Dragonfang

by Paul Collins

  Jelindel collected the pentacle gem and the drones and left the Dragonfang at a run.

  The Duke of Mordicar’s temple looked more like a fortified villa than a place where arcane rites were likely to be performed. The walls were high and thick enough to slow down a group of cavalry raiders long enough for the Duke’s private guards to man the defences, and light a beacon pyre to signal for help from the garrison at Mordicar.

  Jelindel arrived on a hired horse, wearing light but expensive clothes that she had bought in Mordicar an hour earlier. Her tanned skin and sun-bleached hair were not conspicuous in this part of the continent, but she had visited a bathhouse to smooth out the more obvious signs of her recent sea voyage. An introduction was all she needed, but in order to get that she needed to be taken seriously.

  Not far from the temple she spied a small house on a pair of enormous chicken legs. A pair of very large wings protruded from the sides of the house. Several men on stepladders beneath the port wing appeared to be working on an enormous splint for a broken bone.

  ‘Aye then, sound the test warning,’ called one of the men, and a large beak that protruded from the front of the house bellowed BUK BUK BUKCAW! Although Jelindel nearly fell from her horse, the peasants working in the nearby fields did not even look up. The wings began to move up very slowly. They descended again and locked vertically.

  ‘Not bad. We could take the splint off tomorrow,’ another man called. ‘After that, serious flight testing.’

  Flight testing? Jelindel pondered. As she passed by, the enormous chicken legs walked a few yards, then squatted. Branches and leaves began to grow out of the roof. Never get me up in a thing like that, mused Jelindel.

  She presented herself as an itinerant Adept at the temple gates, and gave the gatekeeper a scrawled note of introduction. He sent for the steward, who could read, and the steward escorted Jelindel into the cloisters to await her summons. In order to establish his authority, the Duke wanted to keep Jelindel waiting. But the message he had been given contained the words ‘pentacle gem’.

  While Jelindel waited she could hear the many sounds of the temple: the tolling of bells, the whispering of leather sandals scuffing the polished tiles as maids hurried about their work, the intermittent conversation of guards unusually alert at their posts. The temple and its adjacent buildings were full to capacity, yet there was an absence of the cooking smells that would indicate a great feast for the newly arrived guests. Rather, she smelt the fear in the air, and the perspiration of visitors unaccustomed to the equatorial humidity. There was an urgency about the place, a sense of nervous anticipation.

  Jelindel filled her senses with everything the temple offered, and decided it was an unsavoury place. She felt some relief when her wait proved to be brief.

  The Duke of Mordicar entered the antechamber a mere three minutes after her arrival. His attire was rich in mauves and magenta, his boots, of polished brown leather, covered his knees in courtly fashion. And the sword that hung from his waist was definitely not ceremonial.

  Despite the warmth outside, the temple’s thick stone walls maintained an even cool temperature inside. Jelindel found herself wishing that she had purchased slightly warmer garments – it seemed the Duke was a stickler for court fashion.

  The Duke stood beneath a guttering oil lamp. His coat of arms showed an embroidered snarling dragon’s head complete with fiery breath; not a crest Jelindel recognised.

  ‘My steward said that you were interested in selling a pentacle gem,’ he said, looking speculatively at Jelindel. ‘If that is true, you are welcome indeed. If false, you will leave here with your feet tied to your horse’s tail, after your horse has been given a good feeding of purgatives.’

  ‘A highly imaginative punishment,’ Jelindel said, off-handedly. All the same, her stomach tightened at the Duke’s candour. ‘But one that will be unnecessary. No, the word “selling” is the only small bend in the truth,’ she explained. ‘I actually intend to give it to you in return for a small favour.’

  The Duke looked at her shrewdly then dismissed his lackeys with a click of his fingers. When the doors closed behind them, he said, ‘So? And what is that?’

  ‘I must be allowed to use your ringstone circle to get home.’

  Doubt registered on the Duke’s face. ‘You – you are not of our world?’ he exclaimed. He stepped closer and peered at her.

  It wasn’t the amount of incredulity that Jelindel had expected, but it was enough. ‘Correct.’

