Dragonseed da-3

by James Maxey

  Vendevorex nodded. He swept his wing over the shattered pool with a dramatic flourish, sending out a shower of silver dust. The shards of glass began to dance, hopping and popping until they formed bowls around the gasping fish. He closed his fore-talon, and the water that clung to the bottom of the pool rose in a mist. He opened his talon, and the water poured down in precise rain clouds, filling the fishbowls.

  If Jazz had known he'd complete the task so efficiently, she wouldn't have shared the key. Not that it was important. Vendevorex might have been a wizard among more primitive minds, but he was little more frightening than a birthday party magician to her. He could push a few molecules around, bend a little light, and knit together a bad cut. Parlor tricks compared to the technology's full potential. Jazz configured the last circuit.

  "Omega," she whispered, activating the signal. Instantly, the angels remaining in the air exploded into clouds of dust.

  Seconds later, a howl that could have come from the depths of hell itself echoed through the city, as six billion souls that had felt the touch of a shared mind for a millennium suddenly found themselves alone with their own thoughts.

  In the rain of dust, it was impossible to see more than ten feet. Hex and Bitterwood couldn't see her right now. Jazz turned to Vendevorex. She twisted the electromagnetic field around her fingers as she once more opened the razor thin underspace gate that would form a rainbow blade. "Thanks for helping with the goldfish. Now, no hard feelings, I'm going to kill you."

  She slashed the blade across his throat. She waited, watching for his neck to slide from his shoulders. His eyes, rather than rolling back into his head, glared at her with a stern look of disapproval.

  He said, with a voice unmarred by trachea severing, "You've taken something from my daughter. It's time you give it back."

  The underspace blade was so sharp that perhaps the surface tension of the water in his cells was holding his neck. Jazz stretched her silver-plated fingers forward to give his head a nudge and knock it loose.

  Her fingers passed through thin air.

  Her feet were suddenly locked in place as the thick glass rim of the fountain began to climb up her legs. She went blind as twin phosphorous flares erupted inches from her face. A dragon's fore-talon fell upon her shoulder from behind.

  Parlor tricks.

  FROM THE MOMENT she'd stepped from the rainbow gate, Vendevorex had suspected that Jazz was the mind animating the body of Jandra. When he'd come back into contact with his genie, he'd discovered something curious: Nearly a month of Jandra's recent memories were stored within the device, recorded during the time Jandra had worn his genie. Jandra apparently hadn't discovered this was a function of the device, since she hadn't encoded her memories so that other users couldn't access them. Thus, he knew in great detail the events of Jandra's life from the moment she'd put on his skull cap to the moment that Hex had ripped the genie from Jandra's spine. He knew who Jazz was, and the threat she represented.

  He wondered if Jazz was aware of the threat he represented.

  The ground beneath them rumbled as an earthquake wracked the island. He had no time to ponder the cause.

  By now, the glass of the fountain had climbed to Jazz's waist, immobilizing the lower half of her body. Jazz twisted her neck around, trying to see him, but it wouldn't have mattered if she'd swiveled her head in a complete circle. With the flares before her eyes, she couldn't see a thing. He fashioned a long staff of glass with a head in the shape of his fore-talon, and lowered it to her shoulder. As anticipated, she whipped her arm over her back, stabbing the rainbow blade into the space where he should have been standing in order to touch her. He dropped the staff and leapt forward, grabbing her wrist, pushing it against her back so that the impossibly sharp sword cut away a thin slice of the nanite shell along her spine, exposing Jandra's skin.

  He needed both his talons to control the blade as she struggled to free herself. He bent his serpentine neck forward and caught the torn edge of the silver shell with his teeth, peeling it out from her skin. Then, though it would cost him his powers, he willed his genie to reconfigure itself, turning into a stream of silver liquid that raced down his scaly snout and leapt onto the patch of skin he'd exposed.

  Instantly, the flares vanished. He leapt back, flapping his wings, getting out of the reach of the blade. The glass around Jazz's legs cracked and shattered, as Jazz overpowered his unguided nanites.

  Jazz spun around, her face distorted with rage. "Flying won't protect you, you bastard," she snarled.

