Mindwar

by Andrew Klavan

  And that was before the dragon lifted off the ground.

  Because now, the dragon’s anger at having Rick on its neck brought it out of its daze. With amazing speed for such a monstrosity, it rolled onto its feet, crouched, and gave a flap of its enormous wings and leapt.

  Rick could not help but give a shout of fear and surprise as the creature rose swiftly into the air, carrying him with it. He clung to the twisting neck for dear life. Within seconds, the red earth was far below him. The moat became a silver strip in the downward distance. Even the pinnacles of the fortress towers fell away beneath him as the furious dragon flapped its wings again and then again, and pulsed up into the yellow sky.

  At first, Rick was just too scared of falling to think at all. He hugged the beast’s rough neck with all his might as the chill orange mist of the upper atmosphere began to swirl around him. He just barely dared to glance down and see the fortress growing smaller and smaller as the dragon rose and rose.

  Then—fritz! Another nauseating dissolution of the world.

  And at the same moment, the creature let out its earsplitting, high-pitched scream and thrashed its head back and forth, trying to dislodge the unwanted rider.

  Sheer terror snapped Rick back to alertness. He shouted again as his feet flew out to the side. His cries became increasingly high-pitched with panic as he nearly lost his grip on the dragon’s neck, nearly went plummeting to his death. He only barely managed to hang on until the beast grew tired of fighting him. Then he scrambled over the thing’s neck again and got a better grip on it with both arms and legs.

  He lay there panting, his cheek pressed hard against the creature’s scaly skin. He could hardly bear to look through the orange mist at the fortress and moat and ground so far below. He was almost too afraid to move at all.

  But he had to. He dared to let go of the creature’s neck with one hand just long enough to check the time: 2:47 left. He had to do this fast. He had to try to direct the dragon across the moat, try to get it to land near the fortress. He had to get out of here before his mind dissolved.

  Rick gritted his teeth. He gave a grunt and, using all the strength of his arms, wrenched the dragon’s head to the side, trying to direct him across the water far below.

  To his surprise, the dragon responded instantly. Its whole body turned to follow its head. It banked, tilted—and dove, sending Rick’s stomach up into his throat as man and beast circled down and down together toward the earth.

  Rick dared to peek out around the dragon’s neck. His mouth opened, his eyes widened in amazement.

  It’s working! he thought.

  It was! The fortress was growing bigger and bigger as the dragon, following its head, circled down and down. And yes, as Rick adjusted his grip, as he adjusted the angle of the dragon’s neck, they began to cross the moat. The silver water was now rippling directly below them, throwing their huge reflection back up toward them.

  Another fizzle of static—another frightening interruption of the reality of the Realm—told Rick he had to hurry. But all he could do was keep the pressure upon the dragon’s neck, keep it turning in slow, tight, descending circles. Now he could make out the purple light of the portal point beneath the fortress. He could see the floating diamond gleaming brighter and brighter as it regained the energy Favian had taken from it. As much as his stomach felt hollowed with nausea, his heart began to rise and pound with excitement as he thought he just might be able to pull this off.

  Then, suddenly, something flashed by him—so close he heard the whisper of its passing, felt the wind of it on his cheek.

  What was that?

  Had it been another burst of static? Another sign that his time was running out?

  No. It was a projectile of some sort. Another went by him, and then another.

  Arrows!

  Someone was firing arrows at him! One, then more, then half a dozen of them went spitting past.

  Rick shifted to peek around the dragon’s neck again, the wind of descent rushing over his face. The beast had circled even lower now. The fortress was right below him.

  And he saw that there were men—what looked like men—some sort of guards—rushing onto the fortress ramparts. As the dragon took another descending turn, Rick saw the legions spreading out to line the walls. Every moment, there were more and more of them. And all of them held longbows in their hands. One or two of them stopped to let off a wild shot, the arrows rocketing into the sky, flying wide of Rick where he sat.

