There was a fluttering of wakening thoughts. What? Who's there? Jael?
The iffling's hope brightened a little. Jael cannot hear you. You must listen, rigger! Listen carefully . . . !
* * *
Ar had awakened to a nightmare. He was alone—where? He felt no physical sensations. His mind was awash with images of serpents and fire-beings and moving mountains—and the distant, frantic squawking of a bird—and now a voice calling in a whisper out of the darkness of the void. He was enclosed by darkness, and by a web . . .
You must listen, rigger!
He was abruptly conscious, the image of the web and the darkness gone. A voice was calling to him. Where was he? He was encased in a kind of layered translucency, the remnants of the rigger-net, separated by prismatic fracture zones, which seemed to enclose him like a cocoon. He could not see very far, or move at all. Off to his right, through the translucent barrier, he saw a shadow moving. He thought it might be Jael—but it looked like a figure walking. That made no sense. He called out to Jael, but there was no answer.
There was that squawking again. Ed? Ar looked in all directions, but couldn't see the parrot.
Rigger, there is danger! You must help me speak with Jael!
The voice again. I cannot speak to her, Ar whispered back, his words full of a deep sadness that he had not even been conscious of until now. I cannot reach her. I do not know why.
The voice answered, It seems there has been a . . . splintering . . . around you.
Splintering? Like cracking ice? Once, years ago, they had intentionally caused such an effect outside the net, breaking through an icelike boundary layer in the Flux. But now the net itself seemed to be splintered. This was an alarming realization. Their once-gleaming, newly tuned rigger-net was in ruins.
Worse, he discovered, he could not leave the net to analyze and correct the problem. His presence and Jael's, and perhaps even Ed's, were blocking the way out from each other, like shards of broken glass choking a drain. And yet . . . the ship was in motion. He could see a snowy landscape outside, moving past with painful slowness. He could tell that someone, no doubt Jael, was guiding the movement. But where was she going? Were they in the dragon realm?
She is being led astray, whispered the voice.
Ar blinked. He was still in something of a state of shock, and it had only just hit him that he seemed to be speaking to a ghost. Who are you? he demanded.
Iffling, he heard, and in the same instant he caught sight of a tiny flame through one of the spidery fracture patterns that enclosed him. The bit of fire flickered, as though in weariness. He wondered if it was trapped, too.
Jael? he asked.
Alive . . . but I cannot reach her.
Ar nodded. Are you trying . . . to get us to Windrush? He remembered that Jael had spoken of other voices, confusing and conflicting voices.
Windrush, yes.
Then who is leading her now?
A false-one. False-iffling. The creature flared for a moment. You must reach her! Warn her!
False-iffling? Ar let out a weary breath and set about to see if there was some way he could reach Jael. The damage to the net was profound, and it would take a great deal of work, and probably luck, to repair. He hoped it was possible; he hoped he could do it before it was too late.
Past another fracture-layer in the shattered prism, he glimpsed a shadow of a bird fluttering its wings. He heard again a distant crying and screeing. Perhaps he could make a connection that way, and work onward to Jael. Ed! he called. Ed, if you can hear me—fly this way!
He couldn't tell whether the parrot heard him or not. But the damage in that direction seemed less intractable. He began tugging at nearby folds of the net, attempting the impossible task of fusing the shreds back together again.
* * *
The wind swept a haze of snow across the landscape, like blinding sand. Jael had been picking her way along a winding, descending trail. She paused on a level patch to heft the ship on her shoulders. It felt extremely odd to be carrying the ship like this. She still had no idea where in the realm they were, or where they were going. She tried to scan the landscape; but the obscuration of the snow shifted, moment to moment, giving her only fleeting glimpses of the wider land. She really had no choice but to follow her guide and hope that, sooner or later, the view would clear.
She felt Ed moving about, trying to contact Ar. She felt sure that the Clendornan was here, that it was just a technical problem keeping them apart. What was that? An echo of Ar's voice? Perhaps . . . but now it was gone again.
The iffling reappeared through the snow, glowing and pulsing urgently. Follow, it whispered. Follow quickly. We must hurry.
She sighed and followed. The snow parted to reveal the ground at her feet, then closed again, leaving her to walk in blindness.
* * *
Stay back! Jarvorus commanded. Do not interfere with the ship!
The sprite-warrior flickered and moved away from the shimmering form of the human ship's manifestation. The rigger herself was visible at its prow as a complex interplay of light and shadow. Deeper within the ship, half concealed by veils of light, were the large nonhuman rigger and the small one, and the iffling. Something had happened to the weave of space, causing it to entrap them in its tangled shreds. A fold of space seemed to have emerged from the underrealm, intruding itself into the curious structure of their net, keeping them apart. Jarvorus had not planned such a thing—it was an unexpected result of their violent entry into this realm—but he found it useful.
