Memory of Dragons

by Michael G. Munz

  “If you’re right that you forced him at all.”

  “It’s all we’ve got!”

  “Okay, okay, but then how does that — ” At once, he got her point. If the link between him and Boden still existed, could he use the end anchored in his own mind to locate Boden?

  She grinned as she saw it click. “Smart Yank.”

  “But I don’t know magic.”

  “Right, so, not as smart as we’d like you to be, but maybe I can teach you enough to help.”

  “I could have sworn you said it takes a lot longer to learn.”

  “You haven’t got a better idea and you know it. All we need you to do is focus enough to get a sense of where he is. That stupid anchor’s our lifeline, and you’re going to follow it.”

  It was the first real trace of hope he had found in hours. “Tell me what to do.”

  “Pardon my manners,” Maeron said. “I don’t believe I ever asked your name.”

  He adjusted the lantern’s perch atop the rock, taking care to ensure its glow fell on the proper space along the earthen cave floor. His captive sat in on another rock, only partially visible on the edge of the shadows. Though the man’s head was shaved, a golden beard — only slightly unkempt from a likely night of drinking — framed his confused frown. Blue eyes darted about, bleary but sharpening as he twisted in the grip of growing awareness and five-millimeter rope.

  “How did I get here?”

  “That shouldn’t be your chief concern at the moment, Mister . . .?”

  The captive jerked around to look at Maeron, then tugged faster at the ropes binding his wrists behind his back. He kicked his crossed ankles, but they were bound just as tightly together and tethered to the climbing spikes pounded into the cave floor. The man made no progress.

  “Blighter! Let me out!” His eyes bugged. “Let me go!”

  “No one’s going to hear you,” Maeron assured him.

  “Help! Somebody help me!”

  Maeron suppressed a grimace and pulled out a handkerchief to roll it by the corners. The man continued to yell as he approached, his wrists working against the bonds. With a pause to aim, Maeron jammed the handkerchief across his captive’s open mouth, yanked the ends around his head, and tied the gag in the back.

  “No one except me, and my ears are already spoken for.” Maeron gripped the man’s shoulder, muffled yells unceasing, and shook him roughly, once. The man quieted. “My name is Maeron. As you’ve necessitated this unfortunate new fashion accessory, for geographical reasons I’ll simply call you Mister Emrys.”

  Mister Emrys responded with a glare, but the sweat beading on his forehead undercut whatever malice it held. He would still struggle, of course. No rational creature wouldn’t. Maeron let him. The knots were secure, and the man lacked the time needed to overcome them.

  “I suppose it’s a shame you didn’t tell me your real name. You’re about to become a part of history. The savior of a world, in a sense. That’s worthy of some remembrance.” Maeron clasped his hands behind his back — a habit developed speaking at ambassadorial functions. He pitched forward to add, “Not your world, of course. But the gesture still has value, whosoever benefits.”

  Mister Emrys shook his head. Maeron gave a friendly shrug and turned back toward the lantern. He picked up the knife that lay behind it.

  “This place has a history of its own. I wonder, did you know that, Mister Emrys? An ancient king trapped two dragons here, one red, one white, and in this place they battled one another for supremacy. At least, that’s your people’s legend. This world is littered with legends of maddeningly dubious veracity; the legend also speaks of these dragons turning themselves into pigs, if you can believe that. I had to come to Dinas Emrys to be certain. Dragons do not turn into pigs, Mister Emrys, but rest assured, they were here.”

  The man paid little attention, fixated instead on Maeron’s knife. Maeron lifted it toward his own face and examined how the light glinted off the curves along its serrated edge. He amused himself by letting it reflect into his captive’s eyes. Not for the first time, Maeron wondered if the dragons originally arrived as one of the few eggs rumored to have been consigned to the Treger rift. Or as some sort of cosmic overflow in Aurkauramesh’s ill-conceived banishment. Perhaps evidence of reality’s instability?