  Before Vendevorex could fly higher, the glass of the shattered fountain reshaped itself into an enormous hand that reached up and plucked him from the sky. The fingers closed upon his ribs with an unearthly swiftness and pressure. The sound of snapping bones reached his ears a fraction of a second before the bolts of pain.

  Suddenly, Jazz shouted out, "No! Noooo!"

  The glass hand went slack. Vendevorex lost awareness as he tumbled into the flowers below.

  SHAY FELT AN odd sensation in his wings, a new sense he hadn't known he possessed until this moment. There was an unseen wave of energy in the air as he emerged through the gate, and his wings tingled with each pulse.

  His arrival was badly timed. He seemed to be in the middle of an earthquake. The air was thick with dust. The ground beneath him shook violently. Yet, instead of buildings toppling, the opposite was happening. A structure was rising from the earth nearby. He recognized it from the books he'd studied as a Greek temple, with walls formed by gleaming white columns of marble. In scale, it rivaled the Dragon Palace. Within its shadowy confines, a giant man, two hundred feet tall, glared out. He wore a shimmering toga and sported a thick white beard and a mane of long white hair. He carried a trident, like the image of the god Poseidon.

  The god did not look happy.

  Thunder rumbled through the air, loud enough to rattle Shay's teeth. It took a second to realize the thunder formed words: "Who dares silence the voices of my children?"

  A golden dragon that bore some resemblance to Hex darted through the air toward the god. In scale, it was like an eagle attacking a bear. The god lifted his hand in a dismissive swat. The golden beast flew off in a streak and smashed into one of the impossibly tall towers. The force drove the dragon through the wall. Shay couldn't see if he emerged from the other side.

  Skitter slithered from the gate beside him. Zeeky craned her neck toward the god's angry face. She sighed. "I guess I'd better go talk to him."

  "Talk to who?" Shay asked.

  "Him," said Zeeky, pointing to the giant.

  "Him?"

  Zeeky nodded. "I can talk to pretty much anyone. It's my gift."

  By now, the dust was starting to settle. Jazz stood beside a large spire topped with a golden disk. The granite-tiled walkway she stood on was sopping wet. For some reason, she was surrounded by hundreds of goldfish bowls.

  Jazz looked as if she were dancing. Her skin was silver once more. She was whipping back and forth, her silver hair flying, raising her hands over her shoulders to claw at her back.

  Shay rushed toward her and raised his sword to strike. Yet, as he neared, he realized Jazz wasn't dancing. There was something moving beneath the silver shell that coated her back, and she was trying to claw it off.

  "Get out!" Jazz screamed. Or was it Jandra?

  Knowing he might forever regret his decision, he swung his angel sword. The flat of the blade smacked squarely across Jazz's ear. The force of the blow tore the sword from his grasp and sent him spinning through the air.

  When he stabilized, he turned to see the results of his blow. The silver-shelled woman stared at him. She didn't look injured.

  "Shay," she said, in an utterly neutral tone. "Thanks for helping me focus."

  "Jandra?" he asked.

  "Guess again," she said. She turned her back to him and slammed her foot down onto the hilt of the flaming sword. In the center of her back there was a bulge. It looked almost like a woman's face, crisscrossed
with chains. Jazz looked up at the Atlantean god, who glowered down at her.

  "To answer your earlier question," she shouted to the giant, "I dare!"

  The god shook his head slowly, as if pitying her. He crouched and reached toward Jazz with his impossibly huge hand.

  "You no doubt thought I'd attempt to crack the jamming code of your signal," the god said, his thunderous voice causing the flowers of the bushes to tremble. "A more elegant solution is simply to destroy your antenna."

  The god's fingers closed upon the golden disk.

  Instantly his fingers vanished, then his arm, then his torso and shoulders and head. Shay was again aware of a tremendous surge of energy in the air.

  "Sucker," said Jazz. "I knew you could still control the nanites you were in contact with, since you could transmit your commands through physical connections. Touching the disk gave me access to these physical connections. I've knocked you back to your core form. And now, I'm going to flush you."

  Shay had no idea what had happened, but he was pretty sure it wasn't good. From his vantage point in the air, he could see into the giant temple. Where the god had stood, there was now a small, naked, white-haired boy, perhaps no older than five, slumped on the ground. He looked dazed.