  But now, another guard—or something—some red and hellish creature with wings—rose off the surface of the walls to hover over the others, calling them to order. The guards immediately became more disciplined. Lined up along the walls, they raised their bows in a unified motion, ready to let fly a single concentrated volley of death.

  They released their bowstrings in unison. Rick saw a dense black cloud of arrows soaring up toward him. He ducked behind the dragon’s neck as a few arrows flashed by harmlessly on either side.

  Then the beast let out a tremendous and hideous cry of agony as the bulk of the arrows struck. Rick felt the jolts as the projectiles’ points thudded into the creature’s belly. He held on desperately as the wounded beast bucked and thrashed in his arms.

  The dragon’s gliding descent faltered. It fizzed with lines of purple lightning. Rick knew what that meant: it was dying. Sure enough, it could thrash its wings only weakly now, fighting to stay aloft.

  Below, obeying the shouts of their winged and terrible leader—shouts audible even to Rick—the guards had reloaded their bows. They fired again. More arrows struck the beast, burying their deadly points into its neck and body.

  The dragon let out another woeful cry. In its death agony, its body snapped like a whip, nearly throwing Rick away. More electric lines of purple energy bolted through it so that Rick felt the thing becoming insubstantial in his grasp. Its wings sagged weakly.

  And giving one more dying groan, the dragon plunged toward the earth, carrying Rick down with it.

  23. DARK FALL

  RICK AND THE dragon fell and fell. The dark walls and towers of the fortress swept up at Rick’s side as he sped down past them. The silver moat-water flashed and the red earth screamed up to meet him. Rick held on desperately to the dragon’s neck, waiting for the impact he felt certain would kill him.

  It was a bad way to die—and even worse than death was his failure. His heart was black with failure as he fell. What had he ever done but fail? He had failed to fulfill his athletic promise. Failed to become the man of the house when his father had disappeared. And now he had failed in his mission into the Realm . . . failed to rescue Favian and Mariel . . . failed utterly.

  The long fall went on and on. The backwash of wind grew stronger as the dragon tumbled faster. Rick felt the creature’s neck grow flaccid and insubstantial in his grasp as the beast’s lifeblood drained out through its arrow wounds. Only at the last moment did the dragon seem to understand that this was the end for it. Only then did it make one last attempt to save itself. Letting out a groan, it flapped its wings a final time. It was a weak effort, but it did seem to slow the downward plunge a little.

  Then the earth rushed up and the crash came with a noise like thunder. The next thing Rick knew, he was flying helplessly through the air.

  He could not believe what happened next. He hit the ground flat on his back. He hit hard—it made his bones ache. But—and this was what shocked him—he was still alive! Not just alive, but fully conscious. The dragon’s great body underneath him had absorbed most of the impact. Rick was hurled off the beast—and he smacked into the ground at speed—but he’d fallen harder on the football field. He was jarred by the impact, but unharmed.

  Fresh hope flooded through him and brought him leaping to his feet. There was chaos on every side of him. He saw his dragon, the creature of the air—dead on impact—dissolving into sparking purple energy before it vanished with a flash. He saw the swarm of other dragons circling and screaming in
the sky above him. Saw the archers on the fortress walls high overhead, leaning over to direct their bows down at him. He saw, too, that the front gate of the fortress was rattling open and more soldiers were pouring out of the building onto the red field, charging after him.

  And he saw the floating purple diamond of the portal point glowing in the air about twenty yards away.

  Then it was all gone—all digitalized, dissolving into static. The fizzing nothingness went on for a long second, frighteningly long. Rick knew he was out of time. His mind was disintegrating and taking the Realm with it. For an instant, he felt he was on the very edge of existence.

  But in the next moment, the Realm snapped back into clarity. The static vanished. Rick wasn’t gone quite yet.

  He glanced reflexively at his palm. Forty-nine seconds left. No time to think. No time to do anything but run—run toward the purple glow of the portal point.

  He took off. Stretching his legs as if heading for a touchdown, he dashed across the front yard of the fortress. Quick deadly whispers filled his ears as a fresh volley of arrows rained down on him from the ramparts, the projectiles jabbing into the earth to his left and right. Somewhere in the sky above him, the dragons screamed as they spotted him. One sharp cry grew quickly louder as a creature of the air launched itself into a diving attack.

