Wardragon

by Paul Collins

  Jelindel looked unhappy. She remembered the awful urgency.

  Cimone patted her hand. ‘The task that’s before you, and the thing-hard-to-find, they’re tied up with one another, that I can tell you.’

  ‘But what is it I’ve lost?’

  Cimone eyed her. ‘Yourself, dearie. It’s your self you’ve lost. Mage at eighteen, whoever heard of that? You’ve growed up too fast.’

  Jelindel left Cimone’s stall in the D’loomian marketplace, her mind in turmoil. She wandered past the spice sellers and the merchants hawking exotic cloths just in from the many ships swaying at anchor not two hundred yards off. It was a bright sunny morning, and she needed the sun’s warmth to disperse memories of fears felt in darkness.

  In the four years since her family had died, she had tried not to think of them, indeed had never wanted to. So much fear and anger was bound into that appalling night, the night she was forced to grow up. It was an anger she could not control, so she shut it out, but nothing could stop the nightmares. She remembered watching the sun set beyond the harbour that evening, but it was not a child who saw it rise the next morning.

  Amid the terrors between dusk and dawn, something had been lost. The road to its retrieval, if Cimone were to be believed, would begin in Sezel.

  Chapter 3

  Paraworld Killers

  Rumours of death came to Sezel on a late spring day in 2133. By mid-morning of the next day the rumours had grown to encompass daemons, ogres and other such monsters with razor-sharp teeth, lightning speed and ravenous appetites. Two things gave these rumours more credibility than the usual wild imaginings of bored people trying to impress their bored friends, however. One was a consistent reference to the attackers from the sky. The other was the large amount of blood and shredded flesh splattered about at the scene of each attack. Whatever the nature of the attacker, it was a messy eater.

  The help of the young but learned mage Jelindel dek Mediesar was sought, and she arrived soon after with her warrior companion, Daretor. The city governor, the ailing steward Duke Vereux, had engaged them to rid the city of this menace in the cause of civic order and the municipal peace – so that thriving trade, increased profits and healthy taxation revenue could be restored. While the markets ran during the day, the stalls were stocked and set up at night. Being eaten alive was a good incentive for stallholders to take their trade elsewhere, or merely work shorter hours.

  Jelindel was a mage of some repute. Her career had begun the moment her parents, court nobles of some esteem and influence, were murdered by a renegade mage known as Fa’red. Jelindel had learned to survive in the streets and markets, developing her magical skills during many perilous adventures. She had fallen in with Daretor, a master swordsman with an inflexible sense of honour, and a street thief named Zimak, whose integrity was ever in question. As unlikely a trio as they were, they had become an effective team, and in recent times had begun to hire out their magical and martial skills to those in need.

  Jelindel soon realised that the pattern of attacks involved what could be called a flight path: each victim had been in a long street, usually those stretching north to south. For the most part, only ragged bits and pieces of the victims had been found strewn about, as though they had been ripped apart hurriedly. Whatever the predator was, it was anxious to get on with the business of eating. No one was taken in cul-de-sacs or in narrow lanes with high walls on either side. It was as if great eagles were involved, the kind with broad wingspans that prefer to swoop down on their prey.

  Standing at the scene of the most recent attack, Jelindel gazed north along the canyon created by the cityscape of streets and buildings. A mile away, looming over the city, were the stark and ragged cliffs of Enak. To the east a castle had been built into the cliff face, and here the Duke resided. On those ancient battlements, as forbidding as the cliffs that hung above them, were further sites of attack and dismemberment. Not even the rich and powerful were safe – something which seemed to offend the old Duke far more than the loss of some of his citizens. Monsters were bad enough, but monsters that did not know their place were simply unacceptable.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ asked Daretor, shading his eyes from the equatorial sun. He was sweating profusely and although he had just drunk what felt like a gallon of water during breakfast, he was already thirsty again.

  Jelindel shielded her eyes and pointed at the cliffs. ‘I think that whatever we seek will be found up there.’

  ‘What protection will we need?’

  ‘A potion against sunburn. Zinc chalk and coconut oil, I should think.’

