Dragon Rigger

by Jeffrey A. Carver

  Perhaps he had been too abrupt, he realized, pulling away hastily. He studied Jael, her underrealm presence shimmering darkly. How could he do this? Finally, he allowed himself to become visible again in the cavern, in his animal form—so that all of them, including Hodakai and the other riggers, could see and hear him. He hoped this appearance would seem less threatening. He padded across the cavern floor to Jael, who was peering out of her cell of ice in lonely desperation. Her spaceship glimmered, half visible, behind her; and nearby, in the fractured rigger-net, Jarvorus could just make out the forms of the tall rigger, Ar, and the strange little green rigger that was called Ed.

  He raised his head to meet Jael's eyes. I've changed my intentions, he murmured. I'm . . . on your side now. Ignoring her sputtering of disbelief and the outcries from all of them, he continued quickly, You must believe me. Time is very short.

  Believe you? Jael answered. Never!

  Jarvorus hissed and shook his head. You must! My master plans to kill you—and not just that, but to do it in the presence of the dragons. That will complete the prophecy—and the sorcery. But I think I can help you.

  Help? She laughed bitterly. Are you going to save me?

  I—I can't stop you from dying, Jael. But . . . if you would choose another time, and another way, I can help you do that. It would be better for you—and for your side!

  Jael was unmoved. You want me to step into another of your traps!

  Even as she made her sarcastic reply, Jarvorus was wondering when Rent would be coming. If he did not convince her and perform the deed before Rent came, he could do nothing. Instead of answering her sarcasm, he plunged ahead to explain.

  You are the key, Jael—key to the Master's final victory. The dragons are to be kept from reuniting with the Dream Mountain and their draconae—and the despair of the dragons is his most powerful weapon. The one you call the Nail knows that the dragons' only hope is your appearance, as the One of the prophecy.

  Jael whispered, Then, damn you, why don't you let me go to help them?

  I wish I could! Jarvorus cried. But this spell is not my spell. I haven't the power to unlock it. The Words say that you must fall, and the Master has already planned how that will happen—in a great battle that is even now taking shape. A battle which the dragons cannot hope to win without you.

  Jael stared at him in silence, and so did Hodakai and the other riggers. The small green rigger was making futile rasping sounds. They all seemed equally incredulous.

  He continued nevertheless. When the dragons see you die in battle, they will lose all hope. They know the Words: "The One will fall as the battle is fought . . ."

  And Jael whispered, finishing the words for him: "Upon her death is the ending wrought."

  Yes, Jarvorus answered. And then the dragons and the Dream Mountain will be severed forever. They will die. The ifflings will die. And neither the Dream Mountain nor the draconae will be able to stop the completion of the Master's web of power.

  Touching the rigger-net, he again showed Jael, and her shipmates, a visible image of what would happen. He showed them the despair of the dragons and draconae transforming the living energy of the Dream Mountain so that it would strengthen, rather than oppose, the Nail's sorcery. And then he said, as the riggers began to protest, I cannot free you in your present form. But I think I can free you from your life. That startled them into silence. He added quickly, I can free you from your part in the sorcery.

  There was a moment's hesitation—and then the rigger Ar answered furiously, What do you mean, you can free her from her life? Do you mean, KILL her?

  Jarvorus paused. That's right, he said softly.

  The hatred that poured out from Ar was an almost physical force. From Jael, there was still a puzzled, angry silence—she might not have been able to hear Ar's words. Jarvorus spoke again. You would have to help me . . . by allowing it. If you choose to die, it may be that you can thwart the sorcery. The Words do not say how the One is to die. But my Master's plan calls for your unwilling death, for your defeat. If you give yourself, at a time of your choosing, you may not be defeated. I do not know what the prophecies say about this, but . . . He hesitated. There was much he did not know. He was making many guesses, and hoping that Jael would agree with them, and that they would be right.

  He continued haltingly, It may even be that . . . you can be saved, in death. If you can reach out . . . if you can find Dream Mountain as the ifflings once found it, as the dragons find the Final Dream Mountain . . . perhaps you will be able to reach your friends the dragons . . . then.

  Perhaps? hissed Ar. Perhaps?

  Jarvorus walked slowly around the imprisoned riggers, gazing at Jael in her cell; and studying Ar, half concealed within the net, along with the fluttering green rigger; and turning at last to Hodakai. I did not speak truth to you, when first we met, he said to Hodakai. Especially regarding myself, and Rent. The rigger-spirit flickered in his jar, but said nothing. He turned back to Jael and said, Here is truth. I can promise nothing—except freedom.

  Death, said Ar; and from the spark in Jael's eye, it seemed that she'd heard him.

  Death, Jarvorus agreed. But perhaps not in vain. Jarvorus paused. Jael . . . it is because I have shared in your thoughts, and known you . . . that I have decided to offer this. You have shown me a way I did not know before. He peered into Jael's thoughts. He saw fear there, and distrust. But also a willingness to listen.

  I do not blame you for distrusting me. But there is no other escape from what Rent and the Nail have planned.

