Dragonlinks

by Paul Collins

  Brother Clevarian screamed with pain and outrage, but Jelindel was already stumbling away into the mist. She crashed right into a tangle of blackberry bushes. Only the mailshirt saved her from severe injury.

  ‘After him; he stole a holy relic!’ shouted Brother Clevarian.

  Blackberry thorns tore at Jelindel as she struggled to free herself, and the dragonlink was slippery with Brother Clevarian’s blood. As she fumbled to drop it into her pouch it slipped from her fingers and landed among the thorny fronds where it lay glowing brightly.

  Militiamen and dogs finally approached, and Jelindel slashed her hands and arms on the thorns trying to reach the fallen dragonlink.

  Suddenly the daemon strode out of the mist and among the militiamen. It bellowed loudly and they scattered in alarm.

  Mesmerised, Jelindel saw the outline of it by the light of the burning torches. It lifted someone bodily from the ground with one hand and slashed down with the claws of its free hand, again and again and again. Brother Clevarian! He shrieked for help, then screamed in pain – a scream that ended in a sickening, retching sound.

  The militiamen tried to rally, but now the monster was suddenly faster and far better coordinated. The short engagement was completely one-sided and the demoralised militiamen fell back. Jelindel knew that without Brother Clevarian, they would not last long.

  She turned back to the blackberry bushes, striving to reach the dragonlink amid grasping thorns and clammy wet leaves.

  Heavy, thudding footsteps approached from behind her, footsteps ominously far apart. She turned to see the daemon towering above her.

  Jelindel fumbled for her pouch and slipped the other dragonlink onto her finger. Casting the animal control powers of the link across the fields, she realised that the bull had a broken leg and the nearest dog was hundreds of yards away. She drew the dog racing towards them, but she knew she would be dead by the time it arrived.

  Jelindel shrank back against the brambles, petrified with fear. She was too weak to speak another word at the daemon, there was nothing she could do but wait for the end.

  ‘Allow me,’ said a deep, hissing, silky voice.

  The daemon bent over and reached past Jelindel with its long arms that reeked of fresh human blood. The light of the fallen link was blotted out as a clawed hand closed around it and drew it out from amid the grasping thorns.

  In an oddly dispassionate way, Jelindel considered running, yet something in the daemon’s manner had drained the fear out of her. She released control of the dog that was still racing to her rescue.

  Huge fingers opened before her face and the light of the second link blazed out into the mist again.

  ‘Treasure worth thy life, yes?’ enquired the soft, hissing voice. ‘I am T’rr’ll. Know thy name be Jaelin. Here. Take it.’

  Jelindel’s jaw worked in vain. She reached out a trembling hand and took the link from the enormous palm in front of her.

  ‘My race avenged,’ the daemon declared. ‘Without thee, we would still be his slave. Thank thee with all my hearts.’

  The daemon went down on one knee amid the blackberry bushes and bowed its head to Jelindel. It was still more than double her height.

  ‘Uh, how many hearts do you have?’ she asked, unable to think of anything else to say.

  ‘Three,’ it replied, then slowly stood up.

  Together they walked back to where the bodies of Brother Clevarian and two militiamen lay. The daemon picked up a burning torch and held it to the dead monk’s ear. Along the bloody rent were rough stitch marks where he had sewn the link into his ear years earlier.

  ‘Thee tore link from his ear, thus freed my people from his control. Avenged is myself. Returned, hope to be.’

  ‘How did you know, ah, about me?’ asked Jelindel.

  ‘Shared his perceptions by act of control.’

  So the daemon had seen and heard everything from the monk’s perspective, Jelindel realised. It must have been a by-product of the dragonlink’s control gift. That would save a lot of explanations.

  ‘I’m, ah, relieved that you’re so understanding, T’rr’ll.’

  ‘I am from very civilised paraworld. This monster plucked dozens from my homeland, then sent them back dead and mutilated.’

  Jelindel looked into the slit-pupils of the huge, reptilian eyes that gleamed in the light of the torch that the daemon held.

  ‘You seemed so fearsome to us. We did not know that Brother Clevarian was making your kind attack our people,’ she explained.

