by Eileen Wilks
The great tail lashed in obvious irritation. Is it not obvious ? I wish to leave. I wish to take those of my kind who still live and leave Dis. Something like a mental sigh whispered along the edges of Lily’s mind. We are losing.
“This is what you’ve wanted all along, isn’t it?” the other Lily demanded suddenly. ‘This is why you captured us. You wanted to leave hell. Only I don’t see how you knew they’d come for us.“
I didn’t. I had… another way in mind.
Cullen shook his head. “I’m sorry for your people. But a gate large enough for you to fly through can’t be tied to a person. It would destroy her.”
For the first time the little demon spoke, its voice wobbly. “But you’re a Great Singer. You said they couldn’t win without you. How come you aren’t winning?”
In her madness, Xitil has been quite clever. She—or the One she ate—made an alliance with the one you know as Tegelgor, lord of the realm to the south. In return for a large number of his lower demons, she has abandoned her region to him. She enters our land with every demon, every imp, every creature from her realm. We cannot fight such numbers.
“Tegelgor!” the demon squeaked. “Abandoned it? No, even crazy she wouldn’t… all her demons? I didn’t… I wasn’t called to her. I felt a tug, but not a summons. She’s got all my names. If she wanted me—”
You, too, have diverged, little demon.
What did that mean? Never mind. They were running out of time. “Where’s Max, dammit?”
“Wait a minute, Lily.” Cullen walked up to her. “I hate to admit it, but the dragon is right about one thing. I should check.”
“How?”
He made a graceful gesture with one hand, murmuring something in that liquid language he’d used before, and frowned. Then he turned to the other one, the other her, and repeated it. He lost all of the color in his face. “Hell. The gate’s jumping between the two of you. Oscillating.”
“Then if we both do it—if we stand together and cut our palms—”
He was shaking his head. “When it’s in her, it’s stuck in the closed position. She’s got your… she’s a sensitive.
You’re the only one who can open the gate, but when it’s in her, you can’t open it. Your—her—Gift won’t let you.“
“But if she’s close enough to being me for the gate to jump between us, why wouldn’t my Gift know me?” she cried. “It is me.”
Because, as the sorcerer said, you have diverged. A spell, even one wrought by ritual, is a crude working compared to your Gift, Lily Yu. Your Gift recognizes differences between you that the gate cannot.
Her Gift didn’t recognize her? She rubbed her forehead. “I’m out of ideas, here.”
Then accept some of mine. I will do my best to shield you from—
He broke off in mid-thought. With unbelievable speed for so large a creature, he sprang for the sky. The wind from his wings knocked her down, so in that first second she didn’t see what he was springing at.
Then she wished she hadn’t.
It was long and red, the color of blood that’s not quite dry. It had way too many short legs on the back two-thirds of its wormlike body, every one tipped in claws. And though its body was smaller than the dragon’s, its wings were every bit as large, veined like a bat’s.
The front third of its body was jaws. laws rimmed with teeth like the red-eyes‘, and when it opened those jaws and screamed, she saw all the way down its gullet.
It had the advantage on the dragon, swooping down at him from above, those jaws gaping. Sam flew straight at it. At the last second, he twisted. His jaws closed on one of those enormous wings and he twisted his neck, shredding the membrane. His wings beat hard, and he started to pull away.
Rule howled. Lily spun around even as he raced past her—raced to where the other Lily was even now turning, staring up at one of the red-eyes perched on a ledge above her, jaw gaping in evil imitation of the fanged worm battling the dragon overhead.
It leaped. And collided with Rule in mid-air.
They fell in a snarling, slashing tangle. Lily raised her weapon, but there was no chance to get a shot in without hitting Rule. She moved closer. Blood sprayed out, spattering her.
Rule’s blood. Oh, God, his side—
“Get back!” Cynna shouted.
“You can’t shoot! You’ll kill him!”
“I’m not using a gun! Move, dammit!”
She looked over her shoulder—and moved quickly away.