  Daretor frowned and wiped perspiration from his face. ‘Is it always this hot?’

  ‘Hot? It’s not even high summer yet.’

  ‘By all the gods, I feel like I’m melting.’

  ‘Don’t melt yet. We need to earn our fee.’ And find what I have lost, she thought. She had decided not to tell her companions of the visit to Cimone. It saved a wagonload of explanations and unnecessary complications.

  ‘Not to mention Zimak’s commission,’ Daretor said with the trace of a sneer. ‘Lazy, shiftless wastrel. Why should he get a third of the fee for writing a letter?’

  Jelindel turned to face him, her eyes instinctively seeking something above Daretor’s head, then quickly readjusting to meet his. It was easy to forget that he was no longer in his own tall body, but in Zimak’s much shorter frame. On a far-off paraworld, a magical but planned ‘accident’ had swapped Zimak’s small, lithe body with that of the muscular, six-foot-two Daretor. Although Daretor had done wonders building up his new body ever since, there was nothing he could do about its height.

  ‘What is it now?’ Daretor asked, aware that he had said something wrong.

  ‘Someone has to do the clerical work. Would you prefer to be back in D’loom, in Zimak’s stead?’

  ‘At least being here working with us would be swatting the fat off him. Instead, he’s wenching, revelling, eating to excess, and – and White Quell alone knows what he’s doing to my body this very moment.’

  ‘So are you going to quibble about his fee when we are eventually paid?’

  ‘I’m a swordsman, not an accountor.’

  ‘My point exactly. Think of him as a treasure map: he may not do much, but without him, no treasure. Now, to work, and we need to get up there before nightfall,’ she said, nodding toward the ragged cliffs.

  Daretor sighed. ‘At least Zimak’s body is good for climbing.’

  Jelindel put a hand against Daretor’s chest. ‘But first, I want to talk to some of the witnesses to the attacks.’

  ‘Unless you have a way to contact the afterlife, there are few of those. It appears the best defence seems to be to stay at home after dark, with the doors and shutters firmly locked. Those that did see anything also keep their lips fastened.’

  Jelindel dropped her hand. ‘Then we have to unfasten them.’

  ‘Force and magic don’t answer every problem,’ Daretor said moodily.

  ‘No,’ Jelindel agreed, hefting her pack, ‘but bribery is a very fine substitute for either.’

  Merris was very susceptible where coins were concerned. The scrawny lad was continually wiping his nose on a filthy sleeve, as if there were a leaking pipe within his head. He also had the unnerving habit of regarding Jelindel first with one eye, then the other, as if his ancestors had been birds rather than humans.

  ‘So, you saw the thing that attacked your uncle?’ Jelindel asked.

  Merris nodded. The lad then smeared snot across his upper lip with the frayed cuff of his sleeve. Merris was a boy of few words, especially around merchantmen, and even more so around powerful folk in the employment of the duke.

  ‘I need a description, Merris,’ Jelindel wheedled.

  The boy shrugged. Jelindel removed an argent from her coin pouch and held it up. His eyes gleamed with interest, but also a faint contempt which made Jelindel frown. Merris reached for the coin but Jelindel closed her fist around it.


  She wagged a finger. ‘In words, please.’

  Merris licked his lips, removing some of the glistening snot. ‘It was pointed.’

  ‘Pointed?’

  ‘S’pose. And fast. Faster than an arrow. Faster than a bolt from a crossbow. If I’d a blinked, I’d not have seen nothin’.’

  ‘Fast and pointy?’ said Daretor with a glance to Jelindel. ‘We’re paying another argent for that?’ His scepticism annoyed the boy.

  ‘You wasn’t there, mister, was you?’

  Jelindel waved Daretor silent. ‘What else, Merris? Be quick now.’

  ‘It come down out of the sky, but not steep like. And it swayed from side to side. But fast.’

  ‘What did it look like?’

  The boy became uneasy, as if this part worried him.

  ‘You’ll laugh.’

  ‘Try us,’ said Daretor.

  ‘It looked like a big fish, sort of like those in the market, but lots bigger. And it grabbed my uncle, sort of shook him around to soften him up, then swallowed what hadn’t fallen off.’

