All in all, he couldn’t complain about anything. And that puzzled him.
What were they keeping him here for? To what end? They hadn’t even questioned him. It was puzzling, for sure. But no matter; with every day that passed, he knew that he was closer to being rescued.
He’d always struggled with some of the more… ‘esoteric,’ some of the more unusual ideas and beliefs held by his masters. The war against the west, the downfall of the corrupt capitalist world that had so enriched his material life, yet simultaneously drained his soul of all that was good, all that was noble, leaving only darkness, bitterness, and the thirst for self-gratification; yes, he had always been on board with all of that.
But the coming of allies from – how did the masters phrase it? – Beyond the Veil? No, that part had always seemed a bit too far-fetched. A bit much. But the reports of these ‘Shadows’ upon the streets of London. Then this woman, stopping his bullets with a glance, searing the flesh from his hand with but a gesture. He looked down at his palm and fingers, now healed but still scarred, the flesh numb to the touch, and smiled.
Yes; even when he’d awoken here in this cell and realised his predicament, he’d found his faith in his masters growing. These ‘Shadows,’ the ones who’d captured him, must be the Enemy of which they’d all been warned since they’d first been initiated into the Brotherhood as lowly neophytes. And if they existed…
Jenkins smiled and threw another ball of paper to sizzle against the force field.
He only had to wait. He’d been promised that the Brotherhood would not forget his efforts that day in London. He knew that somehow he’d be found, be rescued.
And one day, he thought, visions of long, curly red locks flitting before his mind’s eye, there would be a reckoning.
***
“Here, drink this. It’ll calm your nerves.”
Hands shaking, Nikki reached out to take the mug then took a tentative sip. It was milk, hot, with two sugars and… was that a tot of Jameson’s? Eyes wide, she looked up at Stone from where she was sitting on the comfortable leather couch.
“My grandmother used to make me this when I was young… it used to help me go back to sleep after I woke up with nightmares.”
A knowing twinkle. Again, she had to tear her gaze away lest she drown in those softly glowing orbs. Seeking to distract herself, she looked once more about the room she’d been brought to.
Upon first impressions, it could have been a country cottage in the Cotswolds. The floor was the same strange stone it was elsewhere in this building – she corrected herself, dragon. The ceiling was low. At one end, an open fire within which burned great logs that crackled and spat, giving off heat and soft light yet never seeming to burn down to ash. Between the couch upon which she herself sat and the identical couch opposite which creaked but amazingly held beneath Stone’s immense frame as he settled upon it, a coffee table. Upon it, cream cakes, biscuits, a pot of tea. Her things that she’d thought lost; phone, purse, keys. Beneath her feet, a soft red rug, thickly piled.
Other leather couches were scattered about, too. Figures were sat upon them or else milling about, talking, chatting, drinking tea and laughing. About the edges of the room, side tables, bookcases.
If she didn’t know better, she’d have thought herself at a country club. Instead, she was within a dragon made of stone, circling London miles in the air and talking to a man so extraordinary that his every word sent tingles up and down her spine. At this moment, he sat there patient and silent, allowing her to take everything in.
Finally, after enough sips of whisky-laden milk, she plucked up the courage to speak.
“So, you wanted to talk,” she began. “Let’s talk. Who are you? And these people – they’re the Shadows, right? How do you people do what you do? And why? How are you flying around London in a dragon the size of a town without people noticing? A dragon for Christ’s sake! And what does all of this have to do with me? And the bomb that went off three weeks ago…?”
Stone, for his part, sat quiet, smiling beneath the barrage of questions. Then, without a word, he reached over to the table between them and poured himself a cup of tea, the mug rendered tiny, doll-like in his huge hand. He took a bourbon biscuit, carefully dunked it and took a bite, chewed slowly, swallowed. Then finally he deigned to answer.
“It’s a long story,” he told her.
