Dragonlinks

by Paul Collins

  ‘Excuse me, sir. Where are you going?’ she called from behind a desk. He ignored her and kept walking. ‘Sir, you’re not meant to go out by yourself,’ she continued, but none of the words was intelligible to Fa’red.

  It was only when she ducked in front of him and spread her arms to block his way that he stopped.

  ‘Sir, you’re not meant to leave your hospital ward alone; the police have –’

  Fa’red spoke a minor binding word that ensnared her legs and she screamed, struggled and overbalanced, hysterically tearing and pulling at the blue coils. As the mage had suspected, those who came running paid all their attention to the woman’s plight and ignored him. He walked on to the crane room’s door and pressed a stylised arrowhead that pointed downwards. It began to glow. Fa’red waited.

  ‘He did it! He’s at the lift!’ the fallen woman shouted now, and Fa’red noticed everyone turn towards him. Two young men in green garments started for him. They were unarmed, but they had the calm confidence of Siluvian kick-fist masters.

  Two more words dropped both of them, their legs bound at the knees. Now everyone knew that it was Fa’red who was projecting the glowing blue coils. Those who were still standing shrank back. A jangling, ear-splitting sound began, just as the doors opened to the crane room.

  Fa’red walked in and pressed the lowest of the studs on the panel beside the doors. It began to glow and the doors slid closed. There was a brief feeling of downward motion, and presently the doors opened again onto a vast hallway of dormant dragons. Hesitantly he walked out among them, but none of them stirred. The place had the feel of being underground, and that was the worst pos -sible place to use a word into another paraworld.

  Large chunky arrows were painted on the ground, and Fa’red followed these up a ramp and into another hallway full of dragons. Once a dragon approached him from a distant ramp, but the quick-thinking Fa’red stepped hastily onto one of the striped refuge domains. Just as he thought, the dragon was forced to ignore him and it continued on past with its human familiar sitting calmly within a protective shell on its back. Far above him the energies of his word-coils dissolved away from the legs of those whom Fa’red had snared. They plunged through the floors of the palace and returned to Fa’red’s lips.

  At last Fa’red emerged into open air and bright sunlight. Men that Fa’red took to be royal guards were alert as he walked out into the palace gardens filled with alien flowers and incomprehensible sculptures. Six guards came running to surround him. All were holding small, dark, angular things in an attitude that meant they could only be weapons.

  ‘Just stay right where you are, sir,’ called one. ‘Hold your arms out away from your body and stand still.’

  Fa’red had called the name to this paraworld by accident, as he thought he was mumbling that of a desert paraworld where practically nothing lived. He could never return here without remembering exactly what he had said, but that did not matter. He spoke a word and the space in front of him became scored with black, interlocking bars of nothing that firmed into a disk of blackness at the centre.

  ‘Shit! Look at that!’ one of the royal guards shouted in amazement, but Fa’red was already stepping through. Again he fell but this time it was upward.

  All at once he was in total darkness, and once again completely naked. Huge wings flapped in the distance. He spoke another word and stepped through to a field just beyond the city walls of D’loom. It was near sunrise, judging from the position of the glow on the eastern horizon. He began stalking towards a nearby peasant’s cottage, huge, scarred and quite naked.

  That evening Fa’red rested at the house of the caravan captain Bradant Gilvier, not far from where his own house had stood until just a week earlier. His ordeal had left him greatly weakened, in spite of the healing arts of the strange and unchronicled paraworld.

  ‘They plied me with pethidine, channel selector, press release and other cold sciences too numerous to mention,’ Fa’red explained from a pile of cushions while the tall, fit Gilvier lay sprawled on a nearby sling bench.

  ‘Some of their arts may be of great worth to us,’ Gilvier speculated.

  ‘Gah, I doubt it. They are so powerful that if ever they discovered this world’s gate-word we would be swamped by their cold science mechanisms. My aura’s sweep told me that they used more iron in a single palace than we do in the whole of Skelt.’

  ‘Did they hear you speak the word to return here?’ Gilvier asked, now apprehensive.

  ‘No, I used the hellworld as a waystop first. We are safe.’

