“Aye! It has an aura. When they finally found it, they discovered their magic worked again when they were near it. Humans who can do magic, we’re only borrowing an existing force and shaping it, like, say, dipping our hands into a snowdrift to make a snowball. We might have the talent, but the snow, the magic itself, isn’t really a part of us. For magical creatures, it is. They can still manage some of it in this world, because it’s part of what they are. They carry it inside them. Dragons are the most powerful. The magic of the dragon trapped in that crystal is so potent, in this world it creates its own aura — or bubble, or what you like — in which magic can be cast.”
Austin blinked. “That’s why the gomlen worked.”
What? “Where did you get a gomlen?”
“Wait on that. Why can’t you just keep casting that spell that hides it from Maeron?”
She quieted, recalling when Tragen had made the discovery and regretting the truth of it. “Because every bit of magic done in the dragon’s aura strengthens his connection to the world outside the crystal, like knocking a hole in a wall. If Rhianon kept casting the magic, or used it to risk a fight with Maeron, it wouldn’t be long before the dragon escaped.”
“And, ah, what would happen then?”
Habitually, she blew up at her bangs with a puff of breath, only to realize she had no bangs to blow. “One of many assorted flavors of cocked-up disaster, I don’t know which. Bad in any case. Rhianon had no choice but to do what she did. Maybe we don’t, either, but what she did was powerful magic. I doubt it can be done again safely in the crystal’s aura at all anymore.”
Austin lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. She left him to his thoughts for a few moments.
“What happened to the others?” he asked. “Maeron killed them?”
“Aye. One by one, with surprise on his side. Tragen kept the crystal, so to peel off Tragen’s support, Maeron went for the others first when they were alone and vulnerable. He got Tennant and Kitrina before we knew what was happening. But by the time he came for Kel, Tragen had gotten suspicious. He gave the crystal to Rhianon so he and Kel could confront Maeron without the aura being a factor. Before they realized he could do the magic without it, Kel had fallen. Tragen . . .”
She swallowed, suddenly tossed in a sea of memories that weren’t even hers: Rain spattering across a brick walk on a university campus. Wind whipping her hair with the scent of early spring blooms mixed with the ozone of a recent lightning strike. She still felt the crystal sharp against her palms where Tragen, stronger and far more capable than she, had pressed its burden, imploring her to get it to safety alone while he covered her escape.
She should have refused! She should have switched places with him!
It took a moment to steady herself before she could go on.
“Tragen sacrificed himself,” she managed, “so Rhianon could get away with the crystal, and she sacrificed who she was to keep it hidden. The pendant would only release her memories if someone disturbed the crystal’s hiding spot. Rhianon was supposed to be the one wearing it at the time, of course.”
“Okay, so assuming I believe you — ”
“You like that phrase.”
“ — why does Maeron want it? It sounds like he means to take it back to Rhyll, but if you’re telling me the truth and the whole world’s going to be full of angry dragons when that happens? It doesn’t track.”
Rhianon, so naïve. The memory of Maeron’s words to Rhianon that morning echoed back at her. So trusting of what they told you. Do you sincerely think the crystal’s presence would doom Rhyll? That its presence here is not far more harmful? Corinna forced it out, just as Rhianon had done.
“Did he strike you as entirely sane when you met him, Austin?” She shook her head, not wanting to risk Austin’s trust with that discussion. “I don’t know why he wants it, or what he thinks he might get out of it. Back in Rhyll, there’s a cult that worships the malevolents. They’ve made it their calling to free them, and they’re a big part of the reason Aurkauramesh’s sealing weakened in the first place. I don’t pretend to understand what goes on in their minds, either, but if Maeron isn’t officially one of them, they got to him somehow. I’d bet my life on it.”
Austin said nothing, again looking distant.
“He didn’t happen to mention how he planned to get back to Rhyll?” she asked. They thought it a one-way trip when the five of them had volunteered. Find the crystal, then stay in the unknown world and guard it. Even if returning had been part of the plan, they’d known of no way to do so.
