Jewels of the Dragon

by Allen Wold

  "I've got your hideout," he said.

  "Good. I could use something more comfortable to lie on.

  They drove the jeep in through the double doors and parked it in one corner of the great foyer. Then Rikard carried the shelter into the room he'd chosen. Dobryn wouldn't have to turn it on, except for the cots.

  They cleared the desk away from the middle of the room and set up their camp. Then, while Dobryn fixed supper, Rikard went back out to cover over their tracks as much as possible. If someone did come by this way, he didn't want them to^ know Dobryn was here.

  Dusk fell. They ate, and Dobryn told Rikard as much as he could about the city and the Tower. They burned no lights, just to be safe, and tried to sleep as soon as it was too dark to see. Dobryn dropped off right away, but Rikard lay awake for a long time. Excitement made a hard knot in his stomach.

  He wasn't sure he could even get to the Tower. Once there, would he find his father's bones, or would wild animals have carried them away? He didn't dare hope that his father, by some miracle, might still be alive. And as for the treasure...

  He'd take whatever he could find, of course, but that somehow seemed less important now.

  The Belshpaer civilization had been great once. No one knew what had caused their fall. Some still lived in the city, doing Rikard had no idea what. Perhaps, he thought, they had found his father and rescued him.

  His brain spun, and anxiety clutched at him, but at last he slept.

  2

  Rikard set out the next morning, carrying food for ten days in a pack. Dobryn wished him luck, assured him he would be all right, and closed the double doors after him.

  Rikard crossed the plaza to the avenue that led to the Tower of Fives and climbed over the rubble that closed it off. The street beyond was litter strewn. After a couple of blocks, the ruination of the city became worse. At one point a huge slab that had fallen from a wall blocked the street completely. He had to detour several blocks, and was uneasy until he came back within sight of the Tower.

  There were animals in the city, rummaging through the fallen plastic. Plants had taken root where the ruination was worst. There were frequent parks, which were now densely overgrown and well populated with insects, birds, and smaller animals.

  Once he saw a tall, stiff-legged creature that stood on a crumbling wall and stared down at him. Apparently it decided he was too big to eat, for after a moment it bounded away.

  Once he passed a doorway mat was softly translucent in­stead of dead and opaque. He glanced in cautiously. There was no dust on the floor of the corridor beyond. He passed on quickly.

  He ate lunch on a flat slab that had fallen from an otherwise intact building. Ahead of him the Tower of Fives rose into the blue sky, flanked by several other tall buildings. As he ate, a sense of futility came over him.

  Eleven years was a long time. Most likely he would find nothing at all, no father, no grave, no bones, no treasure. Even if he came to the very spot where Sed Blakely had abandoned his father, he wouldn't know it.

  He almost gave up and turned back.

  But if he did that, there would be no certainty in anything. Even if he found nothing at the Tower of Fives, he would at least have tried everything in his power.

  He went on.

  The way got easier for a while. He was gratified to see the Tower looming closer and closer. By midafternoon the avenue became rubble filled again, and he had to take another detour. The routes back to the original avenue were com­pletely blocked, but he caught sight of the Tower from another direction and went on from there.

  When dusk fell, he found a sheltered spot on the second floor of a badly fractured building and made up the best bed he could. He hadn't been able to bring a cot with him. In spite of the hardness of the floor on which he lay, he fell asleep quickly.

  He dreamed he had found his father, and they were greeting each other tearfully, when the sense of a presence nearby broke through his sleep and he awoke.

  The room was softly illuminated, not by sun or moonlight, but by something one of the three Belshpaer in the room was holding.

  They stood quietly, keeping their distance, watching him. He shoved himself to a sitting position, groping for the gun at his hip. The Belshpaer did not move. They wore no visible weapons.

  "What do you want?" Rikard asked, his voice hoarse with sleep and anxiety.

  "You are he, then," the middle Belshpaer answered.

  "Who were you expecting?" Rikard got to his feet. The Belshpaer stood their ground.