“Humour me,” Nikki replied. “I’m enjoying five minutes without being stabbed with needles or teleported through the air. Where does this long story begin?”
Stone smiled and dunked the second half of his biscuit.
“Where do all long stories begin?” he asked her. “At the beginning…”
***
He found him there, on one of the observation decks; the glass-like windows in the dragon’s side allowing a magnificent view of the twinkling night sky. To the left, the dragon’s neck stretched off into the distance, a horned head the size of a cargo ship in view as it turned, drifting in a lazy arc about the city below them. To the right, a vast wing that stretched out to blot out entire swathes of stars.
“I thought Draconis had six wings? Three on each side?”
A nod from Marlyn who continued to stare out of the window, even as he spoke in reply.
“It does. But the secondary and tertiary wing pairs are only extended when it needs full power. If it needs to soar at greater speeds, greater heights, the void of space above us…”
“Or to travel through time?”
Marlyn turned now, to look at his questioner. It was Pol, his face rendered half in shadow by the silvery moonlight streaming from without. Even as he turned, Marlyn couldn’t fail but notice the shaman glancing surreptitiously down at the quietly whirring metal by the Tulador’s side.
The semi-mystical plasma cannon where his forearm should be.
If Marlyn felt any offence, he showed no sign, instead lifting his cannon-arm to the tune of whirs and clicks, using it to lean with a metallic clank against the stone wall of the corridor. It was natural that people were still taken aback at times by the machinery, with its soft hum and gently flashing lights.
He was still getting used to it himself, truth be told. The number of times he’d reached for something with the wrong arm, sending cups flying and plates to smash upon the ground. He’d even given himself a black eye once, reaching up to scratch his nose.
Lord Stone, Gwenna, hell, perhaps even Pol himself, all had the power to heal to an extent. Normally a lost hand would be no hardship for them to replace, thanks to the power of the spirits. Borrowed power, in the shamans’ case. Innate, in the case of Stone. But the Baron’s axe of dark flame was no mortal weapon; and the grievous wound it had caused had been beyond even his Lord’s immense power to heal.
This weapon now grafted to his arm, held in place by a complicated array of servos and nerve-bonding technology beyond even his own ability to understand, would forever serve as a reminder of the dangers they faced.
Of the importance of their mission.
“Yes, that too,” he finally replied to the shaman. “To soar the winds of time, as these dragons were born to do, requires great power. The wings harness that power, acting almost like sails on a ship, letting the beast propel itself in any direction; be that through space or time.”
Pol moved beside Marlyn, looking out the window to the orange and yellow lights of the city below.
“How do you know these things?”
Marlyn smiled.
“I ask it.”
“And it answers?”
A quizzical look from the shaman. It didn’t suit his face, his dark eyebrows and cold eyes turning the innocent expression into something more akin to sceptical disbelief than genuine curiosity. He was roughly the same age as the Tulador Guard, but where Marlyn, despite his obvious battle scars, was youthful, friendly, full of optimism and curiosity, Pol looked older, bitter, as though he’d been through too much hardship in his young life.
Ironic, thought Marly
n, but kept it to himself.
“At times, yes. If I concentrate I can… hear its thoughts.” He glanced at his metal arm, feeling the tingling warmth of power coursing through it, the low hum of its mystical generator at idle. “I think it might be because I’m part-machine now. Maybe it sees me almost as kin? Who knows? Even so, it’s difficult to understand what it says. Its thoughts are slow, vast and impossibly ancient. It’s like an ant trying to ask a question of the tree upon which it lives. I can only get hints, impressions from it. I can’t speak to it as an equal, not like Lord Stone.”
A nod from the shaman, then silence for a few moments. What was the youth doing here? There was no love lost between the two, that was for sure. Pol had always made his distrust of the Marlyn plain to see, ever since Gwenna had taken a shine to the Tulador, back at the Retreat. But times had changed; now that Gwenna was with Virginie, did Pol think to try to make friends with him? Marlyn thought himself an affable enough chap. He’d be willing to let bygones be bygones should that prove to be the case.