Austin glanced over. “No.” He sat up, slowly. Numerous times he began to say something, each time stopping short. He was sizing her up, and it set her spirits sinking. She fought to keep it from her face. He had a right to be skeptical, and he had come this far, hadn’t he?
“I’m not grading you on word choice, Austin,” she burst at last. “You’ve a question? Have at it.”
“Can the dragon communicate while it’s in the crystal?”
“No. At least, not that any of us ever noticed before.”
Austin hesitated, and then, “It talks to me.”
Caught between fascination and dread, all she could do was wait for elaboration.
“In my head. No one else can hear. He’s the reason I ran in Conwy; he told me to, that you were the enemy. He said Rhi was trying to set him free, that someone was trying to stop her and keep him trapped, so they could use him.”
“He’s lying! Okay, yes, so obviously I’d want to say so either way, but I am telling you the truth. Do you believe me?”
“I don’t not believe you, let’s put it that way.”
“How unhelpfully precise of you.” She smiled, barely. “That the dragon can communicate at all makes me think the binding’s gotten weaker.” She couldn’t know for sure; that was Tragen’s area, but she had learned — Rhianon had learned, she corrected — what she could in their six months of searching.
“He claims it takes effort to do, and that he has to rest awhile after.” He scowled, looking away, and shot, “Yes, ‘claims.’ Well maybe I say that because I’m not sure anymore, you think?” He turned back to Corinna. “Sorry. He can hear me, too, of course. And you. He says his name’s Boden. And that he’s confused, and having trouble remembering things — though he’s had trouble with that since I’ve known him, in the interest of accuracy.”
“And he started talking when you found the crystal?”
“Almost. It took an hour or so. But he seems to have witnessed everything that happened from the moment I found it.”
“What did happen?”
Austin told a story of coming to Worm’s Head, of the werespider who followed (at which Corinna could not help but shudder — regular spiders were bad enough), and the struggle to get the crystal. That Rhi had visited Worm’s Head yearly to check on it, without knowing why, struck a note of pride in her — or at least in Rhianon. Rhianon had hoped the magic would work that way, leaving subtle cues in her subconscious. Yet there wasn’t time to ponder it.
“So that bit about the crystal’s aura explains why the gomlen was inert before then,” Austin finished.
She nodded. “And it was the first magic done around the crystal in years. That, combined with the physical jarring when it fell out of the box and the state it was in after Rhianon made the amulet — it probably weakened the bindings enough to let him communicate. Does he speak to anyone else?”
“Not that he’s told me. Ah. He says he can’t. He was able to talk to me clear as I hear him now when the crystal was in the other room. It always sounds like he’s right in my head.”
Corinna thought on that. “Has anyone but you touched it?”
“Nope. But,” he snatched up his pack and fished into it, “we could test it. Here.” He offered the crystal.
She almost reached for it. “You’re a confusing bloke, Austin. I hadn’t thought to be so trusted yet.”
“If you wanted to take it, you’d have do
ne it by now. Just don’t run for the door.”
“Even so.” The crystal glowed softly between them. “I’ve only handled it in the box before. But, as you say, a test.” Seeing no other way, she took it from him. It warmed her palm, but she felt nothing beyond that. “Ask him to talk to you. Or to me.”
“He says he can hear you just fine, and hopes his cooperation in the matter assuages some of your concern regarding his trustworthiness. His words.”
She handed the crystal back. “It’ll take a bit more than that, dragon, but keep it up and we’ll see.”
Were it only Austin listening, she would have said nothing would change her mind about the beast. In the meantime, she saw no sense in sabotaging any cooperativeness on the dragon’s part. The fact it could still speak to him while she held it indicated some sort of bond between them. She wondered if it had been intentional, or an accident of proximity when the bindings were jarred. They ought to find another box to contain it, too, but one thing at a time.
“And this gomlen,” she said, “which you apparently not only had but know what it’s called despite being shocked about the whole alternate-world business, that came from where? Rhianon couldn’t make one, even before the pendant.”