  ‘How big?’ asked Jelindel.

  ‘Like a horse, maybe.’

  ‘So a flying shark the size of a horse ate your uncle,’ said Daretor.

  ‘Accounts for the mess,’ said Jelindel.

  Merris took his leave, pocketing his coins then burying his hands deep into his breeches to keep the coins from jangling.

  They got little more from the other surviving witnesses, most of whom answered their questions from behind closed doors. In the early afternoon they returned to the hostelry where they had lodgings and ordered a meal of assorted fish in a thick white sauce. It was here that the landlord handed Jelindel a letter which she read in silence, then folded and slipped into her pouch. Despite Daretor’s enquiring look, she did not discuss the message.

  With the sun well past the zenith they packed some supplies and started up the cliff face. There was a path of sorts, part of a road that had once linked Sezel to towns further up the coast. Many years ago it had been abandoned when the duke had decided to put some prisoners of war to practical use, building a road that bypassed the cliffs and looped around them to the north.

  The track was tortuous and occasionally dangerous. The rock was a kind of compressed shale, and had a tendency to break off suddenly. Whole layers had fallen away from the cliff face, sometimes burying the road, sometimes taking part of the road with them. Leading was bad enough but following had its own disadvantages – in the form of showers of rocks and pebbles. Daretor soon wished he had brought a battle helmet along for protection. Finally, after one sharp rock had cut open Daretor’s cheek, Jelindel called a stop and cast a spell that would ward off projectiles like an invisible umbrella.

  ‘You could have done that earlier,’ muttered Daretor.

  ‘Spells are draining,’ she replied.

  ‘So is being hit by rocks.’

  ‘Would you prefer to carry me?’

  Halfway to the summit they stopped for what passed as a meal. It had taken two hours of sweaty, exhausting climbing to get to what was quite a good vantage point, and the view was indeed breathtaking. The entire port city of Sezel was laid out beneath them, and the white canvas sails on ships pulling out to sea blazed brightly in the afternoon sun. The sea itself was a deep turquoise, except where breakers crashed on the beach and over shoals offshore. Seabirds nesting on the ledges and crevices of the cliff filled the air with a raucous cacophony of squawks and calls, and the afternoon sea breeze kept the temperature moderate.

  Jelindel stared down at the city, her brow knitted in thought.

  Daretor recognised the look. After a while he said, ‘You know what is preying on these people, don’t you?’

  ‘I have an inkling.’

  ‘I’ll be glad when this is over, and we’re back in D’loom.’

  ‘Really? You have plans?’

  ‘Just homesick.’

  She turned to look at him. ‘You’re homesick for D’loom? Even people who were born there prefer to call other places home.’

  ‘I’m homesick for time with you. The kind where we’re not in constant danger.’

  ‘I – oh,’ responded Jelindel, who had been caught by surprise. ‘This is unlike you.’

  ‘Too many times in the years past we have survived by chance, and little more. I would like to teach my sword skills to young warriors, perhaps even start a small academy. You have learned enough magic to fill several books, and you should be writing them.’

  ‘But we need money to live –’

  ‘Zimak handles our money, and our money keeps vanishing. Have you ever wondered where I go when we are not together?’

  ‘Taverns?’

  ‘I have been spending time with clerks, learning to tally cash and keep track of spending in registers. Did you realise that eight coins out of every ten that we earn finds its way into a fund run by Zimak that he calls “working capital”?’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘As far as I can tell, it means we do the work and he keeps the capital.’

  Jelindel draped an arm over his shoulders. ‘We’ll go home after this. It’s been too long.’

  ‘Six months.’

  Jelindel looked surprised. ‘That long?’

  ‘Six months next week since we left D’loom.’

  ‘That explains why I feel so tired. But we’ve done well in Bravenhurst. Three tasks.’ Jelindel thought back. ‘Three tasks, all involving magic that has weakened and failed. It’s unsettling. It’s as if belief in such powers is failing.’

  ‘Don’t complain,’ Daretor grunted. ‘It’s meant more work for us.’

  ‘Were a king to declare a ban upon ale from the end of the month, the innkeepers would also be run off their feet with demand, yet they would still be facing ruin from the month’s end.’