  Jazz suddenly appeared next to the boy, even though she also continued to stand by the fountain. The Jazz by the fountain looked down, as if the boy was standing right at her feet, and said, "Underspace gates have so many uses." The boy looked up at the Jazz in the temple, a frightened look in his eyes. "Traveling to the moon in a blink is one. Disposing of unwanted gods in the reaches of interstellar space is another."

  She snapped her fingers. A perfectly circular rainbow appeared around the boots of the Jazz standing in the temple. A black pit opened beneath her, expanding outward. The white-haired boy opened his mouth as if he were screaming, but Shay couldn't hear him. The boy tried to crawl away, but made little progress. The only sound coming from the temple was a terrible howl of wind. The circle expanded ever outward. Shay was tugged toward the temple by a sucking wind. The black circle was now fifty feet across, and stars shimmered in its depths.

  The flowers in the courtyard beneath him all leaned in the direction of the yawning pit. The boy's desperately grasping hands found no purchase on the marble. He splayed his body out, searching for any handhold, as his small form was dragged by the air rushing to the gaping void.

  Shay ground his teeth and tilted toward the temple. The boy would reach the edge in mere seconds. Could he fly fast enough to save him?

  Before he could find out, there was a flash of copper as Skitter raced up the steps at the side of the temple. Zeeky leaned down from her saddle, extending her hand. The boy's legs tilted over the side of the space pit and he closed his hand around Zeeky's.

  The force ripped Zeeky from her saddle. Skitter slid to a halt on the polished marble floor, whipping his head around, snapping his mighty jaws shut on the back of Zeeky's tunic as she, too, tilted over the edge of the space pit. Skitter's claws left scratch marks in the marble as the wind caught him. The boy dangled from Zeeky's grasp as she dangled from Skitter's jaws.

  "Oh, the suspense," said Jazz, giggling.

  Skitter's first pair of claws slipped over the edge, then the second. There was a flutter of dark motion in the shadows at the rear of the temple. Shay's heart leapt as he realized it was Bitterwood's cloak. The archer was perched in a tree on the other side of the temple, his legs securely wrapped around a branch to resist the wind. He glared at the Jazz over the black pit.

  He let an arrow fly.

  It sliced straight through Jazz's head and kept flying, burying itself to its leafy feathers in a marble column beyond.

  The Jazz near the fishbowls winced. "Ooh, that would have stung. Good thing Ven wasn't the only one who knew parlor tricks."

  The way Jazz turned her head as she spoke drew Shay's eyes. She was looking at the fallen body of a sky-dragon who was tangled in the twisted branches of a thorny bush. He couldn't tell if the dragon was breathing.

  Jazz began to twitch.

  "Calm down," she growled.

  The face on her back bulged out further, its mouth opening to scream, "Vennnn!"

  Jazz closed her fists and clenched her jaw, concentrating to push pack Jandra's ghost.

  Shay was torn. Should he attack Jazz again? Last time, physical pain had helped her focus. He decided to rescue Zeeky. But when he looked back to the temple, he saw a long bright pink rope tied to the tree where Bitterwood had stood. The hunter himself was gone, but the rope stretched in a straight line to the edge of the pit, where Skitter had his claws wrapped around it. The giant beast had inched himself out of the void, dragging Zeeky, who still held the boy. They were only feet from the pit, and the wind was beating them mercilessly. Still, for the moment, they were safe.

  A physical attack on the goddess hadn't done him any good. Could an emotional appeal make a difference?

  He dropped from the sky, coming to rest before Jazz, who had her eyes closed. The turmoil on her face was gone. She looked almost peaceful.

  "Jandra," said Shay, barely a yard from Jazz's face.

  Jazz opened one eye to glare at him.

  "Remember Lizard," said Shay.

  Jazz fell to her knees as a howl rose from the face on her back.

  HEX PICKED HIMSELF up from the sandy beach where he'd come to rest. He was astonished to find he had no broken bones. There were scratches on his golden shell from his flight through the buildings, but no cuts or gouges. Just how tough was this armor?