  "Harm is not with us," the Belshpaer said. "Come you us we by here a guide to warn at."

  "What the hell? Look, I'm sorry if I'm trespassing. I'm just passing through. I'll leave if you like."

  "No. Sleep is fine. Our forgiveness, we know it clean and can't talk."

  "You can say that again."

  "Are you he."

  "I'm sorry, I don't understand."

  "Rikard Braeth."

  "Y-Yes, I'm Rikard Braeth. Your friends in the forest spoke my language much better."

  "Smaller word parts. It our end can't break. No. Speak smaller. No training ours then they have."

  "Speak smaller? Okay. Short sentences."

  "Yes. Short speaking. He you Braeth."

  "Yes. I am Rikard Braeth." He slapped his chest with the universal gesture of self-identification.

  "Good. Save our quest desire. Help becomes us."

  Rikard sighed. He didn't know how these people had learned his language. That was surprising enough, but that they had learned it so badly was almost unbelievable. The Belshpaer he had talked to in the forest must have been some kind of prodigy.

  "Help?" he asked.

  "Yes," the Belshpaer answered.

  "Who?"

  "You. Us. Both. All."

  "Okay, help you. How?"

  "Other worlds."

  "I don't understand."

  "Importance perative not yet. You first."

  "Okay. Help me. How?"

  "Tathas guarding."

  "The fungus. Yes, I know about that."

  "Enter easy. Difficulty come exit out."

  "Yes. I know."

  One of the other Belshpaer interrupted in its own language. Then the spokesman tried again.

  "Come alive and save us," it said. "Must return, no other hope. Finish questing come save us. Tathas gray stone bend all over."

  "Let me try," Rikard said. "You want me, after I find my father, to save you?"

  "Father questing yes. Come again to assistance remembered. But. Tathas bending all prevention never come."

  "Okay, the tathas will be dangerous. I know that."

  "Yes. They bundle keep living alone. Mind destroyed and will. Come back must gray stone between."

  "Sorry, I missed that. Try again."

  "Fire burns. Follow the line. Our times are numbered but. Tathas remembers all gray stones. Return only between. Mark no sky. Exit come brief for two legs."

  "I still don't follow—"

  "Not beside, anext them, before circles between gray stones."

  "Okay." He still didn't understand. "Then what?"

  "Return among fevers. No exit. My partners recompense only stars."

  "And when I come back?"

  "Remember Belshpaer far going when. When help, come again."

  "Look, I really don't understand. Do you know where I'm going?"

  The three Belshpaer conferred again. Their attempts to communicate had seemed to improve the last time, Rikard hoped they would again.

  "I will try," the Belshpaer on his left said, and held up a hand, a rosette of six multi-jointed fingers around a central palm. It touched one finger with another hand.

  "Rikard Braeth," it said, gesturing at Rikard. It touched another finger. "Parent Braeth." It touched a third finger. "Tathas bundles guard passage." It touched a fourth. "Enter easy exit by two gray stones only with stars mind breaker." A fifth finger. "Talk to us to come to far worlds." The last finger. "Fair trade."
/>   It was making more sense, though it made Rikard's mind hurt to pick the meaning out of their sentences. He held up his own hand and counted off the points.

  "I am Rikard Braeth," he said. "I'm looking for my father. The tathas fungus is a danger. It's easy to go in but hard to come out. You want to communicate with people on omer worlds. You help me and I help you in fair exchange."

  "Yes. Most. Not all. Exit tathas not complete. By two gray stones with only stars. Must be beside next not but before— idea of two sides not three sides."

  So that was the problem. The idea they were trying to convey had to do with the fact that they had no working concept that translated from their trilaterality to his bilater-ality. He closed his eyes in confusion. His thoughts were becoming as unclear as their words.

  'Try again," the Belshpaer said. "Exit mind trap in direction with no sides. See gray stones. Betweenness. Come before them, not with anext. Crossing shorter than passing. Mind stars mind guide between gray stones."

  "It's not working," Rikard said. "I'll have to see what you're talking about. Can you take me there?"