  ‘Even innkeepers must sleep, and I’m weary now, I can tell you that.’

  Jelindel gave a quick grin, in spite of her apprehension. ‘I was orphaned at fourteen, now I’m eighteen and so very much has happened in those four years. I feel that I’ve lost something. I want it back.’

  ‘Lost what?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Then you can’t have it back.’

  ‘We can take the rest of the year off,’ Jelindel decided, giving up on her rambling thoughts. ‘Just do local work.’

  ‘Good. No more travelling. I want to sleep in my own bed, with you – and tally my own coins.’

  Jelindel snorted. ‘My partner in life, the romantic miser.’

  ‘I’m not a miser.’

  ‘You always think someone’s trying to cheat you.’

  ‘They are.’

  ‘Exactly. In any case, right now it’s only a few thousand seagulls. Come on, let’s get moving, or we’ll be marooned here when dark comes.’

  They made it to the cliff top shortly before nightfall. Here a series of deep fissures etched the cliff face and they explored them while eating the sausage and bread they had bought in the market that morning. Suddenly Jelindel motioned Daretor to be still.

  ‘Something’s happening,’ she whispered.

  Daretor simultaneously crouched, glanced around, and slowly drew his sword. At first he could see nothing amiss. There was a slight mist forming, which was not unusual so close to the sea. The muffled quality to the air, deadening ordinary sounds, he put down to the thin fog. There were none of the flying sharks that Merris had reported, indeed there was no movement at all. Even the terns and gulls that nested on the ledges below had fallen silent with the onset of darkness.

  ‘Jelindel –’ he started to whisper but she waved him urgently to silence, then froze. Something flashed past them moving at incredible speed. It was so fast Daretor could not be sure he had actually seen something. Then he peered more closely at the air and noted the swirling tendrils of mist, as when a person runs past through fog.

  More things flashed from the deep fissures, passing – as Merris had said – in th
e blink of an eye. Try as he might, Daretor could not get a good look at them. There was a vague sense of predatory confidence, and silvery, streamlined shapes. In no more than a handful of heartbeats, the salvo of shapes had gone.

  ‘Dinner is served,’ Daretor whispered to himself, relaxing a little. Then he noted that Jelindel continued to crouch unmoving, peering into the night. She pointed abruptly. A small shape darted by. It looked somewhat like a seahorse and moved with that creature’s ungainly, hesitant motion. Then there were more of the things, and other forms besides. Some drifted back and forth as if the wind blew them.

  ‘Enough,’ said Jelindel. ‘I’ve seen enough. We must get back to town and see what we can do there.’

  At that moment something shot at them from a nearby dark fissure. Only the fact that Daretor was looking in that direction and had his sword still raised and ready saved them. As the blurring movement registered on him he lunged forward, unable to aim, only to react. But his instincts were true and as the creature sped towards him it impaled itself on his sword. For one ghastly moment they both saw the nature of the beast, then it wrenched itself away and shot back into the fissure, trailing blood and what looked like a stream of bubbles.

  ‘What manner of abomination was –’ Daretor began.

  ‘More will come,’ said Jelindel. ‘I can feel them. Hurry, we have little time.’ She tugged Daretor to the edge of the shelf they stood on. Below them was a drop of a thousand feet.

  ‘I hate doing this,’ he said.

  ‘Trust me.’

  ‘Like I would no other.’

  Jelindel stepped off the edge, dragging Daretor with her. As they fell something whooshed through the space they had just occupied. Daretor twisted round and saw a tiny flickering of blue light on Jelindel’s lips. She was speaking a spell to slow their fall, but knowing that they were not about to meet an abrupt and messy end at the base of the cliff did little to calm Daretor’s terror.

  ‘This would be a good time, Jelindel –’ Daretor shouted as the shadowy ground rushed up to meet them. Jelindel concluded the words of her ancient spell, and although for a heart-wrenching moment Daretor thought the magic had failed her, he realised their speed was diminishing. The ground no longer rushed towards them at the speed of a hurtling arrow. But something else did still move and with awesome speed at that.