“What brings you here?” he ventured. “Something on your mind?”
A sideways glance from the other lad. It appeared he was holding something in, unsure whether to ask for fear of what the reaction might be. Finally, he opened his mouth and spoke.
“I fear,” he began, haltingly, “for the havoc we’re wreaking upon time. The power of this dragon, to move from era to era. It’s… unnatural. I don’t think any good can come of it. To take people from their rightful time, to bring them to the future where they don’t belong. I remember how out of place I felt in this world’s past; the very elements rebelled against our presence. I don’t believe such things can be done without repercussions.”
Silence as Marlyn scrutinised him.
“You speak of Virginie?” No reply, the shaman staring into the night sky with tight lips, so the Tulador continued. “You heard what Lord Stone said; it’s her bond with Gwenna that allows her to travel with us. She’s an orphan of time, free to move where she will. There’s no harm in her being here.”
“She’s a stranger,” blurted out Pol, anger flashing in his eyes. “We know nothing of her. Yet now she is privy to our deepest secrets and our best-laid plans. What if she is a traitor? Planted in our path by the dark powers to thwart us?”
Marlyn laughed, though he could see that the shaman was serious, if not in the exact scenario, then at least in the sentiments expressed therein. The shaman seemed wary of the girl. Though Marlyn didn’t need shamanic powers to see that there was more to it than that.
“I’m no shaman,” he told the youth. “But from what I’ve heard, the process of sharing ones spirit doesn’t leave much room to hide such things. If Virginie was a traitor, Gwenna would know. Unless you’re saying Gwenna’s a traitor too?”
He raised an eyebrow, watching for Pol’s reaction.
At length, the shaman turned to him.
“No, of course not,” he admitted in a hurry. “But these are dark times. And we need to be wary of from where we get our aid.”
Marlyn shook his head, the warmth draining from his face to be replaced by a shadow of something grim and terrible.
“No,” he stated. “These are not dark times. I’ve been to the dark times.” His eyes seemed to stare off into the middle distance and he shuddered, as though recalling horrors that no mortal should live to see. “The foe we face are mighty, remorseless and without number. They will land upon this world, like a horde of locusts, drain it dry of all that is good and joyful until they’ve had their fill. Then they will leave in search of other worlds, other sustenance, leaving this world but an empty husk of horror and despair.” He turned his eyes back to the shaman who seemed almost to recoil, as though the horrors of the Tulador’s mind threatened to leap out from his eyes and bridge the gap twixt the two. “Trust me; we need all the help we can get. We cannot, will not, let that future come to pass.”
Slowly, Pol nodded, taken aback by the vehemence in Marlyn’s words. Few of the Tulador Guard had spoken of the horrors they had witnessed in the nightmare future of this world. Those that had returned alive had been changed men; grim, resolute. Each and every man of that company, even Marlyn here, had been to see Gwenna in her capacity as head shaman, to seek her counsel and support, as their minds had struggled to come to terms with the hellish visions of that particular branch of time.
All except the Lord Arbistrath. He had only become more bitter, more determined. The once haughty and naïve noble had changed since the time Pol had last seen him, that day they had entered the Portal atop the Beacon and been cast through time. Where once was foolishness, selfishness and a rashness that spoke of insecurity, there was now a grim determination and a battle-hardened pragmatism.
Pol and the shamans’ sojourn into the past had been far from a picnic; stranded, powerless, hounded by zealous witch-hunters, led by, of all things, a vampire, a dark creature of the night. It had been a hard time, fraught and full of uncertainty. Yet still Pol was glad that he had been sent there, rather than to whatever hellish, demon-infested future the Tuladors had found themselves.
Yet in its own way, even Pol’s trip through time had brought with it a scar that would not heal, no matter how fervently he wished it to.
Marlyn’s voice broke through his contemplation.