Jarvorus had decidedly strange feelings as he led this procession. Several times now, he had had to warn his helpers away from the ship. He did not want the human, or any of the others, injured. The sprite-warriors were hastily altered cave sprites who had little of Jarvorus' knowledge and wits. It was good that they followed his command; he could imagine the havoc that they might wreak otherwise. But he was determined to conduct his charges safely.
He ducked close to the ship. Follow! he urged the human. He sensed her hesitation as she tried to renew contact with her fellows. Hurry!
The image of the rigger flickered and shifted and stretched into motion, the ship floating over her. He began leading the way again. It was not that much farther, he thought. Not much farther at all to the Pool of Visions, and to the trap that awaited.
Chapter 24: Free in the Underrealm
As FullSky had hoped, it was the Watcher's strength that became its undoing—transforming itself into a living darkness, a thing that swallowed hope and turned it to despair. But its darkness could not stand against a dragon transformed into light. In the moment of the Watcher's death, FullSky felt a tremendous release. His body might remain crippled and chained by the Enemy, but his spirit, his kuutekka, was freed from the oppression of the Watcher's power.
The weaving he had prepared in secret came together now, threads of the underweb whirling and tightening. His heart leaped for joy, as the physical pain of his body was bound out of the weaving of his kuutekka. He couldn't abandon his body altogether, but he could stretch out from it. He rose from the floor of the cavern, his senses yearning to reach out into the pathways of the underrealm beyond.
He crossed over the chasm of spirits to where Windrush, stunned, was struggling to understand what he had done. FullSky touched his brother's kuutekka, and Windrush's thoughts reached out to him in bewilderment and joy. Could FullSky escape and join the others? he wanted to know.
FullSky wished he could answer yes—but that was impossible. His role in the struggle lay elsewhere. There was much he might yet do, but only if he moved quickly, before the Enemy knew that he was free. He was skilled at crafting spells in the underrealm, but his power was no match for the Enemy's, if that one came after him directly. And if his body were destroyed? He had no idea how long he could survive then. Perhaps not at all.
Windrush, I do not know if you will see me again. But I will be fighting alongside you. We will be together again in the Final Dream
Mountain.
FullSky—!
Realizing how hopelessly slow words would be, and how fleeting their safety here, FullSky probed directly into his brother's thoughts. He saw there the hope for Jael's appearance; and he saw also the bitter disappointment of the dragons' failed attack, and the frightening destruction of the lumenis. And he saw Windrush's futile efforts to find the Dream Mountain.
He would give Windrush such hope as he could—in images that he knew might not reach Windrush's awareness at once, but would surface in their own time. He showed his brother the blow he had just struck against Tar-skel's web of power—freeing many spirits along with FullSky, and thereby breaking one small strand in the Enemy's web. It would perhaps set the Enemy back only a little, but every hope was precious. Even small setbacks could delay the completion of the web. Windrush, you are not alone, he sang softly. I'm sorry to have put you at risk—but believe me, you are not alone. And now you must flee!
He pulled back from his brother's kuutekka. Flee now! Flee before you are found here!
Windrush gazed at him in amazement. FullSky blinked once, and departed back across the chasm of spirits. He peered back as Windrush turned away, up the pathway though which he had come. FullSky tugged at the weave that had kept that pathway open. There was a shifting of the underweb, and the path vanished as though it had never existed. Another similar opening appeared in its place, leading to another part of the realm altogether. If the Enemy came searching, FullSky hoped that that detour might, for a little while, lead him astray.
In the chasm, the spirits of the captured dead were swarming out of their imprisonment, perhaps in flight to the Final Dream Mountain, perhaps elsewhere. They were making a considerable disturbance in the underrealm. This was good, FullSky thought. The distraction might give him the cover he needed.
Passing out of that place, he hurried back to his anchor point and the beginning of his own journey.
* * *
FullSky did not leave the Enemy's lair at once. He wanted to learn what he could of the Enemy's activities nearby, and this might be his only chance.
He was floating in the dungeons of the Dark Vale. In the outer world, he knew it was a blasted landscape, filled with craters and honeycombed with spaces into which captives were crowded, half embedded in stone. Here in the underrealm it was a place of brooding powers, throbbing with glowering light. There were few shadows in which to hide. He would have to move about like a luminous ghost in a place that reeked of poisonous fires. Fortunately, the Enemy and his servants were preoccupied with their own sorceries, and they probably never imagined that a spirit of the opposition might be moving freely through the underweb of their dungeon. If they sensed his movement, he hoped they would dismiss him as one of the harmless dead, freed from the chasm.
In this level of the underrealm, the dungeons were a vast, open network of caverns and cells, separated by slender pillars and archways and glowing, fragmentary walls of melted-looking stone. The captives floated like trapped, luminous fire-beings, anchored in their bodies. Most had no evident awareness in the underrealm, though a few seemed to peer dully at FullSky as he floated past. Some of the captives were dragons caught in battle; others were dragons who had voluntarily joined with Tar-skel, only to learn too late that their standing in his realm was not what they had hoped. Many were not dragons at all, but shadow-cats and sprites and slope-climbers, and other beings that he did not recognize.