  But the diamond of the portal point was right in front of him. He was almost there.

  I’m going to make it!

  Then one of the guards—the first to have raced out through the fortress gate—reached him. It stepped into his path, blocking his way.

  What a monster it was! It stood on two legs, as tall as Rick. It was clothed in red and silver armor like a man, but it was not a man, not at all. It had an extended face something like the face of a crocodile. It had a long lizardly tail like a croc’s tail. It had sharp teeth and bloodshot yellow eyes. And it held a long, gleaming sword in its wickedly clawed hands.

  Rick grabbed the hilt of his own sword and drew it from its scabbard quickly. The crocodile guard raised its weapon and swung. Its blade and Rick’s clashed together with a singing sound. Rick drew his weapon back to strike again.

  Then the static—and nothingness. Rick froze, blinked, dazed. Clarity returned—but it was too late.

  The guard had already unleashed another strike. Rick tried to dodge it, but the blade hit his armor on the shoulder—and struck through to bite into his flesh. Rick screamed in pain. In an instinctive spasm of self-defense, he reeled away, jabbing his sword point in the direction of the guard. The point struck the lizard-man on his breastplate, driving him back a step. There was red pain again as the guard’s blade was torn out of Rick’s shoulder.

  Rick’s head swam with agony. He felt his blood pumping out of him. He felt himself fading into unconsciousness. The whole world was crisscrossed with lines of purple energy. It was dissolving into nothingness. He was dissolving . . .

  But he turned and saw the portal point again, looming large, right beside him. He plunged into it headfirst. He willed his wounded spirit down a snaking cylinder of white light.

  There was a liquid moment of un-being.

  Then Rick woke up shrieking in mindless terror! He was trapped in a glass box the size of a coffin! Wrapped in some sort of metallic foil that gripped him tightly, that wouldn’t let him go!

  He didn’t know where he was. There was nothing inside him but pain and confusion and fear. He went on screaming even as the lid of the box opened with an electric buzz.

  Hands were grabbing at him. He fought them off wildly, screaming and screaming. Voices were shouting above him.

  “Get him out of there!”

  “Get a gurney!”

  “Alert the infirmary!”

  Rick’s eyes were wide and white with horror. He kept screaming, “Get off me! Get off me!”

  Strong hands pushed his hands away and got a grip on his arms. He was dragged out of the box.

  “My legs!” he shouted as he was dragged to his feet and a jolt of pain went through the lower half of him.

  “It’s all right, you’re all right, Rick!” said a voice—a woman.

  He turned and saw her. A smallish person in a dark suit. A serious face with short black hair. Who was she? A stranger. He didn’t recognize her.

  Rick recoiled in fear from her even as the large blockheaded man beside him tried to keep hold of him, even as the pain in his legs threatened to overwhelm him.

  “Who are you?” Rick shouted at the woman. “Where am I?”

  “It’s me. Miss Ferris! You’re at the MindWar Project HQ!” The woman spoke loudly but with determination. “You’re back! You’re fine!”

  Miss Ferris? The MindWar Project? Trying to take in the meaning of her words, Rick looked wildly around him. He saw monitors on the walls. Staring faces. His arm was covered in blood. There was a gash in his shoulder and the blood was coursing out of it.

  “You’re all right! You’ll be all right!” the woman said. Then she shouted, “Where’s that gurney?”

  Rick stared at her. Stared at the man holding him.

  “Who am I?” he asked them. He could not remember. He could not remember anything.

  The woman’s head whipped back toward him. He saw a flash of something in her eyes—something like fear. “Rick?” she said. “You’re Rick! You’re Rick Dial! You remember. Say you remember!”

  He heard someone nearby mutter: “We’ve lost him. His mind is gone.”

  Then Rick’s eyes rolled up in his head, and the room went dark. His agonized legs folded under him. He sank down toward the floor.