  Gilvier stood up and went to a window. For a moment he stood gazing out at the remains of one of the towers of Fa’red’s house while the pleasantly cool evening breeze wafted past him. A bell was tolling in the distance, calling the members of some sect to prayers.

  ‘You are welcome to my hospitality until your own house can be rebuilt, old friend,’ he said as he turned back to Fa’red, ‘but why are you really here?’

  ‘A certain Preceptor has betrayed an … arrangement with me,’ Fa’red replied.

  ‘In all of the world I know of only one with the title Preceptor,’ said Gilvier.

  ‘And it is the same man. I secured various services from him, and in return was able to carry off a certain mailshirt.’

  Gilvier’s relaxed manner immediately hardened, but he said nothing.

  ‘As a token of good faith I left one of my two dragon -links in his care. Just a day before the attack on my house, a middling Adept named Jabez Thull arrived with what must surely have been that very same link. He had a warrior companion named Daretor, according to the register at the Boar and Bottle. The customs post on Icebreath Road notes his papers containing a crossing into Baltoria some weeks earlier, and a provisional release by order of the Preceptor from a dungeon at Tol. The release was into the care of Jabez Thull.’

  ‘It … is a connection with the Preceptor, albeit a thinly stretched one,’ Gilvier speculated.

  ‘Oh, I can strengthen it for you. I spent a lot of today sending my surviving clerks and runners on errands of enquiry. The innkeeper at the Boar and Bottle said that the youth working for Thull had a victor’s sash from Tol’s annual fighting marathon, so he would have to be a champion of rare ability. He was a champion fit to match myself at weaponcraft while his Adept master distracted me with enchantment attacks. Such a mercenary was ideal for the Preceptor’s plans.’

  Gilvier walked across the room to a tapestry map of the continent and stared up at it.

  ‘Why would they take the Icebreath Road? The South Coast Road would be far easier.’

  ‘Zarlea, the King’s favourite courtesan, was ordered on a pilgrimage to Passendof some months ago. It was via the caravan road through the Garrical and Algon Mountains.’

  ‘An uncomfortable and difficult route for a pampered court kitten. I have travelled it a dozen times or more, but then I am Bradant Gilvier. I have ridden guard over some pilgrim caravans along that road, though.’

  ‘Court gossip has it that Zarlea was gaining too much influence over our esteemed monarch. The Queen was said to have ordered the pilgrimage,’ Fa’red said.

  ‘Gah, the Queen thinks he is repulsive. She’s more than happy that he has other furrows to plough.’

  ‘I didn’t know that!’ exclaimed Fa’red, who had thought he was familiar with all such court gossip.

  ‘You’d be surprised what noble ladies and gentlemen will tell a caravan master during a long and boring trip. Did you know that the mighty Preceptor himself is rumoured to have given the Princess Royal practical lessons in natural philosophy?’

  This was more than enough for Fa’red to digest. He sat glowering and silent while Gilvier touched a taper to the pilot candle and went around the room lighting a selection of terracotta lamps against the gathering darkness. Finally he took down a sword from its rack and traced a path along the tapestry map on the wall.

  The tip of the blade travelled from the port-capital, Altimak, through the Ba
rrier Ranges and the Garrical Mountains, crossed the Baltorian border, skirted the wasteland of Dragonfrost through the Algon Mountains, and stopped at the turnoff for Chasmgyle Gorge, its bridge and its town.

  ‘From here you can either tu rn north for the Chasmgyle Road and go on to Passendof or turn west to skirt Dragonfrost, cross the Marisa River’s estuary then take the South Coast Road to D’loom. At a good pace I could be ambushed at the turnoff, and arrive in D’loom about eight or nine days after someone crossing Dragonfrost directly.’

  ‘I don’t follow,’ Fa’red conceded.

  ‘A pilgrimage is limited to an entourage of six, by holy scripture. The idea is that one must place faith in White Quell to look after one’s safety and not have excessive guards. Here we have a powerful Adept in Thull, his champion warrior Daretor, the King’s favourite, and perhaps even the Preceptor himself. Now were I a betting man, I might wager that the Preceptor will soon arrive via the South Coast Road from the Marisa estuary.’

  Fa’red had begun to catch the thread of his host’s reasoning by now.