  ‘I cannot see a problem with that, as long as you have a pentacle gem in the first place. May I see it before we continue?’

  Jelindel opened her hand to reveal a ruby-coloured pentacle gem. The Duke’s eyes widened, then narrowed just as quickly. ‘It’s a fake.’

  It was Jelindel’s turn to feel alarm, but she hid it before it surfaced. ‘It’s not glowing as it should within range of the others,’ she said. ‘A simple cloaking device.’ She ran her fingers over the gem’s surface and mumbled a word of cleansing.

  The gem shimmered with a lambent light.

  The Duke’s hand twitched in Jelindel’s direction. She closed her fingers over the gem again.

  ‘Well?’ she asked. ‘Are you satisfied?’

  ‘If it is genuine, we appear to have a deal – but any carnival spell vendor can make objects glow. There is one way to be certain, of course. Come with me. You have arrived at a most fortuitous time – my other guests are also waiting.’

  Jelindel quelled her alarm and smiled. She had hoped to look around before committing herself to the ringstone circle. Although Lady Forturian had instructed her in the ceremony of stone circle rites, it was a different matter altogether to plunge into one without due preparation.

  The ringstone was in the open air, in the centre of the temple courtyard. The five stones were neatly chiseled columns. Each one had a little concave in the top and a single emerald stud to mark the exact centre.

  Three separate groups of servants escorted the first three pentacle gems from their vaults within the temple. No one person or group was allowed to have access to all three at the same time. A small squad of guards in Skeltian armour carried the box with the fourth gem. The great doors to the courtyard were closed and guards took their positions beside them. The rite could not be interrupted.

  ‘The fourth pentacle gem belongs to the Preceptor,’ the Duke explained, pleasantly. ‘It is only here on loan, for our mutual benefit.’

  Jelindel saw a hawk-faced man watching the proceedings from a distance. He was flanked by a pair of guards. The Preceptor, without a doubt. The man who had quite possibly signed her family’s death warrant. The man, who, with his Adept 12 Fa’red, was the most powerful man on the continent.

  The Duke donned a plain black silken robe. His retainer belted the robe, adjusted the cowl and fixed a silver clasp.

  ‘I take it you have fasted, Jaelin?’ the Duke asked.

  ‘For three days,’ she lied. Apart from two dry biscuits, she had fasted for six weeks of ‘normal’ time, since the last meal she had eaten at Lady Forturian’s had been lunch in her alternate time.

  ‘Excellent, excellent,’ the Duke said. ‘Then there shan’t be any mishaps. It’s important the rite be performed according to the rules of such things. Now take your position.’

  Jelindel bowed and joined the ceremonial party. She noted that neither the Preceptor nor Fa’red had stepped forward to insert their pentacle gem in the ringstone. Perfect.

  They waited while retainers lit consecrated incense candles set in iron sconces. The pungent scent of blackwood and hoop-grass hung in the air. A gong boomed for five sonorous counts. A hushed expectancy washed over Jelindel, as though all her training, the sum total of her experience, had led her to this moment.

  One by one, the pentacle gems were ceremoniously lifted from their containers and placed in each stone’s concave. Finally, it was Jelindel’s turn. She took the fire gem between her thumb and forefinger and placed it in the concave of
the fifth stone.

  She didn’t immediately join the dignitaries and their retainers in the procession. They shuffled three times around the ringstone, each sprinkling salt to purify and protect the space they were about to create. A sombre chanting of the Om mantra rose from the retainers as they drew pentagrams to banish the negative energy. The mantra was one word only, chanted end over end in one monotonous drone. Jelindel moved slowly towards the chanters, but kept within the consecrated circle.

  The Duke stood by the north point with his hands held aloft in open supplication, and invoked the elements of fire, air, earth and water. The procession stopped, and drew invoking pentagrams for positive energy.

  The chanting rose in crescendo as the core of power strengthened. The air stilled and Jelindel felt a tingling energy run through her. She had read the runes of the portal spell in The Book of Alchemorum, but hearing them invoked in the Duke’s booming voice, the bass chanting and the Duke’s intricate gesticulations, Jelindel realised that the Duke had also been trained in the arts. But had his mentor read correctly the formula hidden within the runes, as Lady Forturian had? Jelindel hoped not.