Cynna stood just behind her with one arm straight up, the other straight out, pointed at the rolling mass of wolf and demon. Her lips were moving, but Lily couldn’t hear her over the snarls and howls. And there was a bloody light streaming from her hand.
It didn’t travel like light. The ugly red glow crossed the space between her and the battling animals sluggishly— too slow, too slow! Rule was down—he wasn’t moving. Lily pulled her weapon to her shoulder again—
And the light hit. The demon stiffened and fell down dead.
“Sonofabitch,” came Cynna’s shocked voice. “It worked.”
Lily raced to Rule.
So did Lily.
Blood covered his side, so much blood she couldn’t see how bad it was. But it was bad. She knew it. His breathing was labored, his eyes closed. She looked up. A shock went through her as she met her own eyes.
“Leave now,” the one in blue said. “You have to go right away and take him where he can heal. To a—a hospital.” She said the word as if it was new to her. “He’ll die here.”
“The gate—”
“Sam told me how to fix it.”
All at once she knew. Without knowing how, she knew what the other woman meant. Her mouth went dry. “There has to be another way.”
“Funny.” Her lips quirked up, but her eyes shone with tears. “That’s what I said.” She reached up and ripped the chain with its dangling charm from her neck. “There isn’t, though. You’re the gate.”
Slowly—knowing what she was doing, what she was accepting—Lily held out her hand.
And Lily dropped the toltoi into it. “Tell him…” She looked down and caressed Rule’s head. “Tell him how glad I was about him. How very glad.”
Lily’s fingers closed around the necklace. She could only nod as her throat closed up.
And the other one—the other her—sprang to her feet. She tugged at the top of her sarong, and it came open. “Bind him with this. He’s bleeding badly.” She tossed it to Lily—and started running. Naked, barefoot, she ran full out.
For the cliff. Straight for the edge of the cliff.
It was the little demon who understood first. “No!” it howled, and started after her, short legs pumping. “No, Lily Yu! Lily Yu, I do like you! I do! Don’t—”
She leaped.
Lily felt the air rushing past, air heavy with the scent of ocean. No, she was standing, standing on her feet, tears streaming down—down and down she fell, too far, so far from Rule—
A hammer smashed her, smashed her everywhere at once. And she died.
THIRTY-FOUR
And blinked her eyes open.
It was Cullen’s face she saw first. His arm supported her. “God,” he whispered. “Lady above. Why? Why did she… and you. Are you—”
“Not… all right, no.” Her tongue was thick. She swallowed. “The gate will work now.”
Now would be good. They are in the pass, waiting for their lord to reach it and widen it. Xitil has grown somewhat stout recently. The dragon settled to the ground near the cliff’s edge, but he didn’t fully furl his wings.
Then came another voice, small, uncertain—Gan, standing at the edge of the cliff. “I’m alive. She died, and I’m alive. That’s not right, is it?” Then, even more softly, “I did like her. I did.”
Lily sat up. The toltoi was still clutched tight in her hand. She hadn’t lost it when she… fainted. “Sam, we accept your deal. And I agree. Now is good.”
Cynna finished tying the b
lue cloth around Rule’s wounds. “Has anyone seen Max?”
Max turned out to be lying on the ground not far from the ledge the red-eye had leaped from. He was unconscious, but alive—the red-eye had probably thought it killed him when it flung him from the rocks. But gnomes are notoriously difficult to kill.
Two dragons landed. Each took off with a rider and a patient. First Cullen, who held Rule in front of him, his blood soaking the indigo cloth that had been Lily’s sarong. Then Cynna, balancing Max’s unconscious body in front of her. Then…
“You have to take me!” Gan came running up. “I’ll die. Xitil will kill me slow. She’ll pull out my eyeballs and—” The demon stopped dead in front of her, eyes wide. “You—you’re-…” She looked down at her chest, rubbed it, and looked up at Lily again. “You’re Lily Yu,” she whispered. “I feel it. The bond. Only it’s not the same.”
She nodded. “Somehow I am. I’m… both. Yes,” she said suddenly. “I’ll take you. God help me, if even death isn’t enough to get rid of you, what good would it do to leave you behind?”