  ‘So I have seen,’ the daemon growled. ‘But we are not evil,’ it added with a voice like an approaching thunderstorm. ‘We were ripped from our plane and controlled like puppets in thy fairgrounds.’

  ‘How do you know our speech?’

  ‘We are very advanced in arts of control and enquiry. We have studied thy world’s images in our crystals for a long time. Also we have heard sounds of thy world resonating from our crystals. In them we saw our people die when drawn here, but we were helpless.’

  ‘I grieve for your slain brothers and sisters and friends,’ said Jelindel with genuine remorse.

  ‘And I thank thee for freeing us. What will thee do with this sevenfold-cursed dragonlink?’

  ‘I’ll weave it into the fabric from which it came, and strive to put it where evil hands will not reach it.’

  ‘We have devices like to this, Mage Auditor. Should thee split it, all talents stored therein will be lost, and it will not soak in more talents until made to be joined again.’

  ‘Then – then the mailshirt from which it comes has no power?’

  ‘It has power, no doubting. It is just not same power as petty tricks of these dragonlinks. When made whole, ah, real power of these combined dragonlinks will be manifest, but I cannot say what that power might be. Now will thee free me to return to my paraworld?’

  ‘Well, ah, yes. Just tell me how.’

  ‘Both of us to go to blacksmith shop and split the link, if be pleased?’

  They returned to the town gates. There the daemon leaped to the guardhouse in a single bound, sending the guards screaming down the stairs for the second time that night. He raised the gate for Jelindel, then left it jammed open.

  The townsfolk were watching through the billows of mist as Jelindel and the daemon walked through the geometrically straight streets to the closest smithy’s. As fate would have it, it was the shop of Drusen.

  Nobody would open up when Jelindel knocked, but the daemon broke through both door and guard charm with a single blow that splintered boards and tore nails from beams.

  The blacksmith’s wife was crouched in a corner in front of their son, brandishing an axe.

  ‘Put that thing down and fetch a hammer and chisel,’ ordered Jelindel wearily as the daemon stood quietly behind her with its arms folded. ‘Well? The sooner you help, the sooner we’re gone.’

  The woman fetched the chisel and laid it on the anvil. Jelindel picked up the chisel and a hammer, but the daemon raised a dauntingly clawed hand.

  ‘Madame,’ he said to the blacksmith’s wife with a deep bow, ‘pleased to take little boy outside and wait. Danger in what we are to do. Mage Auditor Jaelin paid to face danger, but thee and thy boy are not.’

  ‘Oh, ah, aye,’ she stammered, then reached back and seized her son by the arm.

  The little boy waved timidly to the daemon as they edged past. The daemon bowed gravely and made a gesture with its claws that might have been a salute. The boy smiled back.

  ‘Make sure chisel is held with edge of thy hand touching dragonlink, pressing against anvil,’ the daemon told Jelindel once they were alone.

  ‘You said this is dangerous.’

  ‘I lied, to get others out. Now strike with single blow.’

  One blow severed the link, and Jelindel noticed that traceries of blue light enmeshed her hand. It felt as if a swarm of ants was on her skin. Suddenly the crackling blue tendrils dispersed.

  ‘There is a word that will rele
ase you from this plane,’ she said. ‘I know the word! How do I know this?’

  ‘Thee did split link while thy skin did touch it. This allowed gathered knowledge to disperse into thy body, rather than die as cold steel touched it.’

  ‘So it’s dead now?’

  ‘No. Link being used to harvest skills of fighting is like war chariot being used for carrying pigs to market. It does that well, but it is made for something much grander. I do not know what that grand thing might be. Link is still potent and link needs to be joined with mailshirt.’

  ‘I – I do not think I want the stolen fighting arts of others.’

  ‘Thee must take them,’ insisted the daemon. ‘Use skills to win back all other links for mailshirt.’

  ‘One of my good companions would beg to differ – violently.’

  The daemon waved its claws as if such an idea was too silly to contemplate.

  ‘Warning, though. Skills will not stay with thee unless thee practise them. Dragonlink keeps skills fresh always. Without it, skills fade if not practised.’