  “Magical creatures, dragons. Oh, they did exist. Exiles from a world, a much better world, linked to yours. A struggle between such beings leaves an imprint, especially in this world. It rendered this area, let us say, ‘weaker’ than others. With the right knowledge, and the right energies, a temporary rift can be made in the fabric . . .”

  He paused. Emrys’s gaze remained on the blade. Subtle motions of his shoulders easily betrayed a surreptitious effort to free his wrists.

  “But I can see you don’t care about any of that.” Maeron sighed. “Ah, well.”

  Maeron sliced Emrys’s throat so quickly that the knife was back at his side before the crimson rushed free. He took hold of Emrys’s skull with one hand and channeled the power of his death into the symbols he had prepared at the weak point’s nexus. He flooded the weak point, overwhelming it, willing it to split under his magic’s assault: a mirror of the blade along Emrys’s skin.

  Purplish-gold light burst forth from a pinprick, then expanded. Maeron guided the light upward with a raise of the knife to tear a scintillating, vertical jag in the ether. In a final rush, he severed the ropes that bound Emrys’s still-twitching corpse, yanked him aloft, and hurled him bodily into the jag.

  The resulting explosion battered Maeron to the ground.

  For what must have been the twentieth time, Austin closed his eyes and focused inward. Corinna sat across from him, elbows on their table, fingertips cradling his head in an attempt to transfer whatever skill or power or moral support she could. As instructed, he called to mind the way Boden felt when the dragon spoke, the sound of his voice, even the force that usurped his body in the Tube. As with every previous time, the only things he felt were Corinna’s touch against his temples and an ever-growing sense of failure.

  “Try speaking to him,” she whispered. “And when you form each word, visualize the shape of it. Send it out not just in your voice, but wrap your mind around that shape and draw it inward.”

  Austin opened his eyes. “The ‘shape’ of the word? The way it’s spelled?”

  “No, it’s . . .” She paused, frowning. “I’m a great student, lousy teacher. It’s more the shape of the sound. But if the spelling helps you visualize it, use that to get a handle on it, and go from there, aye?”

  He resisted the urge to tell her he didn’t understand, instead only nodding and closing his eyes again to imagine what he would say. Something simple. “Boden, I know you can hear me.” There came no response, nor any echo or sense of the anchor.

  “Try again. Push the words out as you pull them in.”

  He focused again, anxious to make it work. He let the words echo in his mind a few times, pictured them pushing into a black hole at the center, and, finally, breathed them out. Corinna’s fingertips pressed firmly, imploring.

  Again, nothing.

  “Dragons traditionally have pretty big egos,” she suggested. “Try appealing to his.”

  “If he can actually hear me.”

  “Even if he can’t, if you’re still anchored to him, the anchor itself might respond. From what I can figure, it’s a tendril of his own essence — a tiny piece of his spirit that was able to poke out. Make this work.”

  “Boden, you’re right. I need you.” He felt dirty saying it. Worried that insincerity might somehow sabotage things, he refocused and repeated it. He really did need Boden. If he couldn’t make this happen, what other chance was there?

  Certain he had lost consciousness, Maeron raised his head. His newly created rift to Rhyll hovered in front of him, an arm-span wide and just as tall. The explosion had broken the lantern. Bathed in a shimmering violet-gold glory that streamed from the center of his new achievemen
t, Maeron clambered to his feet. Emrys had vanished, consumed, his contribution complete.

  A grin burst across Maeron’s face, almost wider than the rift itself. Triumph threatened to erupt in peals of laughter. He held it back for the sake of dignity, turning instead to where the crystal lay on a natural shelf across the cave where it was safest from the ritual’s energy.

  “You see, dragon? It can be done!”

  Though memories he took from Austin in Conwy indicated the dragon’s awareness, he could not be certain it could hear him. Yet his theory, his work, his sacrifice now culminated in victory, and there would be witness to it — if not now, then when they emerged on the other side.

