by Sarra Cannon
“Let us care for you. If only for a few hours.” Metae’s voice was honey. “Mayhap you will decide to stay longer—”
“Not this time. Promise you won’t force me.” The fear in Aislinn’s voice was real. Don’t be a fool, she chided herself. Their promises don’t mean shit. I sound like a ten-year-old.
“No, no. Of course not. Are you ready?” Metae held out a hand. Despite the Old One’s neutral tone, Aislinn picked up a note of impatience.
With Rune sticking to her like a shadow, Aislinn shouldered her pack and walked toward Metae, avoiding her touch. Whatever the Old Ones were did not include warm-blooded. Somewhere beyond the bulk of Mount Shasta, dawn was probably lightening the eastern sky. Aislinn stole a final glance at the world she knew, hunting for evidence that the sun was truly rising. She’d always craved its warmth. Something about retreating into the bowels of the earth—God only knew how deep—curdled her stomach. This was different than her cave, or Fionn’s. She was free to come and go there. What if they tried to trap her once she was in Taltos? Aislinn clamped down on her thoughts.
“So tentative,” Metae murmured.
A pronounced alien cadence in Metae’s voice knotted Aislinn’s muscles. Maybe it had always been there, and she’d just never noticed before. Rune leaned closer to her, warm and reassuring. The air began to shimmer, then to burn. Fire licked at her. She fought the urge to pull magic of her own and run. The fire would burn her long before it had any effect on the Old Ones, with their forty-degree body temperature. As quickly as they’d ignited, the flames died. The earth beneath her and Rune dropped away. For one gut-wrenching moment, they were suspended in midair, just before they fell into a void.
She traveled through blackness for a long time, an arm around Rune’s thick neck. Finally, the inky curtain around her shaded to a pallid gray. Lights took shape beneath her, like she was in an airplane looking down on a big metropolitan area. They glided to a stop in front of a gilt plaza with a fountain shooting blue-green water at least a hundred feet into the air. Gemstones glittered under the water. Aislinn looked around, trying to get her bearings. Twin suns sat halfway up the sky. Is this another world? Old Ones passed in groups of twos, threes, and fours, chattering away.
“Welcome to Taltos,” one of her guides announced.
“This is the central square. The city is arranged in spokes spiraling outward from this point,” Metae noted.
Feeling like a tourist, all Aislinn could do was gawk. Tall, glittering buildings in pastel colors stretched as far as she could see. The roads were crowded with Old Ones walking purposively. Everybody seemed to have a destination in mind. She looked for cars and then laughed at herself for her stupidity. Of course there wouldn’t be any. The Old Ones used magic to go places.
Something jostled her mind. Her perspective shifted, and she realized she was looking through Rune’s eyes. She sucked in a surprised breath, turning it into a cough to cover her shock. The grand buildings were illusion, since the wolf didn’t see them. The fountain and gemstones were real enough, but the fountain was closer to twenty feet than a hundred. Rather than being paved with something golden, the streets were dirt. Aislinn adopted a neutral expression and tried not to stare. She shielded her thoughts, so nothing would give her away. Her heart beat wildly in her chest, but she couldn’t do much about that, other than keep breathing.
“This way.” One of the Old Ones trotted down a street.
Aislinn wanted to ask where they were going, but didn’t trust herself to talk. She was afraid her voice would tremble and betray how anxious she was.
It wasn’t just buildings and streets that Rune perceived far differently than her. He saw the Old Ones for what they truly were. She bit her lower lip hard. While still tall with whirling eyes, the creatures striding along with such purpose had lizard-like faces, scaled skin, and clawed appendages. They wore neither clothing nor jewelry and looked more like tailless dragons walking on two legs than anything else. If she hadn’t been so nonplussed, that last thought might’ve made her smile. She’d had no idea illusion could stretch so far. D’Chel was a piker by comparison. That thought did bring a grin to her face.
“That’s better,” Metae said, mistakenly interpreting Aislinn’s facial expression to mean she was relaxing.
“Why yes, it is, isn’t it?” Aislinn turned her smile on Metae. It was getting easier now that the shock of seeing what she—no, it—really was had worn off a little. “Where are you taking me?”
“Why, to the alchemists, of course. You wanted a charm, or a spell. It must be matched to your energy. By the time that is accomplished, the time you said you were willing to spend with us will be all but gone.”
A door in one of the illusory buildings opened. They walked down many stone steps into an underground grotto. Lanterns masquerading as cut crystal lights hung from hooks. Shelves crowded with scrolls lined the walls. A raised pallet sat in the middle of the room. Under the illusion, it was really an earthen platform splotched with red and green stains. A coppery scent tickled her nostrils. Aislinn wondered what color their blood was.
“Lie down, child.” Metae’s voice was gentle.
“I’d rather not.” Aislinn backed stiffly toward the stairs.
“How else can we match a charm to your energy?” The voice exuded reason, promised shelter.
With every fiber of her being in full rebellion, Aislinn propelled herself toward the platform. When she lay down, the wolf positioned his body next to hers. Forcing herself to relax, she reached for her magic. It was muted, as if some sort of shielding stood between her and it, but she thought she could punch through it if she had to. They think I’m weak.
An Old One positioned itself at her head. The wolf’s withdrawal from her mind was immediate. He obviously did not want the Old Ones to know what he could do. A chilly foreleg—that looked like a hand and arm again now that Rune was no longer in her mind—dropped onto her forehead. Energy shot through her brain, probing. She wondered what the thing was hunting for, when her head began to spin. Before she could marshal her resources to fight against it, consciousness ebbed.
From a long way away, she heard herself scream, “Noooooooo—” Aislinn arched her back and kicked her heels to stay awake, but something dark and insistent leached the will out of her. The last thing she felt before slipping into oblivion was Rune, warm and solid against her side.
Chapter 11
Aislinn ran. Something was behind her. She heard the scrape of claws on stone, felt hot breath against her back. The whoosh of what sounded like huge wings filled the air, but the passageway was so narrow, the thing probably couldn’t spread them. Her lungs burned. She didn’t know what was back there and couldn’t afford the time to look. If she did, her slender margin would vanish, and the thing would snap her up. It wanted to kill her. Hatred raked her back each time it breathed.
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 inc
hes 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. 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. Her blood. Aislinn 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 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, Aislinn 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, her 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?”
“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 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’s 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.
“Orione 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. She poured power into her working until the false golden city wavered; blackness took hold.
Aislinn didn’t know if she could have done it without Rune. The wolf’s presence in her mind steadied her. Kept her on course when she was so weary 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 alo
ng. Finally, she recognized the willows and understood he’d herded her into 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 freshly killed rabbits. He must’ve stood guard over her while she was passed out. Now he’d gotten her food. A wave of appreciation so profound 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.