  ‘But that’s … like any ordinary skill.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  Jelindel split the other dragonlink. This time she did not allow her flesh to touch it, and the animal control skills died within the steel of the chisel.

  ‘I – I even have some skills with words of binding and swords from the monk’s dragonlink,’ she said, examining what was now in her own mind. ‘Will I retain all this as well?’

  ‘Only with practice, as with all skills. Now speak word that thee knows and I will be gone.’

  ‘Wait, one moment. I saw a mage split a link, but he did not gain the sword skills stored in it.’

  ‘I explain again, a link split by cold steel without skin touching it is a link that loses its skills to be smothered in cold steel.’

  ‘I see,’ Jelindel said, stalling. ‘Before you go, will you forge these two links into the mailshirt? I have no skills to do it.’

  ‘A small price for home. I will do this.’

  The daemon was a fast and competent blacksmith. When it had finished, the mailshirt ceased to glow for the first time in five weeks. Jelindel had been watching carefully. She shook the mailshirt back over her head as the daemon held it up for her.

  ‘Now I shall send you home, T’rr’ll, and with my thanks. This may not mean much to you and your kind, but you are a gentleman. Goodbye.’

  ‘Would mean a lot, Mage Auditor, were I not female. Maybe more than on thy own plane and paraworld. Thee be gentleman, too. Be well faring, and take these as gift.’

  From a fold in the tight-fitting fabric that clothed her, T’rr’ll took two blue teardrop shapes. Both were attached to fine chains.

  ‘Be transition gates. Our cold science mages developed them to help fight Clevarian, but now not needed.’

  ‘You mean I could visit your world?’

  ‘No, but thee could use them to visit … some world. Weight of thy body all wrong, less mine by fraction of four. Speak word ril’kss while holding gate. Go … somewhere. Once use only. If not use, wear around neck, look pretty.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Jelindel, reaching her hand out to the daemon and stroking one of her jewelled claws. T’rr’ll bowed again.

  ‘Good basking, Mage Auditor Jaelin.’

  ‘Goodbye, T’rr’ll.’

  Jelindel spoke an unfamiliar word that was somehow within her memory and the daemon winked out of existence with a sharp blast like a thunderclap and a rush of air.

  Moments later the blacksmith began knocking on the remains of his door.

  ‘Are you all right, Mage Auditor?’ he shouted frantically.

  ‘I’m safe and whole. You may have your shop back with my thanks.’

  Drusen entered alone, glancing fearfully around.

  ‘I’m sorry about the door,’ said Jelindel. ‘I can pay a few argents to –’

  ‘Damn that. I’m honoured that you chose my shop to do … what did you do?’

  ‘Assisted a four hundred tev lady in distress. There will be no more daemons, Drusen. I know that this will be hard to believe, but Brother Clevarian was conjuring them into our world and pretending to fight them.’

  ‘I know, I know. We were crouched nearby, listening to what you and the daemon were saying.’

  ‘What is concealed beneath your gloves, Drusen?’ asked Jelindel. ‘I thought that you wore an enchanted link because you never let your hands be seen. My warrior escorts were near to cutting your hands off to get hold of the link.’

  Drusen slowly removed a glove, to reveal the ugly brands of crossed yellow feathers on the back of his hand. One of his fingers bore a roughly sewn gash.

  ‘The mark of a coward,’ explained Drusen. ‘I was in a minor border skirmish years ago, but I turned and ran from the enemy when the fighting went against us. My people won in spite of some ill fortune, and when I was run to ground I was branded a coward on the back of both hands. When I came here I learned bravery. I learned to fight unselfishly against the daemons. My wife has suspicions about me, because at night my gloves do not come off until the bedlamp be out, and I am always first up and about in the morning.’

  ‘But after all these years has she not once asked?’

  ‘I am a loving and hardworking husband to her, with no vices. All that I ask in return is that my hands be not seen, and she is wise enough to grant me this one little secret.’

  Jelindel slowly reached out and shook his hand.

  ‘Put your glove back on,’ she sighed.

  Zimak and Daretor returned to the town to find Jelindel being carried shoulder high in a cheering procession. They were quickly gathered into the crowd and feted as well, and the entire town mounted a spontaneous revel for the heroes who had ended their years of terror and misery in less than a day.

