Jewels of the Dragon

by Allen Wold

They started back, trying to retrace their mad dash. It took them three hours to find the clearing again. There were no dragons there now. They ate a quick, late lunch, then drove on. At dusk they entered a part of the forest where strange, bent trees grew. It was too dark to go farther, so they stopped there to camp for the night.

  4

  Their drive the next morning through the strange, twisted trees was uneventful until they came to a place where the forest floor was strewn with gravel. A few of the larger chunks sticking up out of the ground indicated that the stuff was the broken fragments of Belshpaer buildings. As they drove slowly past a larger piece almost as high as a man's shoulder, something about it caught Rikard's eye. He made Dobryn stop while he got out to investigate.

  All the Belshpaer ruins Rikard had seen so far had been composed of a plasticlike material, cloudy and opaque, whether the surface was long exposed to the elements or newly broken. The fist-sized chunks around him were no different, nor were most of the larger pieces. But the shoulder-high chunk that had caught his eye was luminous and translucent, a beautiful golden-ocher shade.

  He circled the up-jutting stone. On the far side he saw a perfectly preserved stairway leading down into the ground. The substance of the stairs and the walls that surrounded it was a translucent cream color, streaked with a rich Tuscan. There was no rubble or leaf mold on the stairs. The ground in front of the opening was clear and showed odd marks that might have been footprints.

  "What is it?" Dobryn called from the jeep.

  "Somebody's front door," Rikard called back.

  "Some kind of animal?"

  "Not unless they use stairs and wear shoes."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "I think some Belshpaer are living down there."

  "You gotta be kidding. Come on, you want to get to mat tower or don't you?"

  "Okay, don't get impatient. You're getting paid by the day."

  "Only as long as your money holds out."

  Rikard reluctantly returned to the jeep. He made a plan to come back later, if he had a chance, and investigate this place further.

  A few kilometers farther on the forest thinned and became parklike. Huge trees were widely enough spaced to show patches of sky. There was no undergrowth below. Off to the south Rikard saw what he thought was a group of Belshpaer, but Dobryn refused to believe it, even when he saw them for himself. It was true they were a long way off and there were a number of intervening trees, but their rotary mode of lo­comotion was unmistakable. Rikard didn't press the issue, but he wondered why, with such concrete evidence in front of his eyes, Dobryn persisted in denying that any Belshpaer could be alive.

  They stopped for lunch at the edge of the forest. Ahead of them was one of the rare treeless zones, a descending broken slope. It dropped steeply and irregularly down to a veld of considerable extent three or four hundred meters below them.

  Navigating the slope was tricky. Dobryn was by far the more experienced driver, so he took over while Rikard just rode and enjoyed the view.

  The jeep was a rugged vehicle, but the slope was very steep in places, sometimes presenting a vertical drop of more than me ten-meter maximum lift the jeep could provide. Dobryn had to find gentler ways, or they would have fallen as surely as if their car had been wheeled.

  It took them over two hours to get halfway down. Dobryn paused for a moment to rest, then drove the jeep over a crest to a lower shelf. Just as the jeep tipped down, something spanged against its side, followed immediately by the sound of a gunshot from the crest of the slope above them. Dobryn gunned the engine and drove over the next drop. Rikard looked up and back, and saw Zakroyan's car poised at the edge of the slope.

  He drew his gun and fired at her, but the lurching of the jeep was too much for him, and the shot went wide. Bullets from Zakroyan's car cracked around them as Dobryn fought to get them down the slope as quickly as possible, yet still in one piece.

  Rikard aimed for another shot, but an intervening ridge of rock passed across his line of sight, and the bullet just ricocheted harmlessly away. Dobryn was driving too fast, too erratically. Rikard couldn't keep his sights on the other car long enough to get off a good shot. Even his accelerated perception didn't help. It was small consolation that only about a quarter of Zakroyan's shots passed close enough to them to be heard.

  He kept firing to keep Zakroyan jumping. Dobryn, cursing steadily, maneuvered the car over drops he would never have dared otherwise. One time he just sped off the edge of a cliff. The jeep dropped twenty meters before the floatation panel, set at maximum, stopped them just centimeters above the jagged rocks.

  It took them only twenty minutes to descend the second half of the slope. They went over a last ledge and hit the veld. Zakroyan, still two-thirds of the way up, let her machine pistol rip. Dobryn screamed; the jeep slammed to a halt.

  With a steady rest, Rikard took aim one more time. He could just see the glint of the other car's windshield, and squeezed off a shot that should have gone through it and through Zakroyan's head. But in the fraction of a second between the time the bullet left his gun and when it struck, Zakroyan's car shot forward, and Rikard could see, even at this distance, the great hole suddenly appearing in the undercarriage, right below the engine. The car continued forward over the edge and dropped down into a depression and out of sight.