  Sparing Austin meant Rhianon, in whatever form she now existed, would know of Maeron’s triumph as well. He had nearly brought Austin along to serve as the death sacrifice for the ritual. It would have saved him the effort of snaring a drunk stumbling home from a pub. Yet to kill Austin had struck Maeron as somehow uncouth. Regardless of the trouble the young man had caused, the crystal might have remained hidden indefinitely without him.

  Maeron seized the crystal. Enough introspection. Just a little further to go. He gathered up the knife from where it lay in the dirt. It had made his first kill in this world, and now it had made his last. Maeron smiled at the symmetry. He decided to add another: Among the few articles he had brought from Rhyll, the knife would be the first to return. As a test, he pitched it through the rift.

  As expected, it vanished.

  The crystal glowed in his palm, faint in the rift’s violet-gold light. Maeron stepped closer, steeling himself for the freezing cold that the transition to Rhyll would bring. Would going the opposite direction scorch him instead? Would he appear in the central chamber of the dragon cult’s enclave as planned?

  He clenched the crystal tighter, and took the final step.

  “Boden, you’re right. I need you . . .” Corinna now whispered it with Austin. They repeated it until it became a litany.

  And then, something was there: a tiny sense of something else leading out of his mind. It weighed on him with a substance so nigh-imperceptible that he first thought it an illusion of his own making. Hope quickened. Afraid of losing focus, Austin barely managed to keep from telling Corinna. Instead, he continued the litany, trying to follow the thread, or strengthen it, unsure how to do so and certain his efforts would snap it like spider silk at any moment.

  It did not snap, yet neither could he manage to follow it anywhere. For a few frantic moments he traced it outward . . . through the wall to his left . . . out into the street outside. There, it slipped from his grasp. Each successive attempt fared worse until he lost it completely.

  Suddenly aware of Corinna’s silence, he opened his eyes.

  “Did it work?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “You stopped.”

  “You stopped first.”

  “I didn’t realize — I guess I was concentrating. I felt something, and I almost followed it, and then — ”

  Austin yelled as his heart about yanked itself out of his chest.

  The crystal pushed back.

  Maeron stopped short. The rift awaited, so close he felt its crackle across his face. He brought the crystal closer to the threshold. Resistance mounted with every inch until his arm strained with the effort. It touched the rift, but it would go no further.

  He tried again, moving the crystal higher, then lower, with no better luck. Grimly, he moved to the rift’s opposite side, and still could not press the crystal past the barrier. It took the knife! It took Emrys! He scooped up the broken lantern and hurled it into the rift.

  It took that, too.

  Another obstacle! Well, he would overcome this as well!

  Turning his gaze on the crystal, Maeron breathed a word of magic and tuned his senses. The captive dragon’s aura radiated from the crystal in waves, just as expected. Yet, in the midst of it, he spied a trace of something more: a ribbon, almost too faint to call energy. It extended from the crystal’s heart like a narrow oil slick across a pond.

  He pushed the crystal back toward the rift. The ribbon tightened with every inch. Guessing at the cause, Maeron cursed his foolishness. He wrapped his free hand about the ribbon, closed his eyes, and followed it back to its source.

  Mister Emrys might not be the last one he killed in this world after all.

  TWENTY-SIX

  “Austin! What’s wrong?”

  Corinna gripped his arm with both hands while he clung to the table to keep from falling to the floor. The violent jolt of moments ago had diminished to a dull throb at the center of his chest, yet its memory remained. Austin righted himself and put a protective hand over the source of the pain. It took another unsteady breath before he could answer.

  “Man. That must be what a hooked fish feels like.” He tapped his chest where he had felt it. “Right here. One big yank.”

  Corinna’s lips quivered. “A Yank with a yank? Sod it, Austin, don’t you tempt me with a pun right now. What was it?”

  “You tell me.” He swallowed. The vestige of pain failed to subside any further. “One second I thought I could sense some sort of connection, and then — ”

  “Human . . .”

  He held up a hand to Corinna.

  “Boden?” he asked.