  While Daretor and Zimak danced, ate and drank in the open-air feast in Proclamation Square, Jelindel borrowed a lyaral and joined in with the band. They can afford to relax but I cannot, she thought to herself grimly. She told the bandsmen that she liked to collect dance tunes in the towns and villages where the Temple sent her. In spite of all that was offered to her, she drank only rainwater and ate only honeycakes.

  By midnight Jelindel suddenly noticed that Zimak had collected a girl, who was fawning over him and sneering at several others who were also trailing after the blond hero. All of them were probably older than he was. Something akin to jealousy stung Jelindel, and she missed several notes as she played a bracket of mountain jigs. Jealousy over Zimak? The thought surprised her. He was a friend, but she certainly did not love him. Then what?

  Daretor pranced by, hand in hand with a dark-haired beauty who was the daughter of the warden. Another stab of – what? Not jealousy but resentment, she realised! They were free to do whatever they would, but Jelindel was trapped behind the bars of a male name and male clothing.

  ‘Not trapped, but protected,’ she whispered as she played, and the music smothered her words.

  As Jelindel she would be dead. As Jaelin she was alive and freer than Jelindel could ever have been. She was leaner, stronger, could ride, could fight, and took no nonsense from anyone. If she was not as strong as Daretor or Zimak, she was nevertheless immune to the charms of female vendors and serving wenches with a mind to cheat them. In that sense she was a man without a man’s weaknesses.

  The thought cheered her immensely, and now she gazed across at the dancing Zimak with the suave smile of a minor god. For all his skill with the footwork of fighting, she noted that he was a very clumsy dancer.

  They spent two weeks in the Valley of Clouds, and were offered everything from free food and lodging to proposals of marriage.

  When not translating embarrassing propositions for her companions, or avoiding girls who were even trailing after her, Jelindel studied for much of the time in the local temple’s library. She also went out to the more isolated fields and vales to secretly practise the skills of using words that she had absorbed from Brother Cl
evarian’s link. She planned to tell Daretor that they were more enchantments that she had managed to master by herself.

  When they left the valley it was by one of the difficult back roads, and they gave false destinations to those who enquired. Daretor never let them forget that they were being hunted.

  ‘Such wonderful girls in that valley, with such milky white skins,’ said Zimak, scratching his head as they rode. ‘Of all the girls I’ve met with, they were the most lovely.’

  ‘One of them told me you didn’t know where to put it until she showed you,’ said Jelindel coldly.

  ‘That’s not true!’ exclaimed Zimak. ‘I was just tired.’

  He scratched at his head again.

  ‘One of them also seems to have given you lice.’

  ‘What? Impossible. I’ve been washing my hair every week.’

  ‘That just gives you clean lice. I’ll boil up the roots of a plant that I know next time I see one beside the road. That will kill them.’

  Daretor smiled as he turned back. ‘You get along well with girls, Jaelin, yet you keep your vows of chastity. Why did you flee the monastery if you follow its rules so faithfully in the world outside?’

  ‘Matters of principle and scholarship,’ was the only reply that Jelindel was able to give.

  ‘Well, I’m glad of your learning but I cannot understand how you think. I love girls, especially fat, fierce girls whose fathers are vintners.’

  ‘You’re wasting your time,’ sneered Zimak, then turned to Jelindel. ‘He’s never laid a hand upon a naked girl. I doubt he’d know how to give a girl pleasure.’

  Some day, Zimak, I shall make you regret those words, thought Jelindel. For the moment she chose silence.

  Something about Zimak did not quite match up to his behaviour. There had been more than generous offers for him to stay in the Valley of Clouds. He was obviously quite enamoured of the girls who paid him their attentions there, yet there had been no hesitation in him when Daretor declared that it was time to move on to Passendof and find the next dragonlink. Why?

  Daretor wanted to collect the dragonlinks so that he could destroy them. Jelindel wanted to keep on the move under the protection of a skilled warrior until she was trail-wise enough to look after herself. She had only wanted Zimak along at first because she could not manage the horses by herself and Daretor was wounded. Why did Zimak stay with them if he could live in the Valley of Clouds in secrecy and safety?