by John Daulton
“Visual contact with Socrates, Livermore and Pegasus,” reported Major Kincaid. “I can’t tell who that is beyond Pegasus.”
“We’ll know soon enough,” Roberto said, “but I’m not waiting. Where the hell is our other half?”
The com crackled to life even as Roberto said the words. “T-10 to T-9, you coming, Commander Levi?”
“Waiting on you, Jackson,” he replied.
“I’m already underway,” she said. “You’re slow.”
Sure enough, Commander Jackson’s ship had only barely blinked on sensors, and then it vanished again. The signatures of transport ships T-11 and T-12 were blinking out as well. “Son of a bitch,” muttered Roberto.
“Let’s get moving then,” remarked the major. “I got fifty Marines back there who are going to take it real bad if you make them late. Won’t be safe for you to ever sleep again.”
“Never happen,” said Roberto, and a moment later he initiated the short hop that got them to Prosperion.
They came out of the jump and immediately found the other three troop carriers on sensors again. Commander Jackson’s ship was already plunging into the planet’s atmosphere, visible through the front windows as a ball of fire hurtling toward the continent of Kurr. He followed right behind, pushing the ship to its limits, not so much out of a desire to catch up or win some kind of race, but out of the need to get to the Little Earth base quickly before the wizards caught sight of them and did something terrible.
Roberto was familiar enough with what Prosperion magic could do, and he had no interest in exploring the interior of a sun, not even for an instant.
They pushed through the furnace of entry and then streaked toward the cloud-covered northwest portion of the continent, coming in at a steep angle that would take them right to the staging point.
Roberto called up a view of Little Earth when they’d cleared the gray clouds, making sure there were no Prosperions in residence inside the fortified area. There were none.
He and the other three ships landed in neat formation at almost the exact same time, but Roberto had opened the cargo ramp while his ship was still thirty feet in the air, so battle-suited Marines had been jumping out for several moments before touchdown. Major Kincaid laughed as she watched her people landing in the mud and grass. “Hell yeah,” she said. “First of the first of the first. Oorah.”
“Well, at least I don’t have to worry about horrible shit happening to me while I sleep,” he said.
“True that,” she replied. She keyed in a command on the com. “Transport Nine reporting that A-Company is on the ground, Colonel.”
“Roger that, Major. We’re five minutes out. Secure perimeter.”
“Roger.” She looked to Roberto. “This is going to be fun.”
Roberto’s expression was grim. “Don’t forget what Asad said. I’m telling you, we’ve been here. This is no bullshit. They may look like a bunch of weirdos from a Renaissance fair, but they’re not. They will fuck you up and hand you back your ass if you don’t watch it.”
“We’ll watch it,” she said. She clapped him on the shoulder and said, “Thanks for the ride,” before heading back to suit up herself.
Twenty minutes later, Little Earth was fortified, a hundred and fifty Marines inside and two hundred and fifty more moving out across the plains, the advanced “diplomatic” force, their destination: Crown City and the Queen.
Chapter 19
Given the dire nature of Orli’s venomous predicament, Altin hated the twelve hours he’d had to spend getting prepared to go. He’d lost a lot of time learning concealment illusions and cold enchantment spells, but the largest portion of that time had been spent on how to enchant cold around himself and his dragon, particularly the dragon. He needed to be quick, to rush and be on his way, but he also understood that if he chose to ignore that part of Ocelot’s divination, he’d likely be of no use to Orli at all. And so he’d set himself to the tasks and tried desperately not to let the incredible pressure of time distract him as he worked and researched. Unfortunately, and despite his intentions in that regard, from there events seemed to conspire against him anyway.
At first, he’d had some luck, for the hiding illusions were common military spells. He’d had enough experience with those in the past to know exactly which books held them, and so for that part of his research, the work was easy. And even for the cold spell, which he hadn’t known, he’d still found one right away, for it turned out that volcanic expeditions had been enchanting the linings of their clothing with such magic for centuries. Altin simply took that spell—once he’d found it—and turned his robes inside out before enchanting them. When it was done, he turned them right-side out, and, just like that, he had what he needed … for himself. All of that was reasonably easy to accomplish, and it had only been the work of four of the twelve hours to get it done, so at first, he thought he was making great progress.
The rest of the time, however, had been spent for things that were quite out of his control. He lost two more hours by the fact he’d fallen asleep—which he couldn’t help, as he’d simply collapsed from exhaustion and didn’t realize it until he fell out of the chair and landed on his face—and the other four hours had been spent in devising a means of getting the cold enchantment on the dragon, who wore no clothing and, therefore, had nothing upon which Altin could cast the spell. Oh, how it’s always the unexpected and little things that vex one in the end!
With a bit more reading, Altin found that the cold enchantment could be carried and delivered using an unctuous fluid, but the only oils he had available at Calico Castle were flammable, which made using them a terrible idea, considering the intended object of it all was a fire-breathing dragon upon which he intended to sit. He’d had to spend precious time in simply seeking an oil that wouldn’t have them both bursting into flames should Taot need to use his fiery breath, which seemed likely given where they were about to go. He did eventually find one that would work, but it turned out to be a very unique perfume. He’d lost more time in locating it, spent a small fortune buying it, and worst of all, lost nearly an hour getting the enchantment cast into it. This in turn became the source of a new problem, costing more time, because after all of that hasty work, Taot simply refused to be doused in the flowery smelling stuff at all. It simply went against everything the dragon understood, being that he was a creature that had evolved as a predator.
