Dragonlinks

by Paul Collins

  Injured pride silenced Daretor for a moment. He gestured to the mage’s body. ‘You must search him.’

  ‘Search him? Not for all the known gods,’ Jelindel protested, staring at the headless body covered in green blood.

  By now Zimak was slowly climbing down the ramp to the loft. ‘I’ll do it,’ he volunteered.

  ‘And this one?’ Daretor enquired.

  ‘Zimak,’ said Jelindel. ‘It’s all you need to know.’ Zimak staggered over to the mage’s body, forcing movement into his numb limbs.

  Jelindel picked up the sword and stood ready as Zimak rummaged.

  ‘I’m good at this; robbed a few corpses in my time,’ Zimak explained. He soon held up a gold medallion and two purses.

  Jelindel took the medallion and angled it to read its inscription. ‘It’s a rare crest. The script is highly stylised.’

  She read the scroll lettering with difficulty. ‘Mage … highest, or perhaps most supreme … to the … most learned Preceptor …’

  ‘You can read?’ Daretor said suspiciously. ‘A blacksmith’s apprentice?’

  ‘He’s actually a runaway monk,’ Zimak explained. ‘He’s my personal tutor in language arts.’

  Daretor waved the explanation away. ‘The Preceptor,’ he panted. ‘All this time Thull was working for him. The Preceptor must want the mailshirt beyond cost and life, yet it has no power. I don’t understand.’

  Jelindel handed the medallion to Daretor and picked up the mailshirt. As he stared blankly at the script, she examined the mailshirt closely.

  ‘There are seven rows of double-linking on the left shoulder, but only six and a half rows of double-links on the right,’ she pointed out. ‘Links are missing from the mailshirt. Perhaps it has to be complete before it can work.’

  ‘Quite likely,’ whispered Daretor, letting the medallion fall to the floor. ‘Thull said the mailshirt confers weapons skills on the wearer, but … I felt nothing, not even my own skills with a sword. Aye, perhaps it has to be whole before it can do that.’

  Jelindel put the mailshirt down again and sat thinking as Zimak counted the coins in Thull’s two purses.

  ‘Eleven gold oriels in one and fifty silver argents in the other,’ Zimak reported. ‘We’ll split the money. What do you say? He owes us that much for the pain of this day past.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Jelindel as if in a trance. ‘Besides, I have to flee from D’loom this very night.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  ‘Certain … religious authorities wish to find me.’

  ‘Ah ha, so you don’t want to become Brother Jaelin again.’

  ‘You have it, more or less.’

  ‘I … have to go, too,’ whispered Daretor.

  ‘You’re not fit to travel,’ Jelindel said at once. ‘You’ve got a wound that would have killed most people.’

  ‘Damn that! Thull murdered Fa’red tonight when he torched his house. I was with him and I’ll be held accountable if the constables chance upon me. If you want to leave here, leave with me. Saddle a horse from the back of the shop. Take me to the stables at the Boar and Bottle.’

  ‘Riding’s going to rip your wound right open,’ Zimak ventured, feeling oddly left out.

  ‘Where are you bound?’ asked Jelindel.

  ‘For the other dragonlinks. I must track them down, then rid the world of such abominable devices that rob years of skill and training from honourable warriors such as myself.’

  Jelindel picked up the two purses. ‘We should divide these between us now.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve already taken a few argents as my share,’ said Zimak. ‘You two take the purses.’

  Jelindel frowned, then shook both purses. ‘They both jingle like argents,’ she declared. ‘Gold has a different ring.’

  Zimak’s confident smile collapsed.

  ‘I – I, ah, thought we would be staying in the city, so I, ah, decided to guard the gold, that is, being the most able-bodied of the three of us – under the circumstances.’

  Jelindel’s eyes widened with anger. ‘Give them back, Zimak. All of them.’

  Zimak returned the gold oriels to Jelindel, who snatched them from his hand and turned back to the warrior. He was staring at her, his eyes proud but pleading.

  ‘So do you really want to leave D’loom tonight?’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ she said firmly, the scene in the temple library’s reading room flashing before her eyes for a moment.

  ‘Good. We must cover our trail, else we’ll be tracked and run to ground. Do as I bid you.’