  The Duke thanked the elements in turn and dismissed them, releasing the excess power back into the earth. Trance-like, the chanters now visualised a paraplane portal.

  A slight wind hissed throughout the courtyard, whisking the dust into eddying whirlpools that battered and stung the gathering. The closed doors shook on their hinges. Everyone stood their ground. The spell was starting to work. Fine lines of energy were forming a matrix in the centre of the ringstone.

  The Duke’s voice rang with unflagging power. The words of enchantment boomed above the now howling wind. ‘Ashstillin!’

  Eyes clenched shut against the stinging wind and the brilliance of the portal, the chanters took up the call. ‘Ashstillin!’ echoed between the four walls of the courtyard.

  The portal shimmered, faded, then was called back by the powerful incantation. The spherical portal solidified and swallowed the wind like water pouring into a drain.

  Magic is a little like fencing. You have to actually do it to learn the subtle aspects. It was stated in The Book of Alchemorum, stolen from the Hazarian library by the Preceptor, that one should stand within the circle and chant certain spells once the last pentacle gem was in place. What the book had failed to mention was that from the instant the gem was placed on the standing stone, the circle would be surrounded by a sphere of unreality. Thus making it absolutely impenetrable.

  Now or never, thought Jelindel. She ran to the first column and replaced the pentacle gem with one of Lady Forturian’s drones. Fluctuations in the transference disturbed the portal’s calling, causing the Duke to gasp with alarm. He called to Jelindel to get back.

  Ignoring him, Jelindel made it to the second and third columns before the Duke realised his mistake. He ordered his men into the sphere. Several rushed forward but were instantly incinerated.

  ‘Kill her!’ he screamed at his archers.

  The Preceptor’s men saw the Duke’s men stringing their bows. Assuming that the Duke had decided to dispose of the Preceptor now that he had a fifth gem, they charged across the lawn.

  Jelindel knew nothing of the fighting. She ripped a fine chain from around her neck. It held a blue teardrop pendant. A daemon by the name of T’rr’ll had given her two of them.

  Said to open transition gates to paraworlds, Jelindel prayed that they did, in fact, work. She then spoke a name-seeking incantation. A side of the blackness surrounding her began to lighten.

  ‘Ril’kss,’ Jelindel said, repeating T’rr’ll’s spell.

  Reality warped in and out of focus as though viewed through a blurred farsight. Jelindel edged towards what appeared to be a mirage bubbling the air around her. A sphere of pulsating energy rippled like a disturbed pond and, with the briefest of hesitation, she stepped through it.

  Chapter 17

  RESCUE

  The fiery sphere opened onto a hall of green and white stone. It was well lit, and very spacious. On the floor was a thick, richly decorated rug, and on the rug was a scatter of bars with stones attached to their ends. A man lay on his back in the centre of the rug. As Jelindel watched, he lifted a bar, keeping his arms straight until they were above his chest. Then he slowly lowered it again. He was wearing only trousers, and she could see that his muscles were well-defined, although not massive. It seemed to her that he was halfway between Daretor’s muscular build and Zimak’s thin frame.

  The man sat up, sweat gleaming on his face. Zimak’s face. It was Zimak after a great deal of exercise and careful dieting. A well-trimmed beard covered his chin.

  The man noticed the hole that had opened amid the hangings on the wall. Scratching his head, he moved to where a pile of clothes and armour lay. He picked up a sword and backed away slowly to the door.

  The sphere held steady. According to Lady Forturian, the bridge between worlds was normally a sphere open at two sides, each end in a different world. This particular one only opened into one, because Jelindel had studied the properties of the gems in more detail than the Duke. This was one of many options available.

  Before her, Zimak backed away further, his sword held up and at the ready. Jelindel realised that the blue teardrop had collapsed in her hand. She let the powder fall to the floor, but put the anchor gem into her pouch. Somehow, T’rr’ll’s transition gate pendant had been imprinted with Zimak’s mind. Or, perhaps, Daretor was nearby.

  ‘So, Zimak, we meet again.’ She winced inwardly. Even to her own ears she sounded too formal.