She and Gan climbed on Sam’s neck, settling behind his head. The frill that looked so delicate would serve as a windbreak of sorts and give her something to grip. This would be very different, she thought, from dangling from the talons—and then the thought wisped away, and the memory that went with it.
That kept happening. She wasn’t equally both. One of her had died… or mostly died.
But her Gift was back. Sam’s magic thrummed against her skin when she climbed onto his neck, powerful and ancient. It should have been totally alien, nothing she’d ever felt before, yet… that must be one of the other’s memories, she decided, holding tight to the bony frill.
They’re here. With one huge leap, Sam plunged off the cliff, stopping her heart—but he spread his wings. Instead of falling and falling, they soared.
Much smoother to ride here instead of in the talons.
Dragons circled in the air around them. A dozen? Two?
“How many of your kind are there, Sam?” she asked.
Twenty-three remain in Dis. The demons killed ten. Once… once we were a great deal more than that, but now we are now only twenty-three.
For the first time, real emotion came through with the mental voice. Sorrow, deep and untouchable—and old, very old.
Now, Lily Yu. Open your gate, and I will sing it wide.
She pulled a small pen knife from her pocket. No fancy ritual blades were needed this time. She grimaced and stroked the edge over the scab on her left palm, and she spoke the word of opening.
Those weird geometries shifted, coming awake inside her. The air shimmered in its small rectangle, hovering there, hundreds of feet over the ocean—and the dragon began his song.
Low and deep, the bass so strong she felt it much as she heard it, he sang. Like night had been given a voice, all that was dark and hidden thrummed through her—the cold between the stars and the stars themselves. The space inside her answered—growing, pushing out hard through her, a tumbled vertigo of space, so vast, too vast. The space inside her was bigger than the space outside, and that was impossible, it—
The song changed. Suddenly Sam was in it with her— in his song and in her head, but in her belly, too, where the geometries swelled ever larger, more complex, less real. But Sam’s voice swam between her and the madness of inverted space, and Rule’s necklace was in her pocket, and death was not quite the absolute she’d always thought.
Her hands held tight to Sam’s frill as the first dragon folded its wings and arrowed into the shimmering air. And disappeared.
Rule had crossed. And Cullen. The one bearing Cynna and Max went next, as Sam sang. He sang still while the other dragons aimed themselves into the shimmer, one after another, and still he sang, coating the mad space inside her until all had crossed.
Then, at last, still singing, Sam aimed himself at that shimmer. He dove for it, and she rippled along with it…
And they were flying over another ocean, this one inky dark, with moonlight fracturing in silver glints on its waves. The moon—nearly full, and the stars—oh God, how she’d missed them!
Quickly, she said the other word Cullen had taught her. The space inside her popped like a soap bubble, and she was alone in her insides once more.
Mostly.
THERE is no inconspicuous way to land a dragon.
Sam did his best. He gathered his—flock? What do you call a swarm of dragons?—and took them to the bluff Lily and the others had set out from. But they were miles out to sea. Before they reached the shore, some bright soul had scrambled two Air Force fighter jets to pursue them.
They didn’t fire, but it made for a tense welcome home.
They had to land one at a time. The bluff wasn’t big enough for two dragons to land at once. The one bearing Cullen and Rule went first. As soon as he was down, Cullen passed Rule to one of the lupi—a brave soul, to come running up the way he had—calling out instructions as he jumped from his perch.
Lily couldn’t hear him, of course, from so high up, but Sam relayed the gist of it. Cullen’s first orders had most of the lupi holstering their weapons. The next brought Nettie running. The last one had someone fumbling for a cell phone so Cullen could call the Air Force and ask them not to fire on the nice dragons.
Sam seemed amused by that.
Cullen was talking on the phone when the second dragon landed, and Cynna and Max climbed down.
Apparently, Max had regained consciousness while several hundred feet in the air. It hadn’t exactly sweetened his temper.
Then it was her turn. And Gan’s.
