Brynn could see in her eyes that the guard had her suspicions too. For a moment, Brynn thought the guard was going to come back to the cage, spread the bars again, and let her out. The struggle of indecision was plain on her face. But then her face hardened, her eyes becoming flat.
“What you speak is treason,” the guard said. “Speak such a way again and you will be bound to the outside of your cage, your mouth propped open so that the jungle birds can pick out your tongue.”
Well that sounds pleasant, Brynn thought.
With that the guards turned and headed back down the walkway, leaving her alone. Actually, not quite alone.
The prisoner with the black pixie haircut peered at her from three cages away over her clasped knees.
“Hi,” Brynn said.
The young woman just stared at her.
“Hey,” Brynn tried again. “At least we’re out in the sun and fresh air, right?” And that was true. This high up, she could see the ocean over the tops of the brilliant green jungle canopy, the sun shining down over what looked like an island paradise. They were locked in what looked like giant birdcages, sure. But there had to be worse places to be imprisoned, right?
“I’m Brynn,” she said, raising her voice while still trying to sound light and friendly. Still nothing. Maybe the girl was deaf. Or mute. Or maybe she spoke an entirely different language. Whatever the case, she just sat there hugging her knees, staring at Brynn with an empty expression.
Brynn sighed, gave up, and turned around, slumping down against the bars. This wasn’t how it was supposed to turn out. Had she really just expected to pop through a portal, rally up Vander’s friends, and save him, just like that? Instead, she'd been thrown in a cage for her troubles.
She had at least learned something, though. Besides the fact that an interdimensional way station was in the back room of a tobacco shop in downtown Austin. She’d realized just a little too late that Vander’s new wife was behind his disappearance. Not that she could do anything with that information. Not yet, anyway.
“Jeera.” A high-pitched voice came from behind her.
Brynn turned to look at the young woman, who had gotten to her feet and was holding the bars of her cage.
“My name is Jeera.” Her voice sounded squeaky and cartoonish, as if she’d just taken a deep gulp of helium from a balloon.
“Nice to meet you,” Brynn said.
“What did you do?” Jeera asked.
“I was trying to help. The road to hell and all that. Do they have that expression here?”
The girl furrowed her brow in confusion.
“Vander, the king,” Brynn said. “He’s missing. I traveled here from Earth to try to find him.”
Jeera still looked confused, but a little less so. “The king is missing?”
“Yeah, and I think his new bride had something to do with it.” The guard had threatened to have her tongue pecked out by birds if she continued to accuse the queen, but just then no one else was around.
“It would not be a surprise,” Jeera said. “The Nightshadows are not to be trusted.”
“So what are you in for?”
Jeera sighed, dropping her eyes. “The story is long.”
Brynn laughed. “I think we have the time.”
“I became friends with the wrong people,” she said. “A band of thieves. We were hired to take something from the island. But the plan didn’t proceed as expected.” She looked around at the cage and shrugged.
“I guess that was the short version,” Brynn said. “Come on. Tell me more about these friends of yours. And what were you trying to steal?”
She saw Jeera look over her shoulder and down the ramp, as if checking to see if anyone was within earshot. And oddly enough, someone was coming up the walkway.
At first Brynn thought it was a child, dressed in a white smock. Then, as the figure drew closer, she thought it was an old woman. Her hair was nearly white. But as the figure moved passed the cage holding Jeera and approached Brynn’s, she saw that the person was a young woman with nearly-white hair and unnaturally large brown eyes. She stopped in front of Brynn’s cage, her hands tucked into the sleeves of her white robes like a little China figurine.
“Okay,” Brynn said. “Who are you?”
“I am Hywin,” the young woman said. She glanced nervously back the way she had come. “Though we have no time for pleasantries.”
“No?” Brynn said. “Why not?”
Hywin drew her hands out of her sleeves and waved them in front of the cage. The bars began to move.
“Because the queen intends to have you executed,” she said.