“Some weird old man in Cardiff. I chased down a thief who stole his bag. For some reason I had an exceedingly dim view of thieves at the time.”
She couldn’t help but smirk. “Well there, now. If I hadn’t nicked the pendant, you’d never have gotten the gomlen to save yourself.”
“What is a gomlen, anyway? Where’d this guy get it?”
“A gomlen is what you had. You saw first-hand what it does. Magical energy wrapped in a small package, waiting for the order to burst out. Like a grenade, yours was.”
“That only answers my first question.”
“I can think of a few possibilities. Do you remember anything strange about the bloke who gave it to you?”
“Heh. Only his whole manner. And he had purple eyes. Cursed a lot, too, but I guess that’s not so unusual.”
“Any tattoos?”
Austin thought a moment. “He had something on his cheek — a triangle, I think.”
“Left cheek?”
“Sounds about right. Which means what?”
“It means he’s from Rhyll, consigned to the rift. Or he’s from here and it’s an extraordinary coincidence, but I’d lay money against that.” She winked.
“I didn’t see a tattoo on the thin man.”
“Were-creatures slough skin so often tattoos don’t hold long. As for Fefferman, purple eyes and gomlens means he’s a thiesm.”
His smile belied a trace of melancholy. “You and Rhi have the same habit of pausing to invite a question you’re eager to answer.”
“So don’t keep me waiting, hmm?”
“What’s a thiesm?”
“Magical creature. Thiesms aren’t human, but they can look it, when they wish. The rest of the time they’re stones. They’re builders — in Rhyll, they can transmute things by magic, reshape them.”
“Create gomlens.”
She nodded. “It’s an innate ability — so he probably has some limited ability to do it even in this world. Like Boden’s aura but much, much smaller, hardly extending beyond his skin. It’s the same reason the werespider could still change forms, so your gomlen might even have worked without the crystal if this Fefferman held it. Another possibility is he does magic the same murderous way Maeron does, but my guess is he doesn’t need to. Do you remember where you found him?”
“You mean go to him for help? If he was banished here, doesn’t that mean he’s a criminal?”
“He helped you out, didn’t he? I’m not chuffed about the idea, but we’re not exactly swimming in options. We can’t afford to be picky about allies, and we don’t know what he did, either. Banishment can be politically motivated. Perhaps he simply pick-pocketed the wrong person. Not that I mean we shouldn’t be cautious.”
“Wouldn’t using gomlens against Maeron need the crystal’s aura, though? That would weaken the wards the same way as using your magic, wouldn’t it?”
“Maeron’s found a way to make an aura of his own or he wouldn’t be able to cast like he does. A gomlen ought to work on him without the crystal, if that’s the case.”
Unless Maeron based his magic on an entirely different principle, she considered. It was possible, though she hoped otherwise.
“And if he can turn that aura on and off at will?”
“Then we’ll have a way to dissuade him from using it, won’t we?”
“There is that.” Austin appeared to mull it over. “I should mention Boden doesn’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Well that’s lovely, Austin, but I don’t give a flying frog fart for what Boden thinks.” She almost went so far as to say that meant they were on the right track, but dragons tended to be craftier than that — though she lacked personal experience. “I’m open to suggestions from you, however.”
“At the moment? I don’t have any. But what if we put it in a safe-deposit box or something while we go looking for Fefferman? Then if we’re caught, we don’t necessarily lose the crystal. It sat there at Worm’s Head for years without him finding it, after all.”
“Part of that was due to the box masking its presence. We don’t have another box, and we can’t risk going back for it. And now that the wards holding the dragon are weakened, I don’t know Maeron wouldn’t be able to find it anyway.” The link Austin and Boden might share could be an issue as well, she thought, but kept it to herself. “Hiding it just isn’t an option anymore.”
Austin nodded. “I suppose hiding it would leave us defenseless in any case, if you can’t do your magic.”