  Corinna squeezed his forearm tighter in two hopeful hands. The voice, though almost surely Boden’s, had spoken like a whispered echo. Austin pressed his eyes shut again and tried to reach past the still-present throb in his chest, but remained at a loss for which mental muscle to flex.

  Something glimmered at the edge of Austin’s perception, then vanished. He heard nothing more.

  “Boden?” he tried again, bracing for another agonizing yank in the likely event it was related. The ache tightened. Boden gave no response. Moments passed in silence.

  “What do you want?”

  The question had come from Corinna, but was not directed toward him. She let go Austin’s arm and sat back in her chair to meet his confusion with a shake of her head. Her lips mouthed the name: “Maeron.”

  Corinna’s stomach wrenched itself at the sound of Maeron’s voice invading her thoughts.

  A parlay, for starters.

  “What could we possibly have to talk about?”

  In truth, she wanted it, if only for the chance to learn his location or his plans, but feared seeming too eager. She suspected he would see through the veneer even so, no matter how genuine her revulsion. Austin continued to hold a hand to his chest as he watched her.

  Oh, now that’s hardly civil. I expected you’d be pleasantly surprised to hear from me at all.

  “Pleasant isn’t the first word I would choose. You’ve got the crystal. What more is there to take?”

  It may be fair to say I deserve that. But whatever you think of me, whatever terrible things I’ve had to do in the cause of what I thought was right, I am not a monster.

  “Bullshite.”

  Austin is alive, after all. And things are changing more rapidly than you know.

  “What things?”

  All in good time. I could explain, but I doubt you’d take me at my word. There are things you need to see, more credible than any words I could say.

  “It’s going to take more than that.”

  We both know you won’t ignore this. I have the crystal. The more magic I use to communicate, the weaker the wards become, so I’ll not waste time. I am prepared to say my belief in the reality of our situation has changed.

  Austin watched her, rapt. “All right,” she said. “Then where are these things you want to show me?”

  There is a town in northern Wales called Beddgelert. In that town is a stone bridge crossing the river, west of which is a small park studded with picnic tables. Meet me there, at ten a.m.

  “I don’t know if I can get there in time. Let me meet you later, in the evening.”

  Ten a.m., or never.

  “If it’s important enough for you to contact me, it
’s important enough to make sure I’m there.”

  If you cannot make it by ten, it will be too late. Destiny waits for no one, not even us.

  “What do you mean ‘too late?’ At least tell me that!”

  Silence.

  Corinna closed the book and shot to her feet, wishing for time to think. “Can you walk?” she asked Austin.

  “I’m in pain, I’m not dead.”

  “Then get your stuff. We’re going.”

  She would think on the way.

  One hundred fifty miles out of London, the dull throb in Austin’s chest continued to plague him. Each inhalation ached and carried with it the sense that his rib cage was coming apart as it expanded. He kept his breath as shallow as he could and concentrated on keeping their rental car on the left side of the road as he drove.

  “Does it feel any worse?” Corinna asked. She sat in the passenger seat studying the book, this time for a way to free Austin from Boden’s anchor, the assumed source of the pain. Once he had grown used to the throbbing, Austin found he could still sense the outward tug. Though it was far too weak to be of use for a directional bearing, Corinna was certain it was tied to Boden, and Austin saw no reason to argue. If the pain would help them, it was worth it, right?

  “About the same,” he answered.

  “Tell me if it changes.”

  “Can you do anything about it?”

  “Just tell me.”

  “What happens if it gets worse?” Austin asked.

  “You keep asking that. I don’t know.”

  “Well what do you think will happen? Because if we can use it to find the crystal — ”

  “Aye, maybe we can use it. And maybe it’s going to kill you. And maybe I’d like to figure out how to prevent the latter. I might have a way to get you free of it, but we need to find the crystal first.”

  It sounded good to him. Recover the crystal, then fix the pain. Just hold out until then. “And after that? What’s it take once we get the crystal back?”