  Daretor got to his feet with difficulty, but he was strong and determined, and was able to manage a shuffling walk in spite of the agony from his wound and the pints of blood that he had lost.

  Zimak saddled a horse while Jelindel helped Daretor pack a pair of saddlebags with things from the shop. When the horse was ready, Daretor scraped a few live coals out of the hearth and flicked them into the straw where they began to smoulder. Almost as an afterthought he stuffed the mailshirt into a coal sack and asked Jelindel to secure it to the saddle.

  It took both Jelindel and Zimak’s combined strength to get Daretor up into the saddle. Having done that, Zimak led the horse down the narrow street towards the Boar and Bottle while Jelindel set the blacksmith’s other horses free.

  The smithy was well alight in the distance as they reached the tavern. Shouts and clanging bells roused the citizens of the port to fight the second fire of the night.

  ‘Slowly now,’ Daretor directed from the horse. ‘We shouldn’t appear to be in a hurry.’ Louder, he called, ‘Where’s my friend Thull?’ Daretor had learned Thull’s lesson on leaving false trails.

  ‘Pox take your friend,’ the huge landlord bellowed back as he handed out frame pails to the men and women gathered there. ‘To the beach now, all of ye! Form a pail chain to the fire!’

  Daretor waited outside on the stolen horse as Zimak and Jelindel ran up to his room and threw the gear there together. They descended the stairs, saddlebags and bedrolls in their arms.

  Ellien appeared from the kitchen. She had been left to guard the tavern against looters while all others were at the fire.

  ‘Ellien, what are the accounts of those two strangers Thull and Daretor?’ Jelindel demanded urgently, loading Daretor’s saddlebags and bedroll onto Zimak and pushing him towards the door.

  ‘Accounts? I don’t know. The landlord can work them out from his register, but I can’t read … I only serve in the taproom –’

  ‘Here!’

  Jelindel spilled a handful of argents onto the nearest table.

  ‘Jaelin! That’s ten times what they could possibly owe!’

  ‘Then the rest is for your dowry,’ said Jelindel, taking the girl by both shoulders and looking into her eyes. ‘Ellien, I am about to leave D’loom and I shall never, never see you again. Please, find a brave, gentle boy and marry him, but never think of me again.’

  ‘What? Have I offended you by what I did in the taproom? Am I too coarse of manner to –’

  ‘No! You are lovely, far too lovely for – for what I am. There are brave and gentle youths in the world, Ellien. You don’t have to marry an oaf. Now goodbye, goodbye forever.’

  Jelindel threw her arms around the girl and hugged her tightly for a moment. Ellien was kissing Jelindel on the cheek when Zimak put his head through the open door.

  ‘Jaelin, will you tell me what the fradork is happen– you filthy swine, Brother Jaelin, and after all that talk about chastity and self-control, too.’

  ‘Shut up, Zimak! Go to the nearest stables and saddle two horses. Daretor won’t get far without us.’

  ‘Us? What do you mean, us? I’m staying in D’loom. I’ve got a job, I’ve got a licence with the Guild of Alley Gangs, I’ve got friends and family, I’ve got a bank account –’

  ‘Move, damn you!’ Jelindel shouted, snatching up a tankard and flinging it at the doorway. ‘You carried messages for both Thull and Fa’red today and they’re both dead. Do
you think that Fa’red’s servants will not mention your name to the constables?’

  Zimak moved.

  ‘What did he mean, ‘Brother Jaelin’?’ asked Ellien, ‘and what is all that blood and green muck on your tunic?’

  ‘It’s nothing but spilled paint.’

  ‘You’re limping,’ Ellien fussed to cover her alarm. ‘Have you been in a fight? Are you hurt?’

  Jelindel fished out her hessian bag of personal things from where she had left it behind the counter earlier that night.

  ‘Off the register, Ellien, I’ve been in a fight. I’m hurt, I’ve just killed something evil, and people are after me. Now please, just say that Daretor paid his account and left.’

  ‘Well, yes, but –’

  ‘Goodbye, Ellien, I must go now.’

  Jelindel limped out into the darkness and Ellien heard scuffling and cursing from the direction of the stables. Moments later three horses clopped by in the darkness outside.