  ‘You’re saying that the Preceptor will claim that he was escorting Zarlea on her pilgrimage as a special favour to the King. Two of his guards turned traitor: they stole the dragonlink and fled down the Icebreath Road. Naturally he could not desert Zarlea to pursue them, so he escorted her to the Chasmgyle Gorge and left her safe at the governor’s border fortress. Then he made for D’loom with all possible speed.’

  Gilvier clapped, a sardonic smile on his face.

  ‘Your lesson in subterfuge is complete, Fa’red. My bill will arrive by messenger.’

  Fa’red shifted uncomfortably, still in pain from his burns. The look on his face was one of restrained anger.

  ‘Will you help me to the ruins of my house?’ he asked as he slowly and stiffly got to his feet. ‘Alone?’

  ‘It is dark outside now, Fa’red. Your clerks have diligently salvaged all there is to find.’

  ‘Not quite, my astute caravan master, not quite.’

  Fa’red took some time to orient himself in the burned-out husk of his house. Two of his loyal guards were patrolling the grounds as he arrived and he ordered them to go to the street until he needed them. Moving slowly and painfully he clambered through the rubble and examined the remains of the walls by torchlight until he was satisfied that he was where his bedchamber had once been. Gilvier followed behind him with another torch.

  ‘Normally a gate to a paraworld takes all the life-force of a senior Adept to hold open, even for a few moments. I am Adept 12, so I can keep a little in reserve.’

  ‘Fa’red, I would rather cross Dragonfrost on my hands and knees than go in there.’

  ‘Neither of us will have to.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Stand behind me. Don’t run, whatever happens, and hold both tallow torches ready.’

  Fa’red spoke a word. A matrix of dark bars formed, and at the middle was a disk of greyish light. This soon sharpened into a landscape that had a reptilian sheen about it, and seemed to Gilvier to be subtly pulsating. Fa’red reached for a torch, then held it up to the opening. He peered through at what appeared to be scraps of cloth and leather. His other hand reached back for the second torch, which Gilvier also handed to him.

  ‘What are you –’

  ‘Hush!’ Fa’red hissed. ‘Ah, there, I think I can see what may be the pouch. I must seize it on the first try, else it will be days before I have the strength to do this again.’

  ‘Why not just dash in and –’

  There was an ear-piercing screech and a flood of light that blinded Gilvier. A dragon the size of a wagon jumped out through the disk of the opening. Gilvier dived out of the way and Fa’red lost his footing and rolled away, groaning at the pain from his burns. A braying sound of triumph roared continuously.

  Gilvier was later to swear he saw beings flee the dragon’s belly.

  ‘Here, engage it,’ Fa’red cried, tossing a torch to Gilvier.

  ‘Engage that? Are you mad? An army couldn’t engage it and hope to survive!’

  ‘Do it! Stay out of reach and chop at it. Keep it interested!’

  ‘It’s already interested, you magical dummart!’ Gilvier shouted back, but nevertheless he drew his sword and jabbed at the pads of one of the dragon’s feet.

  A quick succession of metallic explosions erupted. Gilvier’s sword bounced from the dragon’s breast. He had more luck with shattering one of its blazing eyes, which died when he hammered it with the pommel of his sword.

  Shattering glass exploded and from the paraworld Gilvier fancied he heard an army of demons howling their war cries. ‘We are lost, Fa’red. Close this hell hole now!’

  Fa’red moved up beside the opening, crouched ready, then he pressed his tallow torch against the brilliant red flank of the dragon. Fa’red flung his torch into the shimmering halo surrounding the dragon.

  The torch landed beside a leather pouch. Fa’red squared himself and spoke a minor snare word. A thin thread of blue glow lashed out and wrapped around the pouch just as flashing red and white lights blazed through the opening. The snare word snapped back with the pouch.

  Fa’red collapsed the gateway and the titanic dragon fell to the ground, severed neatly where the gateway had collapsed. Gilvier was beneath it.

  It took Fa’red’s guards and several neighbours to drag the wreckage off the caravan master. Had he not been lying in a hollow in the charred rubble he would have been crushed.

  ‘Dangerous things, those paraworld gateways,’ Gilvier panted as he stood back and regarded the mangled dragon that had so recently tried to devour him. A black fluid oozed from its innards. ‘A man could easily get himself killed.’