  Darkness everywhere.

  LEVEL FIVE:

  THE MISSING MAN

  24. AUTO ASSAULT

  THEY CAME FOR the Traveler just before dawn.

  Victor One was sitting with him inside the cabin. The big, rangy bodyguard was squeezed into a chair built, he thought, for a delicate old grandma about one-third his size. He was sipping coffee out of a cup that looked like it was meant for a dollhouse. Plus it was lousy coffee, black as sin and almost as sour.

  Still, it had been kind of the Traveler to let him come in and warm himself. It was cold on the hilltop at this hour.

  “Any idea when they’ll be here?” the Traveler asked him. The small, bald scientist was seated at his desk, his laptop and his packed bag on the floor by his feet. He had his own coffee cup lifted to his lips. The steam fogged the lenses of his glasses so that his thoughtful, dreamy eyes disappeared behind them. It looked pretty silly to Victor One, but the Traveler didn’t seem to mind being blinded like that.

  Victor One shook his head. “No way to know. No phones. No Wi-Fi. No commo at all. That was the whole point of this place, I guess. But it does make it hard to find out what’s going on, doesn’t it? Shouldn’t be too long now—that’s my guess.”

  The Traveler set his cup in the saucer, set cup and saucer down on the desk beside the photo of his family and the cross that until last night had decorated the wall. Victor One found it touching that the Traveler had left these—the picture and the cross—out of his bag until the last minute. It was as if the scientist couldn’t bear to be without them even for a few hours.

  “Guess you’re pretty eager to see your people again, huh, Doc,” said the bodyguard.

  The Traveler nodded absentmindedly, his eyes meditative and far away. “There’s a verse in the Bible I particularly like,” he said. “ ‘Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’ ”

  Victor One nodded. He remembered the passage, part of a hymn he’d always liked. “ ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you . . .’ ”

  “What I find fascinating about that advice—the advice not to worry about tomorrow”—the Traveler spoke in a mild, speculative tone, as if he were talking about a mathematical problem or a dissected frog—“is how clearly wise it is and yet how nearly impossible it is to follow!�
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  Victor One laughed, nodding into his lousy coffee. “It is a tough one, isn’t it? You think God is just messing with us?”

  The Traveler laughed back. “Somehow I doubt it.” He pulled his misted glasses off and wiped them clean on his sweater. His laughter subsided, and the weariness was plain on his face. “I wanted to keep them safe—my family,” he said. “That was the whole point of all this.” He gestured at the cabin. “To be where no one could find me. Where no one could give me away. I thought it was the best way to protect them. But I seem to have done just the opposite.”

  Victor One tried to think of something to say to that. “It’s just not a safe world, Doc,” he said finally. “We do the best we can . . .”

  But the Traveler shook his head, gazing sadly into the middle distance. “I trusted Leila . . .”

  Victor One didn’t want to get into that at all. He had overheard part of the argument between the Traveler and Leila Kent, but he wasn’t sure how much he was supposed to know. Officially, Leila was Victor One’s boss on this mission, and he didn’t want to say anything that would get him in trouble with her. To give himself time to figure out how to respond, he drained his cup. Man, he thought, that is one bad cup of coffee. Then, when he lowered the cup, he said, “I’m sure Miss Kent wouldn’t do anything to hurt you, Doc. Not on purpose, anyway.”

  “Are you?” said the Traveler. “Are you really sure?”

  “Oh yeah. Oh yeah, definitely. I mean, anyone can see how she feels about you . . .” The minute the words came out of his mouth, Victor One regretted them. He thought it was so obvious that Leila Kent was in love with the Traveler that for a moment, he hadn’t considered the idea that a smart guy like the Traveler wouldn’t have noticed. But, of course, the Traveler was so absentminded, his mind so occupied with his work and his God and his family, that he hadn’t noticed Leila Kent’s feelings at all. Until the moment Victor One opened his big mouth, he had had no idea.

  He stared at the bodyguard. “Leila? How she feels about me? What do you mean?”