“Oh,” Brynn said. She didn’t really know what else to say. She felt like her stomach had just dropped in her belly, and she thought she might throw up. But the bars were growing apart, making a door. The weird little woman was here to let her go. Unless this was some kind of game or trap, and they were just letting her think she could make a run for it.
“Hurry,” Hywin said. “The guards will be here soon.”
But Brynn stayed in the cage. “How do I know I can trust you?”
The woman’s huge brown eyes looked utterly confused. Then they narrowed. “Well, I supposed you have no way of knowing,” she said. “But you also seem to have little choice.”
That was fair. Brynn stepped out of her cage and onto the walkway. Hywin lowered her hands and the bars shifted back into place.
“I have only heard fragments,” Hywin said. “But they say you come from Earth, that you spoke of finding the king.”
“Yes, but I don’t—”
“Do you know where he is?”
“No,” Brynn said. “Not exactly. I think he’s out in the middle of the ocean somewhere, though. But—”
“Then you must try to find him,” Hywin said. “I have done all I can. At the very top of this walkway is a dropvine. It will take you to a remote landing near the shore.”
“Wait, I don’t understand what’s going on.”
Hywin’s brow furrowed with impatience. “What is going on is that our new queen has somehow lured away or killed our king.”
No, Brynn thought. He’s not dead. I can still feel him.
“If he is alive,” Hwyin said. “You are his only hope. Now go.”
“Wait,” came the squeaky voice from down the ramp. Brynn turned to see Jeera with her face pressed up between the bamboo bars. “Set me free. I can help.”
Hywin’s huge eyes narrowed. “We have no time for jests,” she said. “You tried to steal the tri-jewel. You are going nowhere.”
Brynn reached out and touched Hywin’s sleeve. The little woman looked up at her.
“Something tells me I’m going to need all the help I can get,” Brynn said.
“She cannot be trusted,” Hywin said.
“Maybe,” Brynn said. “But I just got to this place. I have no idea what’s going on. I don’t think we have much choice.”
The deep, sonorous blow of a horn below them sounded. Hywin’s eyes widened.
“They’ve sounded the alarm,” she said. “You must go.”
Brynn looked at Jeera, then back at Hywin. “Please.”
Hywin sighed and shook her head, but she splayed her fingers towards Jeera’s cage and the bamboo stalks creaked and spread open. Jeera looked around her prison for a moment, not believing she was actually free to go. How long has she been in there? Brynn wondered.
“Come on,” Brynn yelled at Jeera, snapping her out of her daze. She jumped from the cage onto the walkway.
“Thank you,” Brynn said to Hywin, who lowered her hands, now looking exhausted.
“Just find him,” the little woman said. “For all our sakes.”
Brynn nodded as Jeera ran up to her, taking her by the hand. They headed up the ramp together as she heard the yells of the guards far below.
Brynn still didn’t know what the hell a dropvine was, but she found out when the walkway ended. There, high above the palace, she could see far
out in every direction across the island.
A high post was fixed to the walkway, a thick green rope tied to it, descending at an angle down to the beach. Great, she thought. It’s a zip line. She’d never actually used one, though she’d seen plenty of other people zoom down them on TV. Those were usually reinforced cables, and there were handles you could grab onto. What the hell were they supposed to use here? Their hands?
But Jeera was already on it. She ripped away the hem of her makeshift burlap sack and handed it to Brynn. She wasn’t sure if the fabric was going to be strong enough to support her weight, but she didn’t really have time to think about it. The cries below were getting louder.
Brynn took the cloth and nodded.
“I’ll be right behind you,” Jeera said.
Brynn was starting to wonder if fortune really did favor the bold. She thought she was pushing her luck and had a good shot of breaking every bone in her body if she slipped and went crashing through the jungle canopy.
But then she thought of Vander again. He needed her help, and he was damn sure worth the risk.
She looped the piece of sack cloth over the thick vine and glanced back and Jeera, who was busy tearing off another piece of cloth for herself.