  Daretor stared for a moment. It was Jelindel dressed as a boy again. The last time he had seen her, she had declared her femininity and let loose her hair. What was the little vixen up to now?

  ‘Jelindel? Or is it Jaelin? What trickery is this?’

  ‘I’m Jaelin at present,’ she said, folding her arms. ‘No tricks. I’m not even armed.’ Jelindel held her hands out, palms raised. The last time he had seen her she had shot him with a weapon called a thundercast.

  Daretor lowered his sword, but said nothing. His face contorted with the effort to understand what his eyes were seeing, and his mind denying. Jelindel/Jaelin returned like some demi god from a miraculous hole in the wall. Surely Zimak and Premiel were teasing him with some cheap conjuring trick.

  Jelindel regarded him candidly. It seemed Zimak was either too flabbergasted to speak, or he was so furious with her that he couldn’t speak.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry about what I did. Things just got out of hand – between your cunning and Daretor’s obsession with honour –’

  ‘Honour,’ Daretor growled. This was something he did understand. ‘What about your treachery? You banished us here when you got what you wanted. You used us, Jelindel. After all we did for you.’

  ‘After all you did for me?’ Jelindel echoed, astonished. ‘I saved both of you from Jabez Thull.’

  ‘And who guarded the “Mage Auditor” every time she pitted herself against unbeatable odds? Longrical. The Valley of Clouds. The King of Skelt. And for what?’ Daretor spoke rapidly, unleashing his frustration.

  ‘You wanted the mailshirt as much as I did,’ Jelindel threw back.

  ‘To destroy it,’ Daretor seethed.

  ‘And that’s just what I did.’

  ‘Prove it.’

  Jelindel shook her head. ‘That’s the Zimak I know. You haven’t changed,’ she said, tightly. How could this have gone so horribly wrong? ‘So, does Daretor know about the dragonlink ring yet?’ she asked.

  ‘I have no idea what you are saying,’ Daretor replied, warily. He halted just short of the door. If indeed this was a trick, he would not give Zimak and Premiel the satisfaction of seeing him flee the room. But if it was some sort of conjuring act, it was a damnably convincing one.

  ‘Zimak, take me for what you will, but do not take me for a fool. All your fighting skills came from a dragonlink ring encased in lead. If I had just taken that dragonlink, Daretor w
ould have noticed that your fighting skills had vanished at the same time as your supposedly lead ring.’

  The youth Jelindel thought was Zimak nodded slowly. ‘His sword skills were sucked from his body by a dragonlink ring. He has a justifiable hatred of anyone who gets their fighting skills by wearing a ring,’ he said.

  ‘True,’ Jelindel said, snagging on the word ‘justifiable’. How unlike Zimak to find anything noble to say about Daretor. His time on this paraworld had been well spent. ‘He would have started shouting about honour and chivalry, then he might have killed you. On the other hand, I needed to get all the dragonlinks together in order to destroy the mailshirt, so I made it seem as if I had betrayed both of you by flinging you into this paraworld.’

  Daretor glared at her. ‘So what are you really doing with the mailshirt now? Ruling Q’zar?’

  ‘I told you I destroyed it. Now I need to rescue you and Daretor, and get you both home. It has been difficult. Travel between paraworlds without the mailshirt is not easy. Even more difficult will be explaining to Daretor that I sent you two here because you were wearing a dragonlink.’

  Daretor let his guard down. He had suspected Zimak’s treachery from the beginning, but the cunning weasel had always lied his way out of admitting guilt. ‘Actually, explaining that will be easy. Explaining it in such a way that will prevent me from setting upon Zimak and spreading him all over the flood plain more thinly than this carpet is the real trick.’

  ‘You have the measure of my … dilemma …’ Jelindel’s voice trailed away. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked after a long silence. ‘You are Zimak. Tell me that I’m not wrong.’

  ‘Thanks to some rather creative wizardry there has been an exchange of bodies,’ said the man with Zimak’s body. ‘I was tricked into using a machine, which was supposed to take me back to Q’zar.’ Daretor froze. Had he just been tricked into giving Premiel’s people the truename of his homeworld?