“Us?” She smiled. “So you agree we’re in this together.”
Austin took a breath and gave what seemed a reluctant smile back. “It doesn’t look like any of us have a choice, do we?”
“You could leave it with me,” she said, unable to stop herself. “Save yourself. It might well be the smartest thing. You could run.”
Austin watched her, brown eyes holding hers as she wondered what he was thinking — or hearing, she added with a glance at the crystal. “I could,” he said finally. “Do you really think I would?”
“Rhianon loved you?”
“The version I knew.”
“Then, trusting to her judgment, no, I don’t think you would.”
Austin swallowed and nodded.
TWELVE
Austin clutches Rhi’s pendant until it cuts his palm. Rain invades from the darkness above, drenching him and cascading down the high stone walls of the maze he wanders. From somewhere, Rhi calls to him, needing the pendant, her voice growing more desperate with each second he stands still. Three passages branch away into mystery: unmarked, identical.
Austin pushes down a passage to find Rhi’s voice fading, only to grow stronger when he returns to the center. He tries another branch. Each gives the same result, each leaves him stranded and helpless in the center. He lifts the pendant, hoping for guidance, for some hint of direction. It offers nothing, growing heavier until his arms buckle past the limits of his strength.
Rhi cries out in pain, and the pendant shatters before his eyes, becoming Fefferman’s gomlen. Rhi screams for him, louder, as the stone splinters beneath his rooted feet.
“Where are you!” he yells.
Rain floods his open mouth, almost choking him. He raises the gomlen, growing frantic, thinking to smash a hole in the wall and make his own way. But what if he needs it later?
Maeron’s laughter strikes out and tendrils of fire snap at his mind, threatening to take him again, freezing him with fear he can barely fight. Desperate to escape or desperate to find Rhi — he knows not which — he flings the gomlen at the stone only to find he has thrown the crystal. It shatters against the wall in a burst of darkness, and the floor gives way beneath him as Rhi’s screaming dies.
He falls.
Austin jerke
d awake and stared at the sliver of street lighting shining through the motel room curtains. The clock read 4:17am.
“An unpleasant dream?”
“Something like that,” Austin muttered. Corinna lay sleeping in the other bed. His daypack with the crystal remained where he had left it, under the other pillow in his own bed.
“Then it is doubly well you are awake. We must speak together, you and I.”
“I’m listening.”
“Not here. You may wake her, and she will need her rest if she must use the magic to defend us. Take a walk.”
“It’s four in the morning.” Beside the hour, he didn’t much like the idea of wandering unprotected with the crystal.
“Time means little when trapped in a formless void as I am. We must speak, and I am not asking you to go far. Recall my defense of your mind during Maeron’s onslaught. Regardless of what you think of me, you know I do not wish for him to capture me any more than you do.”
“Why not?”
“You are comparing my actual motivations with what she says they should be, yes? This is another reason to speak, in private.”
“You still think she’s the enemy?”
“On the contrary, I suspect her to be trustworthy. Yet it is only suspicion, and caution is warranted. Much of what she reveals is as surprising to me as it is to you.”
Austin glanced to Corinna. She lay on her stomach, her arms wrapped around the pillow into which she buried her nose, as Rhi had often done.
“Do you believe what she says of Rhianon’s memories?”
“Do you?”
“I will say no more while you continue to ignore my request.”
Austin gripped the blankets, and then, finally, pulled them away and began to dress. Corinna did not stir. He slipped the room key into his pocket, took hold of the tire iron they had brought from the car, and checked the peephole in the door. Outside, nothing moved. After a few moments’ watch, he crept out and closed the door behind him.
He left Boden’s crystal under the pillow. It seemed the best course. This walk probably wasn’t the wisest idea, but at least he wouldn’t be taking the crystal away from the one person who could use magic to defend it. Just as importantly, Corinna wouldn’t think he had ditched her if she woke before he returned. If the dragon sensed it, he didn’t complain.
Memory of Dragons Page 11