  "No. Three sides walk other ways. Two sides not after blinding. No contact."

  "You can't guide me. Okay, but you know where I'm going?"

  "Yes. Parent place. Far deeply."

  "Is he alive?"

  "I don't know."

  One clear sentence, and it was no help at all.

  "Okay," Rikard said. "I don't understand your warning, but I won't forget it. I'll try to figure it out when the time comes. Is that all right?"

  "Must be. Other not compatible. Fair next trade."

  "Yes. If I get back, I'll try to help you. But you'll have to find a better way to communicate."

  "Language lost but others now found."

  "The one who spoke to me in the forest, can he talk to me again?"

  "Earlier questing. That one besides as well also. Far south­ward but becoming daily."

  "If you could just talk more clearly!"

  "Our forgiveness become. When ever back, find comer speaking."

  "When I come back, you'll have a better speaker?"

  "Exactly. Care of tathas. Sleep night." They fell silent, then rotated quietly out of the room.

  3

  Next morning after breakfast, Rikard followed the tracks of the Belshpaer through the dust to a closed door in the cellar of the building. It was a dead door, showing none of the translucency he associated with the living Belshpaer. It would not open.

  He went back to the street. The Tower was very near now. He thought he could reach it by midafternoon.

  The way was blocked by a whole building mat had fallen into the street. Its foundations were exposed, and rather than backtracking two or three blocks to go around, he went down into the exposed cellars to see if he could find a passage through them.

  He clambered down a sloping wall to the floor of the cellar and went two steps when the ramp he'd just descended col­lapsed into a lower level. The remaining walls were smooth and straight, affording no hand or footholds of any kind.

  Since he couldn't go back now if he wanted to, he went on. He clambered over broken slabs of plastic, which he thought he might be able to build into a stair back to the street if he found no other way. The buildings on the other side of him still stood, though the outer walls had gone. He could see into the hexagonal rooms thus revealed.

  He came to a stairway leading down to a lower level. It was clear of rubble. The way above was badly choked, so he went down. If this turned into a dead end, he'd have to retrace his steps, build the stair, and take the long detour he'd hoped to avoid. That would cost him half a day.

  At the bottom of the stair was a passage that led in the direction he wanted to go. Doors opened off both sides, all tightly shut. He lit his torch and went on.

  At the end of the corridor, he came to a series of rooms connected by open archways. He made a guess as to the best direction and tried every arch he came to, looking for a way up.

  Something was following him. He flashed his light back the way he had come, but saw nothing. But he could hear a soft slithering, not exactly like tiny feet, more like a snake.

  He went on, and the sound came again, not like one snake but a hundred. The noise was too soft to be that of scales on the hard plastic floor. It was more like insects flying. Still, he saw nothing when he looked back. He walked a little faster.

  He entered a large room where machines lay in ruins. The walls and floor were deeply etched, as if by acid. He flashed his light over the uneven surface. It reflected darkly metallic and iridescent.

  It was the mark of the tathas. It was the fungus that had corroded the walls. He checked himself for the first signs of tathas intoxication. Yes, his light did seem a little too bright. The closeness of the cellar did seem a little too comforting. The effects weren't strong, but they were definitely there. The tathas was alive down here, but it hadn't been for long or the psychedelic effects would have been stronger. They were noticeable only if he thought about it.

  That meant that this couldn't be the particular tathas the Belshpaer had warned him about. They had had no way of knowing he would be taking this route, and he was still a long way from the Tower of Fives. But if the effects became stronger, he'd have to turn back, even if there was an exit down here somewhere. He didn't want to run the risk of succumbing to the as yet subtle desire to just sit down and wait.

  The slithery sounds came from behind him, very close now. He turned his light on the source of the noise. There was a bundle of coarse fibers sliding wormily across the floor. It stopped when the light hit it, pale and gray, a tangle of thick hairs that twisted slowly and waved branching ends at him. Its volume was about the same as that of a man, though its bulk would be much less.