Brynn pushed herself off the platform, hanging onto the two ends of the cloth with everything she had. The vine whirred as the jungle rushed up at her. She immediately wished she had tied the ends of the cloth to her wrists in case she couldn’t hold on tightly enough. She was doing okay so far, but she was building speed and her palms were starting to sweat.
The experience might have actually been fun if she weren’t utterly terrified. The little big-eyed woman back there, Hywin, had said that the queen intended to kill her anyway. But as she hurled down across the tops of the trees, she thought she just might be making it easy for Nevra, doing her job for her.
As she cleared the treetops, she felt the vine bounce and hoped that it was Jeera hopping on and not the guards hacking through it with a sword. She wasn’t going to look behind her. She was hurtling too damned fast, and she was about to reach the beachfront.
Jeera was yelling something at her, but they were too far apart, and the wind was rushing in her ears. She thought she heard “too fast” though.
No shit, she thought, then realized she wasn’t just some inanimate sliding object. She might be able to slow herself down before she rocketed into the sand and broke all her bones.
Brynn pulled the two ends of the cloth so that it cinched tight around the vine. She looked up and saw green shreds flying off the thick rope, and she felt herself beginning to slow. She just hoped she hadn’t waited too long. She squeezed tighter, hearing the pitch of the whir heighten.
The white sand was rushing up at her. I’m not gonna make it, she thought. She closed her eyes and squeezed with everything she had. She was slowing to a reasonable speed when she heard a loud snap and the world fell away from under her.
Brynn opened her eyes and realized the cloth had broken in two. Luckily she wasn’t moving as fast as a bullet train anymore, and she was only fifteen feet or so above the beach when it happened.
Still, she hit the sand hard, pain jolting up through her heels and into her back before she crumpled into a roll. She felt tiny scraps of shell and debris bite into her palms and forearms as she tried to stop tumbling, and finally she ended up in a sore, painful heap at the water’s edge.
She lay there, moaning, wondering if anything were broken. Me, she thought. I’m broken.
Then as if from far away she heard the whir of Jeera coming down the zip line. Seconds later a shadow fell over her, and Jeera was kneeling beside her, trying to help her up.
“We have to go,” she said in that comically high-pitched voice. “They’re coming.”
Jeera had her by the arm, and as Brynn struggled to her feet, hurting all over, she looked up in the direction they had come. There, high up on the bamboo walkway above the jungle, she saw something that sent a chill up her spine.
Vander had told her he was a dragon. She’d seen his hand shift into a claw. But she hadn’t really processed the idea that a person could shift entirely into a dragon.
That’s what the two guards on the platform were doing. She could see their necks stretching out, their wings unfolding behind them. Even from this far away, the sight was terrifying.
“Come on,” Jeera said.
Where? Brynn thought. They’re going to fly down here, and then we’re screwed. Where the hell were they going to hide? They couldn’t just run along the beach, and the jungle seemed like an awful option. That’s when Brynn realized Jeera was tugging her into the surf, into the water.
“No,” Brynn said. “Bad idea. I’m a shitty swimmer.”
“We have no choice,” Jeera said. “I will help you as best I can.”
As will I, said that chilly mechanical voice in her head that she hadn’t heard since she was back on Earth. What the hell did that mean? And how was Jeera supposed to help her?
She couldn’t really process possible answers to those questions, though. The dragons were lifting off from the platform.
“Come!” Jeera yelled at her, and Brynn scrambled with her into the surf, her entire body aching.
As they waded out to where they were nearly waist-deep, Brynn glanced back over her shoulder. The dragons had passed over the jungle top, picking up speed.
She thought her bladder just might let loose. What did it matter anyway?
But when she turned to face forward again, her mind froze up for a second with an entirely unexpected sight.
Jeera was changing. Her hair was all but gone, her lower jaw extending into a rounded snout. Her skin was becoming a shiny gray-blue, and as her burlap smock fell away Brynn saw the ridge of what looked like a fin emerging out of her back.