Altin had tried anyway, despite the dragon’s initial refusal on the point. He’d poured a gallon of the enchanted perfume into a bucket and approached Taot with pail and mop in hand, planning to use the mop like a paintbrush and cover the dragon thoroughly. But Taot leapt away from him, giving one great flap of his wings, which threw up a rush of air and blasted the determined mage with sand and tiny bits of bone. The dragon roared as he came to rest near the cave wall, and he shot his head forward like a striking viper, blowing out a noxious cloud of acidic gas in protest.
Altin staggered back as the cloud hit him, coughing and wheezing, and he nearly tripped over a buffalo skull. He caught his balance, but dropped his mop and bucket in his haste to wipe his burning eyes. The dragon sometimes gassed him like that for fun, but the cloud he sent this time had far more toxicity. Taot wasn’t joking this time.
“By the gods, villain!” Altin gasped, blinking frantically as tears poured down his face. “You’ll be the death of us all.”
Eventually he could see again, which revealed that he’d just dumped some twenty gold pieces worth of the perfume into a jumble of rocks and broken bones lying nearby. The area now radiated cold in an unseen, dome-shaped expanse of frigid air spanning two paces all around. Altin shook his head. He should have known this would happen.
He tried once more to convince Taot how important it was to get to Orli right away, but the dragon backed all the way up against the wall as Altin approached, working into a corner with his head drawn back, his neck arced to strike and a growl in his throat, entirely ready for combat.
; Altin huffed. Infernal creature!
He teleported himself back to Calico Castle to see if he could find a masking spell for the perfume, something to hide it so the dragon wouldn’t know. He found one readily enough, but it cost him another half hour to learn, and by the time he got it cast on the kegs of perfume, the whole project had burned up nearly half the day.
Finally back in Taot’s lair, he tried again, and while the dragon couldn’t smell the perfume anymore, he still knew what it was. He growled and rumbled some more and sent another cloud of gas billowing Altin’s way.
The young mage stepped out of its path this time, expecting as much now, and at that point, he had finally had enough. He filled his mind with a great surge of mana and pulsed it at the dragon like a bloating thing, a caldera of raw might pressed directly against Taot’s mind. He filled it with the heat of a fireball that he’d not yet cast, the essence of the one he was about to conjure if Taot did not stop fighting with him, one big enough and hot enough to be a problem even for the dragon’s fireproof hide. Doing so reminded Altin of the day he’d first tamed the beast, threatening him with his own natural weaponry. Fire. He pressed the heat of that warning across the mana into the dragon’s own mythothalamus, squeezing down upon it hard enough that the dragon actually let out a yelp.
Then Altin let the mana go, the spell uncast, just a warning. But Taot knew. He was reminded who was the stronger of them if push came to shove. He snaked his head forward, low to the ground, and tilted it sideways, leaving the underside of his neck partially exposed.
“I have no need of that,” Altin said, sending soothing thoughts to his longtime friend. “I just can’t fight with you anymore. Orli needs us now.” He sent the dragon the sense of urgency, the sense of danger for a mate, which roused the dragon’s ire. He then went for the enchanted perfume and raised the mop up once again.
Taot grumbled but, in the end, let Altin do what had to be done. Altin slathered Taot with the magic mixture, wiping him down with it as if it were whitewash and Taot a thing in need of paint, a big one that took considerable time to cover thoroughly. Altin worked as quickly as he could, but too much was at stake to be careless now.
Altin was panting by the time it was done, his breath visible in foggy clouds as he exhaled, the air made frigid now by the enchantment coming off of the dragon’s hide. Altin hadn’t noticed the cold on his own clothes, as the cold radiated away, but with Taot, it was different. The chill made it frightfully miserable work, but when it was through, he was confident that whatever it was that enabled the Earth people to see body heat, they wouldn’t be seeing any coming off of the dragon or his rider now.
With the cold enchantments in place, he added a complex illusion that masked sight, sound and smell—for humans at least—and having finally completed their magical camouflage, it was time to go to Earth.
He sent Taot the vision Ocelot had given of where they were about to go, an image of the fortress city that was a “pattern without pattern.” He showed it to him and prepared him for the impending and instantaneous change of scenery. With a pat on the neck to assure him once more that there were no hard feelings, Altin, with little more than a thought, teleported them both to planet Earth.
They arrived in the air several hundred spans above the great fortress, which appeared to be an incredible sprawl of nearly identical reflective constructions precisely as Ocelot’s vision had shown that it would be. It was the first time Altin had ever teleported somewhere he hadn’t been to before or hadn’t at least found with seeing magic of his own. While he was awed by the scale of the fortress city, he couldn’t help but also be awed by the magical gifts of the girl-creature, Ocelot. So much power resided in a diviner with a Z.