“So what of our prisoner? Our friend from the Brotherhood of the Veil? Have the shamans managed to extract much information from him?”
“Yes,” said Pol. “And no. Gwenna has been dream-walking, intruding upon his sleep, gleaning what she can from his slumbering mind. It’s slow going. There are faster ways of taking what we need. But she’s reluctant.”
Marlyn nodded. He knew what the shaman was referring to. Mind-rape was the term he’d heard used. The forcing of one mind upon another, sifting through the memories of the horrified victim as one would flick through the pages of a book. It was cruel, humiliating. He was unsurprised that Gwenna wouldn’t use it as anything but a last resort.
Such a forceful, brutal connection could only leave scars on both victim and perpetrator.
“You disagree with this slow approach?” Marlyn asked.
Pol nodded.
“Time is of the essence. If the Brotherhood are going to attack again, we need to know who their operatives are, where they’re based. The Woodsman’s network of Foresters on the ground can only pick up so much from rumours and hearsay. Nine times out of ten, their leads are dead ends. We need to find these people, root out their headquarters. Crush them.”
Marlyn raised an eyebrow.
“Lord Stone wishes this revolution to be bloodless; to have people join our cause through example, not fear. He doesn’t wish to be a tyrant. Not again.”
“Perhaps our Lord might not wish to dirty his hands,” came the shaman’s quiet reply. “But some of us wouldn’t mind dirtying ours in his stead…”
With that, Pol turned and walked out from the corridor, leaving a nonplussed Tulador to stand, staring out into the night sky and pondering the meaning of the shaman’s ominous words.
Chapter Five:
Nikki gulped as she waited on the docks, the stiff breeze blowing the salty sea-spray into her face and causing her squint her eyes against the sting. Why had she agreed to this? Did she not learn?
The phrase out of the frying pan and into the fire sprang to mind…
But no, despite her reservations, she knew that she was doing the right thing. Her mind still reeled from the enormity of what she had learned. Another planet, galaxies away, full of human life. An invisible world of elemental spirits all about them. A hellish army poised to be unleashed upon the Earth. It was almost too much to take in. Too much to comprehend.
She understood now why Stone and his men had been so covert, so hidden, helping people when they could, but never revealing their true strength. Never showing their hand. She glanced upwards into the cold, blue sky above London. Aside from a couple of Jumbo jets coming in to land at Heathrow, trails of vapo
ur crisscrossing the heavens behind them, there was nothing. Though she knew that wasn’t true; up there, somewhere, that vast stone dragon flew, invisible to eyes, to radar, to any means of detection man possessed.
How would the population of Britain react if they knew what was there, hovering above them? How would the leaders of the country act upon what Stone had revealed to her? She could imagine it now; anger, disbelief. Fear. They would demand that Stone surrender himself and his people. Demand that he turn Draconis over to their scientists and engineers, to dissect it, discover its mysterious inner-workings.
Behind those green eyes lurked the wisdom of centuries of accumulated experience and Nikki knew he was right to take his time. To use her, Nikki Taylor, a nothing, a nobody, just your average British citizen as a go between. To ease the British government into the knowledge that they were not alone in this universe.
Not alone. And woefully unprepared for what was to come.
Stone and his allies needed to garner the trust of this world. Now that the red-headed woman, Gwenna, had gleaned what she could from the bomber, they were willing to release him to the British government as a symbol of trust, of a willingness to co-operate.
And so here she was, waiting alone on the cold dockside for the agents of the powers that be to arrive. One hand fiddled with the earpiece in one ear. It was a communicator, but more than that, it was also a transponder, a locator beacon. It allowed Draconis to lock onto her, she’d been told, to translocate her in an instant from the ground back to the dragon, should things go awry. She put her trust in Stone, despite not knowing him for long, hoping that she wouldn’t need it.
Hoping that when the agents arrived, they would ask questions first and shoot never.
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