What the hell?
Jeera looked at her with only one eye, now turning a solid shiny black, and her speech was somewhere between a chitter and the high-pitched human voice she had used before. “Grab on!”
Brynn looked down at the long, shiny gray body floating before her in the water.
She’s a dolphin, Brynn thought. A freaking dolphin.
Her choice seemed to be between grabbing hold of a dolphin girl to plunge headlong into the ocean or wait for the dragons to swoop down upon her.
I’ll take my chances in the sea, she thought, wrapping her arms around Jeera just above her fin. She’d never touched a dolphin before. It felt a little like rubber, but with muscle underneath.
As soon as her arms were tight, Jeera kicked her tail and they plunged forward. Water rushed over Brynn’s head. She tried to gasp for air as she looked back one last time. The dragons were nearly to the beach. They looked enormous.
Then the water was deep enough for Jeera to dive, and they submerged together. Brynn wasn’t quite ready, and she took in a mouthful of salty, cool water. She thought of letting go, but something made her hold fast.
I’m going to drown, she thought, absently wondering if that was a better way to die than whatever the dragons might do to her.
Then she felt a tingling sensation in her throat and chest, a feeling she mistook for the burn of being unable to breathe. On the contrary, she found that as she exhaled, pushing the water she’d gulped back out of her mouth that she didn’t feel a lack of oxygen at all.
Jeera was swimming fast now, the water rushing over both their bodies. Brynn took another experimental “breath” of water. It was much heavier and more sluggish than air, but there was no doubt as she took it in and let it back out. She was breathing water.
The voice in her head said it would help her. The fabricant, which had allowed her to form some kind of mental link with Vander, had now somehow altered her physiology, giving her the ability to breathe underwater.
Jeera slowed just a bit, starting to ascend, no doubt to give Brynn a chance at some air. But Brynn squeezed her tight and raised her voice.
“I’m okay,” she said. “Stay under.�
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“Very well,” Jeera said. “But there is no need to yell. Your mouth is near my ear.”
“Oh,” Brynn said, lowering her voice. “Sorry.”
Brynn was puzzling over her newfound ability to breathe underwater, marveling that they were actually going to escape, when a giant plume of green exploded in the water ahead of them.
Shockwaves rippled through them, knocking them back, and Brynn almost lost her grip on Jeera. She watched as an enormous cloud of dark green bloomed before them.
Jeera recovered quickly and changed course to swim to her right.
“What is that?” Brynn asked. Jeera didn’t answer. She was busy building up speed. But Brynn realized she already knew the answer.
That’s what they breathe, she thought. The green dragons. Not fire or ice, but whatever that is. Poison? She glanced back at the cloud and saw red at the edges of it, mixing with the green to form a dark purple. The cloud seemed to be expanding outwards. Whatever the hell was in that dark mass, she knew she didn’t want to be in the middle of it.
Just as these thoughts crossed her mind, another impact shuddered ahead of them, another green cloud unfurling, as if a god above the water were squirting dark green ink into the sea with a giant eye dropper.
Brynn expected Jeera to veer to the right again, but this time she dove. The water was deeper here, so deep that Brynn couldn’t see the bottom despite how clear it was.
I hope she knows what she’s doing, Brynn thought, taking another deep gulp of water. She felt her ears pop as they plunged downward, the water darkening as the latest volley from the dragons above blotted out the sun.
As they swam, Brynn saw rocky formations below them, and what looked like the entrance to a cave. Jeera headed in that direction as another shot of dragon breath thundered into the water up above.
Brynn didn’t want to find out what was in those deadly-looking clouds, but she also didn’t like the look of the dark maw of the underwater cave. In a world filled with dragons and people who could shift into dolphins, who knew what could be in there?
But Jeera swam into it with no hesitation. Once inside, she stopped. Brynn still held onto her. She could hear dull thuds up above as the dragons seemed to be carpet bombing the surface of the ocean above.
Dragon Green Page 13