There was little time for reflection, however, for immediately upon appearing, Taot banked hard, as if he’d seen something, despite there being nothing to avoid. He let go a massive roar as he did it and even blew out a short breath of flame.
Altin was sure that only he could hear the roar, as they were both wrapped in the concealment of his hiding spells, but the fire likely shot out beyond the range of his enchantment, and Altin could only hope no one far below happened to be looking up right then, right in time to see a yellow tongue of flame suddenly appearing out of the otherwise empty stretch of bright blue sky. And that was not the only one the dragon blew.
Taot behaved as if he were afflicted with something approaching panic, and Altin sent him calming thoughts as best he could, but with little effect. Despite knowing what they were doing before they’d come, at least as well as a dragon could understand the concept of going to another world, Taot could not help reacting as he did. This place was like nothing the great reptile had ever experienced before, and the smells alone were overwhelming in the alien atmosphere. The idea of “another world” simply hadn’t meant anything to him until they’d actually arrived. Now he knew, and it frightened him.
While there were familiar scents, pollens from trees and grasses that he recognized as something natural, Taot had never smelled exhaust fumes or any of the chemicals being discharged into the air. The sky was thick with an olfactory attack on everything he knew, and Taot wheeled and raged aloud, spraying the air with fire in a disoriented fit of fear.
Altin could only hold on for dear life during the first several minutes as Taot swooped and rolled and dived. He worried as he did so that Taot’s tantrum would be the end of them both, which in turn would mean the end of Orli. Fortunately, however, as Taot’s fit had them plunging toward the fortress in a dive of terrifying verticality, the air blasting against the dragon’s face and roaring in his ears combined with Altin’s pressing mellow thoughts, together helped calm the dragon down. It helped further, once Taot was more in control of himself, that Altin could now fathom the nature of the dragon’s insecurities, mainly the noisome assault upon his nose.
Though never having been there before, the magician was able to persuade the dragon that the alien smells were normal for “this part of the world.” He sent the dragon the sense of gasses from geysers and volcanic dust on Prosperion, strange things, awful things. He then sent memories of the acid smells coming off the cook fires of the desert nomads. He sent the smells he knew from the avenue of tanners in Leekant. He even reminded him of the perfume he’d wiped all over his scaly hide, conveying the essence of its artificiality, and yet that it was also simply a thing made by men. The dragon seemed to understand that, that men made their own foul smells. Whether ironically or inevitably, he actually understood it best by the experience with the perfume, and so Altin’s argument made perfect sense to him. He understood then that they had come to a place that was filled with too much humanity. Foul, but bearable. In a way, he even recognized that the artificiality was natural in a way, normal in the way of reeking harpy caves and odious skunk dens. Just as easily as that, Taot was himself again.
Altin agreed with his assessment, mostly in conciliatory fashion, and then refreshed the purpose of their trip. With all this about odor, the point was for the dragon to find Orli’s scent. He sent this idea to the dragon, along with images of her. Taot recognized her immediately and was actually grateful to have something worthwhile to search for in the cacophony of alien smells.
To help, Altin put the image from Ocelot’s scratch into Taot’s mind again, letting him know that the divined version matched what they saw with their own eyes. He tried to hide the fact that he couldn’t even begin to direct the dragon where to go from there, for as predicted, the whole place appeared to be almost all the same beneath them. If anything even began to seem like a unique construct, like a landmark standing out from the buildings and structures around it, a few moments looking would reveal others identical to it somewhere nearby. It was like spotting weeds amongst tall grass, at first one would appear, then another not too far away, and more and more until there were lots of them dotting off into the distance in every direction with such regularity he’d wonder how he hadn’t noticed them all along. It was confoundin
g, but Taot sent back that he understood, and for the first time since appearing above Earth, the dragon’s movements were sure. The sweep of his wings became strong and purposeful, and he carried them down toward the massive monotony of the fortress below.
As they flew toward the rooftops, they had to veer from time to time to avoid crossing the paths of the various aircraft flying past or that rose up out of square or hexagonal holes that slowly opened in the surface of the city. Some of the vessels were similar in appearance to the small ships Orli’s people had brought to Little Earth, long boxy things, built for function more than for speed, but others looked far more sinister. There were several varieties that were all black, flat and smooth, with rigid wings sweeping back from their noses like arrowheads. These flew with bright lights that roared from their back ends and with precision to the shape of the flames that suggested something far different than dragon’s fire. He thought briefly of the first time he’d encountered the long, clumsy-seeming Earth starships in space, trying to stand their ground in close combat with the slippery movements of the Hostile orbs. Out there, that fire seemed absurdly inefficient, but here, it gave these vessels frightening speed. He watched as they flitted about like enormous armored hummingbirds, their movements almost as unlikely as the Hostiles. He found himself suddenly very self-conscious about the efficacy of his enchantment spells. If one of those things spotted them, he did not think that he and Taot could get away. And he wasn’t quite sure what he would do about fighting them. If they had the red-light lasers that he knew they most likely did, he doubted he’d have time to do anything about it. Should one of them see through his enchantment spells, likely that would be the end. Which meant he needed to find Orli fast.