What in the world was she going to do with a tame demon? She sure hoped Gan was tame…
Send her to the gnomes. They’ll understand her, since they are descended from demons themselves. When a demon catches a soul—
“What?” Gan cried. “What did you say about a soul?”
Lily could have sworn Sam laughed, quietly, in his mind.
They swooped down and down. She had to close her eyes as the ground rushed at them. It was too much like…
Lily Yu.
“What?” she shouted over the wind, as if that would make him hear her better.
Say hello to your grandmother for me.
Her grandmother? How did he… but they hit the ground then—not hard, but firmly. And all she could think about was getting to Rule. “We’ll talk later,” she said, swinging her leg over and sliding down. Gan plopped down beside her, and then stood there, scowling around at everyone. “I’ve got questions.”
Why does that not surprise me ? Duck.
With no more warning than that, Sam launched himself back into the sky.
Lily looked around quickly, spotted a Nokolai man she knew slightly, grabbed Gan, and thrust her toward him. “Keep an eye on her. She’s mostly a demon, but not entirely. Don’t shoot her unless you absolutely can’t avoid it.”
She took off running.
They’d loaded Rule on a stretcher and were carrying him toward Nettie’s SUV. She reached him just as they opened the back of the vehicle and stopped, staring.
He was a man again. He’d Changed and was a man again. He was also naked and bloody, with a blood-soaked length of fabric that had once been blue wadded up against the deepest wound.
Of course, she thought. He had to try. The moon is nearly full and he had to see if he would be able to Change at all—but what a risk, with him so weak from his wounds!
She missed his fur, the lovely fur she’s stroked so often… Lily blinked, disoriented, and the memory wisp fled.
He opened his eyes. “Lily?”
“Here,” she said, coming up to take his hand. “I’m right here. We’re back. We made it back.” All the way back. He’d Changed. He hadn’t lost himself to the wolf.
“I need to put him in sleep,” Nettie said firmly. “And this time, he’s going to the hospital. He’s lost a lot of blood, and I am not performing surgery in the back of this SU
V.”
“No, he’ll go to the hospital.” That’s what she’d asked. Get Rule back, get him to the hospital…
“In a minute, Nettie,” Rule said. His voice sounded wonderful. Not like he was dying, not at all. He searched her eyes. “I had the strangest dream. A terrible dream. I thought it was real. There were two of you, and one… one died.”
He’d been unconscious. She’d been sure he was unconscious. “It wasn’t a dream, but it wasn’t entirely true, either.”
“You’re…”
“Both. I think.”
“Enough,” Nettie said, and laid her hand on his forehead.
Slowly his expression eased, his eyes drooping. “Yes,” he murmured. “That’s right. You’re Lily.”
His hand relaxed, releasing hers, as he slipped into the healing sleep that was Nettie’s Gift. Finally, the knots of tension in her shoulders began to relax.
Maybe it was just that simple. “Yeah,” she whispered. “I am, aren’t I?”
EPILOGUE
“At least think about it.” Rule’s throat was tight with frustration.
“No.” Isen was blunt, as usual. “Not unless you give me some powerful reason to reconsider. Which you haven’t.”
Oh, but he had. Isen just wouldn’t listen. Rule sat on the edge of his damned hospital bed and fought the urge to howl… though maybe he shouldn’t suppress that particular urge. Maybe his father would believe him then. “The Lu Nuncio must have control.” The words came out clipped. “I don’t.”
Isen waved that away. “It’s temporary.”
“I Changed!” The words burst out. “Here in the damned hospital, when the moon went full I Changed. I couldn’t stop it.”
“Hurt like hell, too, I imagine. Good thing you warned Glen ahead of time.”
Glen was one of the guards keeping reporters out of Rule’s room. Last night he’d had to keep the doctors and nurses out, too, until Rule mustered the will to Change back.
It had taken him a good half hour, and the ache to stay wolf, to feel and smell the world more fully, remained. “That makes it all right, I suppose,” Rule said bitterly. “I can’t control the Change anymore, but as long as I warn someone—”