  Ar interrupted, his voice echoing strangely. Jarvorus shifted the underweb slightly so that Ar could be heard more easily.—you say not in vain. You offer vague promises. Why should we believe you?

  Because you have no other hope. I offer no promises, except freedom for Jael. It may be the final release—the final death. Jarvorus hesitated, trying to find certainty among all the uncertainties in what he was suggesting. The Masters, the Nail and Rent, will kill her anyway. That is certain. But her death now, at her choosing, not theirs, will strike a blow against their plans. Against their sorcery. As, I believe, you struck a blow once before.

  The others stared at him.

  They have not forgotten the Black Peak! Not at all. Yes, I heard you tell of it. And I wish to help you defeat them again.

  Why? Jael whispered.

  Jarvorus sat up, gazing at her. He said, in a deep, throaty voice, I do not like them. I do not like what they do. I wish to . . . hurt them.

  Ar answered in slow, soft words. By deceiving her, as you deceived her once already? How do we know this isn't precisely the way the Enemy plans to kill her?

  Jarvorus pondered that. He looked at Hodakai, whose nervous dance had stopped. He looked at Ar, who was studying him with fierce, purplish eyes. He looked at the small green rigger, who had quieted and was peering intently back at him. And he looked at Jael, who was not looking at him at all, but staring into space. And he said, Hodakai, you know something of the Nail's plans. You know that they plan to take her into battle, and to kill her there, against her will. He paused, but Hodakai was silent.

  He turned back to Jael and pressed his paws to the ice, gazing in at her. I will open my thoughts to you. All there is to see. Study me, and judge.

  Jael, behind her prison wall of ice, slowly turned her eyes to his.

  Chapter 36: Battle and Hope

  It was already going wrong. Windrush realized it from the time the dragons crossed over the towering, icy summits of the Borderland Mountains, into the Enemy's territory. The air had been empty of lumenis dust. There was a silence all about the land, a darkness that belied the dawn that was growing behind the dragons. Far off to the right, beyond the end of the Borderland range, the Black Peak flickered—its open wound, where the Enemy's sorcery had once been broken, glaring across the distance with an angry red fire. Everything Windrush saw made him feel that they were about to be met by an Enemy who not only expected them, but had prepared a specia
l sorcery in their honor.

  The Nail of Strength did not disappoint him. By the time they had drawn abreast of the Enemy's eastern camps—the one they had attacked before was a dirty smudge to the south, and a smaller one was just out of sight to the north—they had not met a single enemy warrior. But ominous cloud formations were gathering around and behind them, darkly coiling clouds looming over the shadowy landscape; and Windrush knew that once more the Enemy had commandeered the very elements to his side. From the camps of drahls, there was no sign of activity, which Windrush found unsettling. It was not that he wanted drahls to appear; but the absence of opposition was another sign of Tar-skel's treachery lying in wait. It was possible, of course, that the drahls were busy laying waste the territory the dragons had left behind, but Windrush doubted it; more likely, he thought, the Enemy was hoping to gather in all the dragons and destroy them in a single, crushing blow. But what form would the blow take?

  Farsight drew in close from the right, murmuring, "I think there are drahls in those clouds, Windrush. They'll be shadowing us until we're hemmed in on all sides. That's my guess. Be prepared for attack all around." SearSky sped in from the left and muttered his opinion. "They're all gathered ahead of us, Windrush. They know our strength, and they're gathered like cowards over the Dark Vale. We can sweep them from the sky. Maybe we'll get that traitor, Stonebinder, while we're at it." He glanced with approval back at the skyful of dragons following them.

  Windrush acknowledged both opinions, but made no pronouncement. He suspected that neither guess was altogether correct. The Enemy had gone to much trouble to prepare a welcome, he thought, and he doubted that the drahls were overly fearful of their approach. The towering storm clouds that were chasing and flanking them seemed utterly opaque, and yet now they were beginning to flash with pulses of purple and green lightning. Ahead, a reddish glow that did not seem of the dawn beckoned them onward toward the Dark Vale. He guessed that the Nail was planning something more dramatic than merely engulfing them in swarms of drahls. But as to what that might be, his undersense gave no clue. No ifflings had appeared in midair to mutter enigmatic advice, and no rigger had arrived, flying her silver ship.

  Windrush waited until Farsight and SearSky were back at the heads of their flights; then he drew a deep breath of cold dawn air and urged the dragons on with greater speed than ever. They would learn the answers soon.

  * * *

  The Dark Vale appeared ahead of them in the grey dawn like a vast crater cloaked in shadow. No detail was visible. The red glow that had been beckoning them was now glaring down from clouds high overhead, reflected from some invisible source. Windrush scanned the area. Even as they drew close to the vale, its details remained hidden beneath an eye-twisting interplay of erupting fires and light-snatching shadow, almost as if a blanket of sorcery lay across its top. Around the dragons and behind them, the storm clouds were crowding inward like marching columns of smoke, funneling the dragons into the vale. Windrush thought he glimpsed, and cries from the flank-scouts confirmed, the dark flecks of Stronghold's and Longtouch's flights approaching from south and north. Those flights, too, looked as though they were being driven by the storms.