  Rikard felt a thrill run up his spine as the tangled mass rolled oozily toward him a few centimeters. From it came a subtle wave of sensation, as if he were telepathically perceiving through its senses, a confusion of all senses into one. No, that wasn't right. Sight and sound and smell were one sense, taste and touch was another. Both were altered and modified.

  The hair all over his body stood up. This mat of coarse fibers was the tathas. He could feel it, a soft and subtle thing, disturbed at his presence, unhappy with the light, desiring peace and solitude, craving emptiness. This was the fungus, a huge, naked mycelium. It was a sentient being, or once had been. The Tathas—and now he capitalized its name. Beyond this one were others.

  He drew his gun and fired at the Tathas. The noise was deafening. The bullet slashed through the weebly creature, ricocheted off the floor, then the ceiling farther away, and into the floor again farther yet. The Tathas writhed in pain, but a moment later Rikard could sense that the pain was gone.

  It had no vital organs. It was homogenous, one part as good as another. He fired again, but it only made the Tathas angry. The others beyond it hurried closer, and not at a snail's pace.

  Something touched his ankle. He jumped away and flashed the light down. A fiber bundle at this feet twisted tendrils at the place where he had been. His skin crawled.

  One long tendril stretched out from somewhere and touched his cheek. It was like fire. He jerked away, kicking at the bundle near his feet. His clothing and armor protected him from their touch, but their psychic presence was becoming stronger. His feeling of revulsion countered it, but it wouldn't for long.

  He stomped on another Tathas, then flashed his light around the chamber. The way he had come was thick with the mobile fungus. He jumped away from two that had risen up almost as tall as he, one on either side. His fear of them did not completely block his involuntary perception of their thoughts. They wanted to eat him because he was violating their privacy and solitude.

  He dashed for a doorway where the Tathas were less numerous and slammed the door behind him. They came through the cracks around the jamb.

  His gun was useless. What he needed was a knife, or fire. But anything combustible had long since ro
tted away or been eaten by the Tathas. He backed from the opening door. Several Tathas were piled on top of each other, working the catch.

  He fled without regard for where he went. He ran up one hall, down another, through rooms, down a flight of stairs. The walls here were clean, unsullied by the corrosive juices of the Tathas. He stopped to catch his breath. He was trapped. The only exit he knew was filled with the sentient fungi.

  Rikard had heard of other races of a fungoid nature. That type of sentient life was among the rarest in the galaxy. These Tathas, no matter how evolved, were as advanced beyond a common toadstool as a man was beyond an amoeba. Their psychic residue was evidence that they had once been sen­tient, but they were not any more. They were the essence of insanity, the epitome of madness.

  There were none in this room with him now, but they were out there. This was their habitat. If they wanted him, they could find him. Once their tendrils got to his bare flesh, they would kill him. It would be painful. He touched the mark on his cheek. He could feel a long, thin welt blistering and still burning.

  He could hear them. They were no longer stealthy in their pursuit of him. He could outrun them, but not forever. Sooner or later, if he didn't find a way out, they would trap him in some dead end, and then it would be all over but the scream­ing. He retreated farther.

  He came to a place where a wall of crystal had broken and shattered. His light glinted off long, bright shards.

  He picked up a piece. Its edges were very sharp. He kicked among the fragments. There was one piece a meter or so long and five or six centimeters wide that he could use as a sword. But he'd cut his hands to ribbons if he tried to wield it.

  The sounds of the Tathas were closer. He took the belt from his jacket and wrapped it around the end he wanted to use for a handle. The pseudo-leather was strong, designed to resist cutting edges. It withstood the sharpness of the crystal shard.

  The door of the room creaked. The Tathas flowed through in a wave. Rikard slashed, trying not to strike the floor with his brittle weapon. He cut the Tathas in two, and they recoiled.

  He slashed again and again, cutting them up. Once his sword struck the floor, but it only sang; it didn't break. And the Tathas were afraid of him now, he could feel it. He kept on slashing, striding back the way he had come, leaving writhing fragments of fungus. The Tathas retreated.