Guardian spirits moved among them like drifting lanterns—brighter, but often no steadier, than those they guarded. These guardians were witless and slow, compared to the slain Watcher, but still quite capable of sounding an alarm. FullSky moved with care, keeping his radiant presence close to the glowing walls. Since he could hardly float into the underrealm presence of the Nail himself and ask what was happening, he wanted to see if he could decipher anything of the Enemy's plans from the spells that were woven here.
It was risky. The Enemy would soon realize that a part of his web had come unraveled, that some of the strength stolen from captive spirits was gone. And in time, FullSky's kuutekka would be noticed. But he didn't intend to remain long.
Drifting along the walls, he memorized the shapes of the threads and lines and seams of the sorceries that held this place together. He had no specific idea what he might do with the information, but any knowledge was potentially useful. Indeed, if he learned enough, he might eventually find a way to free some of his fellow captives. But he dared not try that now. It was the Enemy's larger spells that he wanted to decipher. Most of all, he wanted to pursue threads he had glimpsed before—threads that might, however indirectly, connect to the Dream Mountain.
Still, he could not resist an urge to skim close to the nearest captives, wondering if he might recognize anyone. He did not—at first, anyway. But wherever he could do so without attracting attention, he brushed the thoughts of the captives and offered a silent whisper of defiance and hope against the pain.
He had nearly reached the end of the caverns when he caught the first undersense of something, or someone, familiar. It took him a few moments to locate it, on the extreme far end of this last cell: a flickering spirit that somehow seemed to shine with greater stubbornness than most. It must, he thought, be a dragon recently captured—someone still hoping against all odds for escape.
FullSky drifted across the bottom of the cell toward it. Several outerrealm guardians, likely drahls, were clustered around the captive; but they displayed little or no awareness in the underweb. Perhaps he could move just close enough to probe the captive with a tendril of thought. It was indeed a dragon, he realized. He gently touched it—and almost cried out with surprise. WingTouch!
He fought to maintain his equilibrium. WingTouch back in the Enemy's grip? Both WingTouch and Farsight had been freed by the breaking of the Black Peak sorcery. How had WingTouch been recaptured? Hovering perilously close to the guardians, FullSky struggled to think. Had his brother been seduced back? There were no threads of entanglement or deceit around him. WingTouch was throbbing with pain and anger. He had been captured, then—captured fighting. FullSky touched his brother's throbbing mind and felt it shudder with confusion. WingTouch felt his presence, but didn't yet know who he was. WingTouch had indeed been taken in battle, but the Enemy was trying now to persuade him to become a traitor. That was the source of the dragon's anger, and of much of his pain. He burned, even now, with defiance.
That, at least, was good. Very good.
But did he dare identify himself to WingTouch? It might bring him hope. But it could also be dangerous, if WingTouch were closely questioned by the Enemy. FullSky moved cautiously about his brother's presence. WingTouch had little skill in undersensing. How strong a contact would it take? He dared not make too large a disturbance. He approached closely enough to feel a growing turbulence in WingTouch's thoughts.
The anger was intense.
The pain was terrifying.
He could not leave his brother without speaking, no matter the risk. He called, softly, WingTouch.
The dragon's mind jerked, startled.
FullSky watched for any reaction on the part of guardians, and remained ready to flee.
Who is it? WingTouch peered around helplessly in the outerrealm, but kept his cry of pain to himself.
FullSky drew closer still and whispered, Do not speak aloud. It is FullSky. I am here with you.
A tide of rage and anguish exploded from WingTouch's mind. FullSky! I do not believe that you are a traitor! he hissed, barely containing his words. But if I learn that you are, I will kill you myself!
FullSky was stunned. Why would WingTouch think him a traitor? He drew back to watch for ripples in the underweb. When there was no sign of awareness by the guardians, he slipped back in, probing WingTouch's memories. In a few moments, he found the Enemy's false accusations. He answered: The Enemy is lying. Never doubt that.
He gave WingTouch an image: a dragon bound in stone, its head held high, fire flaring from its thro
at. He meant it as a symbol of his own adamance against the foe, but also as an encouragement to WingTouch, fellow prisoner of Tar-skel. His brother stirred uneasily at the image.
I cannot help you now—but I will try later, if I can find a way, FullSky whispered.
WingTouch struggled in his bonds, with a startling ferocity. FullSky, like most of the others, had been broken and crippled physically soon after his capture. But as he probed in WingTouch's thoughts, he guessed that the Enemy was saving him, apparently hoping to seduce him back, or to intimidate him into betraying the rest of dragonkind. But why was the Enemy bothering? Could it be that Tar-skel was more insecure about his victory than he would have had others believe? Was Tar-skel afraid of the ancient prophecy, even now?
In WingTouch's heart, FullSky saw a strong defiance—but also something else, something that had not existed in his brother's heart before, but was just beginning to take root; a tiny grain of despair.
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