  ‘Don’t just limp along with the fradork horse, Jaelin,’ Zimak’s voice called out in the darkness. ‘Get into the saddle and ride.’

  ‘I don’t know how to ride, damn you!’ Jelindel shouted back angrily, then the hoofbeats faded in the distance.

  Ellien stared through the open door into the blackness beyond until she could hear nothing other than the shouts of the distant firefighters, then sank to a bench.

  ‘Goodbye, Jaelin. I’ll never forget you,’ she said as her eyes overflowed with tears.

  Jelindel, Zimak and Daretor rode to the beach, turned, then kept riding and only stopped whenever Jelindel fell out of the saddle. The incoming tide washed the hoof-prints away as they passed, and by the time they stopped to spell the horses and tend Daretor’s wound, the port was no more than a vague glow on the horizon.

  ‘I must be mad,’ said Zimak. ‘I had a good life in D’loom.’

  ‘As a successful market rat,’ said Jelindel.

  ‘Now I’m an outlaw, a fugitive. Another week and I’d have had Zeldenia Kremtil around behind her mother’s drapery stall. She hugged me and kissed me yesterday, she rubbed her thigh against my –’

  ‘She’s got the pox, one of the charm-healers told me.’

  ‘You’re joking!’ gasped Zimak.

  ‘I’ve no sense of humour. You’re always telling me that.’

  ‘Er, can one get the pox by kissing?’

  ‘Only if your gums bleed. Daretor, can you go any further, or should we stop here awhile?’

  ‘Too exposed here,’ he gasped through a haze of pain. ‘Camp in those hills ahead. How’s your riding, Jaelin?’

  ‘I’m staying on, more or less. How did you learn to ride, Zimak?’

  ‘My father let me ride the carthorses around the docks ever since I could walk. It kept me safe and in view. Where are we bound for, anyway?’

  ‘For the next dragonlink,’ replied Daretor, ‘but just for now we have to get clear of Skelt. We can pass through the Algon Mountains and into Baltoria. It will be safer there.’

  ‘I haven’t got border papers,’ muttered Zimak.

  ‘I’ll forge you a set,’ countered Jelindel.

  Chapter

  9

  What saved Fa’red was the fact that Thull had started the fire in the room where he lay unconscious. As he lay sprawled where he had fallen, blood pouring from his head and breathing smoke, the flames spread up the drapery and melted the lead supporting brackets. A mass of blazing cloth suddenly broke free from the wall and fell across his body. The sharp shock of pain sliced through his stupor and jolted him awake.

  He sat up and tried to cry out with pain but instead coughed and spluttered on the smoke. Flames were all around him, and his nightshirt was on fire, as was his hair. Somewhere, very far away it seemed, the thief-bell was ringing again and people were shouting about a fire. Fighting desperately to control his breath, he spoke a single word.

  A wavering patch of blackness opened up before him, barely wide enough to admit his bulk. He half-crawled, half-tumbled through. The patch vanished behind him. He sat slapping at his body, smothering the flames. The smell of his own burnt skin and hair was in his nostrils.

  The paraworld where Fa’red had emerged was completely dark, and the ground seemed slightly unsteady, even alive underfoot. It was the closest paraworld to his own, yet the most hazardous known to all levels of Adepts. He wanted to groan with the pain of his injuries, but to do so would mean death. Somewhere nearby there was a whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, as if huge wings were lifting something gigantic and ponderous into the air. If he held still and silent – but no, the scent of his own burnt flesh would attract the huge winged predator!

  Fa’red spoke another word and lunged for a sparkle of lights that he guessed was another breach in the fabric between paraworlds. Claws raked across his back, catching his nightshirt firmly. He was lost –

  The air rippled in dark bars that resolved into an oval of darkness, and Fa’red plunged through it and fell headlong before passing out.

  He awoke. He was aware of lying naked on a hard, cold surface with sleek, gleaming dragons howling past and belching acrid breath. Huge, brilliant lanterns blazed all about in the night.

  Fa’red lay still. It seemed only a matter of time before one of the beasts noticed him. Minutes passed and he remained untouched. He was lying on a slightly raised area covered in white stripes, and there was a stark, geometrically perfect sign lit from within that declared something in characters that were totally alien to him. Obviously this was a refuge domain, protected from the dragons by enchantments that he could not even begin to guess at. They were huge, these beasts that whipped the air all around him as they passed.