  Enough of being driven!

  "Dragons!" Windrush called, with a long breath of flame. "Downward, into the vale of the Enemy! Beware treachery! But strike boldly, for the life of the realm!" And with a final thought that he should somehow have been more stirring in his cry, he banked into a steep dive. "FOR THE REALM!" he screamed into the wind as he sliced downward through the air, followed by two hundred bellowing dragons.

  The Dark Vale loomed beneath him, light and shadow flickering. Suddenly the curtain of sorcery parted, revealing the land below. But what he saw lit by the overhead fire was not a valley swarming with enemy warriors, but instead a great, dark abyss. There was no land at all, but only dense, grey cloud, parting to form the vast shaft of a chasm. The dragons above him rumbled in confusion and dismay, but there was nothing to be done; they were already diving into the gaping emptiness where they had expected to find the Enemy's fortress. "Stay behind me!" he shouted to those who began to surge ahead, and though his words seemed swallowed up by the cottony greyness all around, the other dragons slowed, as though instinctively understanding the need to stay together.

  What was this treachery? A camouflage surrounding Tar-skel's fortress? Or a fantastic maw in the land itself, about to swallow the entire dragon armada in a single gulp? Was this the path to the Final Dream Mountain?

  "Windrush! Where are we going?" shouted SearSky, from his left.

  He didn't answer. Slowing his descent, he began a sweeping turn, looking for anything solid. The others followed, but the formation was now stretching out above him in a ragged spiral shape. It was impossible to maintain tight grouping in the crowded space between the clouds. Battle cries were giving way to rumbles of alarm, and the beating of wings, as fear and uncertainty gripped the dragons.

  Windrush glanced around for Farsight and the other leaders. SearSky was veering away from the formation and flying perilously close to the walls of the shaft, blowing long tongues of flame into the cloud. His flames seemed at first to pass through without effect. Then there was a flicker of light coming back—and a high, keening cry.

  The sweep of his turn had taken Windrush away from the spot, and he had to crane his neck to look back at what SearSky had discovered. But he needn't have turned. That first piercing cry was echoed—once, a dozen, a hundred times—until the very walls of cloud shrieked inward upon the dragons. Windrush felt a sudden, wrenching change in the air, a shudder of sorcery passing through the sky, and an instant later, it seemed that the whole world had turned into a maze of broken lenses, making it impossible to see clearly.

  But above and below and all around, Windrush heard the screams of drahls and enemy dragons closing for battle.

  * * *

  The iffling felt the presence of the others before it saw them. It had nearly abandoned hope, but had continued streaking on through the silence in desperate determination to find someone who could help. The underrealm here was a great rarefied hollowness of distant mists and light, and strange tricks of perception that made the iffling wonder if it had left the realm of iffling and dragon altogether. Could it even find its way back to Jael now, if it tried? It didn't dare look to see.

  And then there came that feeling again across the emptiness, drawing it on with a sudden new hope. There was someone, yes—and now the iffling began to sense a flickering light—no, a series of lights, and beyond the flickers, nearly obscured by mists, the dim glow of a much greater, but distant fire. The iffling sped recklessly, heedlessly, joyfully toward the lights and toward the source of the feeling. What it felt was the unmistakable pull of familiarity, of family. It shouted and pleaded to the emptiness, and it heard faintly the answering cry:

  —Our child—

  —returned at last!—

  —but the need grows!—

  —do not stop—

  —we long to see you, to speak—

  —but do not stop!—

  —fly onward—

  —to one reaching out from the mountain—

  —one reaching toward you—

  The iffling was bewildered by the cries, but propelled by their urgency. The voices sounded so tired . . . and yet they were the voices of its own kind, perhaps the very ones who had given it life. As it drew closer to the flames, it perceived that they were weak indeed, like tiny candles flickering in a wind. The iffling called out to them:—I have come home! I need help, and quickly!—

  The iffling wanted desperately to fly to them, but a force like a wind seemed to deflect it away, and it heard a single voice commanding:—Fly onward!—

  So great was its desire to unite with its parents that instinctively it fought the change in direction; but the memory of Jael, waiting to die, was enough to send it onward in obedience. As it passed the flickering ones, the iffling sensed a great longing carried on the wind;
and it realized that those tiny flames were joined to the distant fire ahead, or should have been.

  They wanted to be joined to it again. Instead of being able to give their child the help it needed, they were saying to it: Your work is not yet done.

  The iffling sped onward.

  It seemed to take forever . . . but in time the iffling felt something new reaching out to it, something that was unlike any presence it had ever felt before. And yet, it seemed to resonate within the iffling, as though it were a kind of presence that it had long been prepared to meet. For an instant, it feared: Was it the Enemy?

  The presence coiled around the iffling like a tiny whirlwind, and touched the iffling's thoughts with a remarkable gentleness and what seemed fear and astonishment. And the iffling heard a voice in its thoughts that it somehow recognized as dragon.

  My name is FullSky, the dragon whispered urgently. Can you help me?