enter the scene of Loki’s last battle with Hanassa. The spirit of Hanassa might have taken over one of their bodies.

  Hanassa would then use that body to move closer to his enemies. What better way to strike at the heart of the Stargods and their followers than to possess the body of their priest and friend?

  Loki liked that explanation. It put a lot of his fears to rest and gave him a concrete enemy to hunt down and neutralize.

  You mean murder, a little voice in the back of his head sneered at him. It sounded a lot like Mum.

  No. He’d never take a life again. Even a miserable sadist like Hanassa had a sacred life force Loki must respect. His sanity would not withstand another episode like . . . like that time in the caves two months ago.

  “Rover?” Taneeo’s eyes brightened and cleared a little. He rested a little easier on his mat. “Yes! Yes, I do believe ’twas a Rover who attacked me. A very tall Rover. Nearly as tall as you and your brothers, Stargod Loki. But dark in every way. Dark of complexion and of spirit. His clothing . . . black tunic and trews. Black shirt. How do you suppose the Rovers mix a black dye for cloth and leather that does not fade?”

  “They probably use the squid ink.”

  Just last week Kim had found a multilimbed blob of flesh on the beach that had produced a body fluid he could use for indelible ink in his endless scratchings and recordings of events and thoughts and who knew what else. He’d named the creature a squid after some long extinct denizen of Earth’s oceans before pollution killed them all.

  Loki frowned. He did not like the idea of Kim leaving behind so much information that could be deciphered by the locals. All three of the brothers had agreed that in order to keep this planet agrarian, prevent them from developing industry that would eventually cause pollution and drive them to quest for the stars, they had to forbid reading and the wheel from their culture. Otherwise, they’d become just another colony of the GTE.

  Kim seemed bent upon violating the agreement. Loki made a mental note to gather up all of Kim’s records and journals and take them with them when they left.

  Otherwise, everything that was good and honest about this place would disappear. And so would the supp
ly of fresh food Loki intended to sell on the black market back home. One cargo hold full of fresh vegetables would make his fortune for life. He’d finally have enough money to buy back his citizenship and marry Cyndi.

  Loki could not allow this place to be despoiled. He had to stop Hanassa. All he had to do was find him.

  ”I will bring Pryth to you. She was born a Rover.

  She may be able to give us more information about your attacker.” Loki rose from his crouch. He could not stand upright, even in the center of the conical hut.

  “The old woman speaks not the truth. Born of Rovers, bred as Rovers. Truth eludes their kind as mist in sunshine. We . . . I will not speak to the woman!” With great effort, Taneeo turned his face to the wall.

  “Pryth used to be your friend, Taneeo. She has helped us all with her wisdom and her knowledge.”

  “No more. She speaks for the tribe that shelters our enemy. She has become our enemy.”

  “How can you know that?”

  “Even now she corrupts your brother. Together, they will bring change that destroys you.”

  “Kim,” Loki whispered. “He’s teaching some of you how to read.” The truth washed over him like a cold dip in the river. He knew that Taneeo spoke true. He “felt” it in his mind as clearly as if he had read the priest’s thoughts.

  “Have you found anything interesting, Bruce?” Martin dictated a brief message to his friend.

  Within femtos of sending his reply a message appeared in his mailbox.

  “Couldn’t wait to hear from you, Marty. My dad just accepted a contract with your mom. Usually he tells me where he’s going and something about who or what he is supposed to find. This time he left abruptly without telling me anything. He didn’t even come home between jobs. I thought maybe you could give me a head’s up on what is so important that your mom hired a ‘Sam Eyeam,’ ” Bruce’s voice and image came through the computer screen.

  “Now that is a good question,” Martin muttered.