  Inevitably, one of the dragons slowed and stopped. It regarded Fa’red with blazing, brilliant eyes. He said a rare prayer that the refuge domain would hold it back.

  ‘North control, we’ve got a suspected drive-by shooting on the median at Bell near the freeway feeder.’

  The words were unintelligible to Fa’red. He watched two human-shaped beings in tight, angular robes emerge as their dragon opened its wings sideways.

  ‘He’s moving.’

  ‘Hey buddy, can you talk?’

  ‘Naked, he’s buffo – look at his skin!’

  ‘North Control, we need an ambulance to Bell, east freeway feeder median. The victim has severe burns, and is bleeding from the head. He’s conscious.’

  ‘Confirm burns and head injuries. A unit will be there in three minutes, code three. Is it a traffic accident or felony?’

  ‘Suspected felony. The victim appears to be a Caucasian male, about 250 pounds, and aged around his mid-fifties. He’s naked, and there’s no sign of debris from an accident.’

  ‘Hey there, can you talk?’

  Fa’red recognised concern in the man’s voice, but did not know what to do. The slightest movement was agony, and he was shivering in the cold air. He nodded. ‘All hail, master Adept,’ he croaked.

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘Sounded Spanish.’

  ‘North Control, have a Spanish translator standing by at casualty. The victim does not appear to speak English.’

  People were gathering at what appeared to be another refuge domain. More dragons with blue and red flashing eyes were gathering, and their Adepts established a wider refuge domain.

  ‘Did anyone see what happened?’

  ‘I seen, ah, I seen cars slowing an’ guys pointing, man.’

  ‘Did you see what happened? Was he dumped from a car?’

  ‘Hey, I seen a truck stoppin’, then drive on. I got his number right here.’

  ‘Check suspect North Control, that could be who dumped him.’

  ‘Negative, negative. The driver with that number called in on his mobile to report the body. He says he’s parked just over the feeder if you need him but he saw nothing.’

  Another, larger dragon arrived, screaming its challenge in a strident, deafening yowl.

  ‘Hang in there, buddy, you�
�re going to be okay now.’

  Other men in tight blue robes gathered around him, asking him questions that he could not comprehend and pressing arcane devices and amulets against his skin. A warm, pleasant haze washed over Fa’red, although he lingered in consciousness. His own rings, amulets and even nightshirt were gone. This was obviously one of those domains where only live flesh could pass through the gates. Fa’red felt himself being lifted, yet the pain of his wounds and burns had faded to a vague discomfort. Finally he gave up the fight against a rising tide of warm, comforting blackness and lapsed into sleep.

  When he awoke Fa’red was lying in a high, metal bed and swathed in bandages. Women in drab blue robes brought him strongly aromatic soups and food, and a series of others asked him questions that he could not comprehend. ‘Name?’ and ‘Private insurance?’ featured often in their interrogations. Against one wall, an enchanted box provided a view into various other paraworlds. Fa’red lay watching worlds so alien that he could do nothing but goggle in amazement.

  Days passed, and Fa’red was presently able to walk again. The people of the paraworld looked after him well, and seemed unaware that he was a very senior Adept. This was obviously a paraworld dominated by the cold sciences.

  The Adept knew enough of healing charms to know that his burns were already healing amazingly fast. From all his experience of battlefield injuries he knew that he should have died from his burns, but here he was, alive and regaining his strength.

  On the seventh day Fa’red stood gazing out of the huge window of clear glass that took up most of one wall. He was in a type of palace, high off the ground. He surmised that he was being held and cared for by some monarch. Fascinating though this world might be, Fa’red knew that he would never be any more than a cipher amid the plethora of cold science experts who held sway here.

  He had been watching how some of the devices worked, in particular a small room that moved between floors as if at the end of a hidden pulley crane. If he spoke a word to escape this paraworld, he would need to be on the ground or he would risk a long and deadly fall once through the gate.

  Fa’red walked out of his room and down the long corridor outside. He covered quite a lot of the distance to the moving room before one of the women challenged him.