  He tried to flap his wings, but found he didn't have the strength to lift into the air. The fault wasn't his golden shell. He was still too weak from having had nothing to eat or drink. Jandra-or was it Jazz?-had said the shell would multiply his strength by ten. Unfortunately, ten times nothing was nothing.

  He limped back into the city of towers. All around him, men and women in exotic hues wandered around, looking dazed. Many had simply collapsed where they stood, staring into the night sky, paralyzed by fear. He could hear the cries of men and women rising from unseen chambers beneath the earth as the lights of the city fell dark.

  He came to a fountain. He lowered his jaws to drink, then halted, focused on the strangeness of seeing his countenance in gold. His green eyes weren't coated by the metal. He opened his mouth. His teeth were covered, but the metal stopped just inside this gums. His tongue was unprotected, still purple and raw.

  He didn't care about the pain. He thrust his snout into the water and gulped until he'd had his fill. When he lifted his head once more, he heard a howling sound, like wind rushing through a cave. The flowers in the garden around him fluttered as the breeze picked up.

  With his belly full of water, he felt even more sluggish than before. Yet, he couldn't afford this weakness. He, more than anyone, was responsible for Jandra's condition. This meant he, more than anyone, was now responsible for the fate of the world.

  Digging into the deep reservoir of strength that only guilt can provide, he beat his golden wings and took to the air. Quickly, he gained his bearings. He could see the temple in the distance, though he couldn't tell what was happening in its shadowy interior. As he weaved his way among the towers, he soon spotted the silver form of Jazz, down on her knees beside the shattered fountain. A winged man stood before her. One of the angels?

  He dove closer and realized it was Shay. He was talking to Jazz. Jazz was shaking her head. Her silver shell was bubbling up on her back. What was happening? He had only seconds to decide on a course of action. He knew his strength would fail any moment.

  Shay's eyes grew wide as he saw Hex.

  Jazz looked over her shoulder at him.

  Hex made his decision. Just before his jaws clamped down onto Jazz's silvery body, he realized that the bulge on her back looked a bit like a woman's face.

  He dug his teeth into Jazz with all his might. It sounded as if two voices screamed inside his mouth. He spread his wings to come to a ha
lt before he crashed into the columns of the temple. He stumbled as he hit the ground. The wind at his back was like a hurricane. He tumbled and rolled, losing his grip on the silver woman. He bounced up the steps of the temple, pushed by the incredible wind. He dug his golden claws into the polished marble as he continued to slide. He craned his neck and saw Skitter struggling to keep from being pulled into an enormous black pit over which a second Jazz stood.

  While his golden shell was stronger, and his claws were sharper, his metallic scales did lack one important quality: friction. Nothing he did halted his slide toward the void.

  A sharp pain punched into his left wing. He came to a sudden and complete halt. He looked toward the source of the pain.

  One of Bitterwood's arrows jutted from his wing. Half the shaft was buried in the marble floor. The force that tugged on him would no doubt have torn his ordinary flesh, but the golden shell held firm against the arrow. He was pinned.

  "Take her down!" Hex growled.

  Somehow, even above the howl of wind, he suspected the Murder God heard his prayer.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE:

  LOST CITY

  THE SILVER-SHELLED WOMAN at the foot of the temple steps rose on wobbly legs. Deep, ugly puncture wounds seeped dark blood from both sides of her rib cage. Shay approached her carefully, having retrieved the angel sword. Yellow flames reflected on her metal cheeks as she stared at him with eyes full of murder.

  "She killed Lizard," said Shay.

  The woman's left eye twitched.

  "N-nice t-try," she said, wiping her silver lips with a bloodied hand. "But your f-friend's attack put me back in the d-driver's seat."

  "She killed Vendevorex," said Shay, though he wasn't certain this was true.

  Jazz's silver skin literally crawled as is it crept over her wounds.

  "A-attacking me… only reinforces… the defensive programs in my genie." She sounded winded. She grew more stable on her feet as she took a long, slow breath. "I'm the living embodiment of the concept that whatever doesn't kill me makes me stronger. I've silenced Jandra forever. I've flushed Atlantis into orbit around Proxima Centauri. You can't win this, Shay. Do you think they call me goddess because I have a fabulous body? This is my world now."