  ‘My thanks for your help,’ said Fa’red, clutching the pouch tightly.

  Gilvier tentatively dabbed a bit of the black blood on his finger tip and sniffed. He hastily wiped it off onto a piece of charred wood. ‘So that was one of the lords of the closest paraworld?’

  ‘There are entire columns of them, seeking ingress into other paraworlds,’ Fa’red said. ‘I have witnessed them with my very eyes.’

  Gilvier whistled in awe. He touched the scroll work just above the dragon’s front leg. The legend, Leyland 4 Wheel Drive, meant nothing to him.

  They made their way back to the street and started out for Gilvier’s house. Fa’red opened the pouch as they walked and took out a little casket. From within this he took a dragonlink.

  ‘The Preceptor never knew that I had two of these,’ he said gloatingly as he walked.

  ‘Aye, well, what I want in payment is the dragon’s corpse – to be hung just inside the entrance hall of my house,’ Gilvier said as he brushed at the charcoal on his clothing.

  At about noon the next day three riders arrived from the north, all cowled and their mounts at a canter. They stopped at the ruins of Fa’red’s house, where a dozen draymen were hauling an obscure object onto a log cart. The guards directed them on to where Fa’red was staying with Gilvier.

  Fa’red was leaning out of an upstairs window as they arrived. He was still swathed in bandages.

  ‘Lost something, Preceptor?’ he asked, dangling his second dragonlink on a gold chain for the Preceptor to see.

  The travel-weary Preceptor entered, flanked by a pair of plainly dressed men that Fa’red knew to be lindraks. After being met by Gilvier with all the usual greetings of welcome, the Preceptor lay down on a pile of large cushions and accepted a goblet of cellar-cool white wine.

  The Preceptor explained that he had been ambushed by Daretor and Thull at the Icebreath Road fork. Fa’red listened sympathetically, standing beside the window and spinning the link on its chain. From time to time he arched what remained of his once-bushy eyebrows.

  ‘I had to be in Zarlea’s escort. The King commanded it!’ the Preceptor insisted.

  ‘We really must do something about that King,’ replied Fa’red. ‘This dragonlink led them to my mailshirt.’

  ‘They m
ade a formidable team,’ said the Preceptor.

  ‘Oh I know. I lost the mailshirt, my house, my hair and quite a lot of skin. Fortunately I managed to regain this single link in the fight and they were forced to flee without it. At least I have a means of tracking them down.’

  ‘That link is mine,’ the Preceptor warned, his pale cheeks flushing red.

  ‘You lost it, Preceptor, I recovered it. It is mine.’

  The Preceptor sat up straight on his cushions and gestured his two escorts forward.

  ‘There is not another deathmoon night due for some months, Fa’red, but my friends here are more than willing to discharge their deathmoon obligation in advance.’

  ‘Just as I am willing to speak your truename as I die. Would you like that, Preceptor?’

  One of the lindraks twittered a question to the Preceptor, but he shook his head and motioned them back. Gilvier, who had been standing just behind Fa’red, felt sweat trickle down his ribcage. He relaxed a trifle.

  ‘What now?’ asked the Preceptor.

  ‘Now you will go to the governor’s palace,’ rumbled Fa’red. ‘On the night that my house burned, a smithy was torched as well. An auditor’s constable searching the ruins found two corpses, one of which was … not like us. Its decapitated head had strange, sharp teeth. There was also a gold medallion nearby that escaped the flames.’

  The Preceptor pressed his lips tightly together. He stared at the weavework of the carpet.

  ‘Being a man of refined tastes, he made a reedbond paper rubbing of the trinket before handing it over to the auditor. I have a copy here. Would you like me to read it to you?’

  The Preceptor shook his head. ‘I apologise. Only a king and a queen have ever had an apology from me before. Are you satisfied?’

  ‘No. I want you to go to the governor’s palace, fetch back that medallion and present it to me, formally, in front of the presiding magistrate.’

  The Preceptor swallowed. ‘Agreed.’

  ‘Then I want rewards posted for the three youths that fled D’loom eight days ago with the mailshirt.’