  Rikard found himself counting under his breath. On the count of four, an explosion from the depression above him hurled fragments of the car skyward.

  5

  Rikard was able to treat Dobryn using the emergency medical kit he'd gotten when he'd purchased the shelter. He'd been hit three times by Zakroyan's machine-pistol burst, but none of the wounds was serious. All three bullets had passed through, two in the upper arm and one along the ribs.

  Rikard offered to abort the trip and take him home, but Dobryn refused.

  "We've come this far," he said. "We'll get to the ruins tomorrow. By the time you got me home, I'd be well enough to start out again, so we might as well keep on from here."

  "You don't have to go through with it. There's no clause in our contract mat says you have to put up with being shot at."

  "No kidding. But look, we're almost there. I don't know if there's any dialithite at the Tower or not, but I'm not about to back out now. Besides, if Old Iron Jaws wanted to stop you that badly, there must be something mere."

  "I really think she was after me for personal reasons."

  "Nonsense. I've never had anything to do with any of our beloved Director's watchdogs, but people know who they are, and Solvay doesn't pick them to dash off on personal causes. Maybe you think it's personal, but my guess is there's something at the Tower of Fives they don't want you to see."

  So they drove on- Dobryn slept much of the way but was feeling weak and uncomfortable, so they stopped when they came to a sharp outcrop in the veld a hundred kilometers from the base of the slope. Rikard set up the shelter, then changed the dressings on Dobryn's left arm and side.

  There was no sign of infection. The wounds had not bled any during the last several hours, and Dobryn was not feeling much pain, but without surgery he would be more or less incapacitated for several days.

  The outcrop afforded good shelter, and more important from Dobryn's point of view, a clear view back the way they had come. They'd seen no one else as they had driven across the flat, open veld and from their somewhat elevated position they could see no signs of being followed now. But if Zak-royan had gone to the effort of following them all the way out here, there might be another car coming after her.

  As the sun touched the western horizon, a howl broke the silence.

  "Caron," Dobryn said.

  "What's that?"

  "A coursing predator. Hunts alone. Big as a man, twice as mean. It probably smelled my blood back at the slope and has been following us."

  "The thing would have to run awfully fast to do that."

  "It does. Flexible spine, long legs, it can do sixty kilometers per ho
ur all day long, faster for short bursts. They chase the lopers and bovers. We haven't seen any of them all day, so if a caron is out there, it's hungry."

  "Have you ever seen one of these things?"

  "Last time I was out here. I didn't know what it was, but there was a zoologist on the expedition." The howl came again. "We passed by a herd of bovers, the tall ones with horns, I don't know their regular name, and all of a sudden they started running as fast as the cars. Then this thing came out of nowhere and took one of the calves that was falling behind. Real fast. Clean kill." It howled again, closer. "It's hungry, all right."

  "If it hunts alone, we'll have no trouble." Rikard checked his gun to make sure it was working properly.

  "I guess not, the way you shoot. No, it will be alone. The adults of the pride quarter their hunting ground during the day and go back to their lair at night. If it's out this late"— howl—"it must live nearby, within ten, twenty kilometers."

  "Let's just hope we're not sitting on top of its nest."

  "We could be."

  Rikard fixed their supper, interrupted at regular intervals by the howls of the caron as it came closer. "Does it always yell like that?" he asked.

  "I don't know much about them."

  "How about that time before when you saw one? Did it howl then?"

  "Before it took the calf, not after."

  The sun fell below the western ridge, but there was still enough light in the sky to see when the caron howled again, a small dot moving across the veld toward them. It was moving very fast.

  They ate quickly as they watched it approach. It was def­initely coming toward their outcrop. Rikard was fascinated by its long, loping stride.

  "The shelter won't keep it out," Dobryn reminded him nervously.

  "I know. I just don't want to kill it unless I have to."

  "I think you have to."

  The caron, half a kilometer away, doubled its speed. It streaked toward them like a steel spring let loose. Rikard pulled his gun. Time slowed.

  The concentric circles centered on the coursing beast. To Rikard's speeded senses, it seemed to be striding in long, slow-motion bounds. Rikard brought the gun up, and the red spot moved toward the center circle. Spot and circle lined up, but still he waited until there was no mistake. Then he fired.

  In midleap the creature curled up and hit the ground like a limp bundle. It lay still. The shot had entered below the throat and come out near the tail.

  There were no more howls that night.

  They passed several herds of grazing animals the next morning, but heard or saw no carons. The veld continued flat, with occasional solitary trees. Twice they crossed shallow, slow rivers. Rikard drove the whole way.

  By noon they could see the eastern mountains at the foot of which lay the city of the Tower of Fives. They had a quick lunch and then went on. Dobryn was much improved, though very stiff. He found moving difficult.

  It was nearly dusk before they saw the city itself, still a long way off. Several buildings rose high above the level of the veld. They glinted red in the light of the setting sun.

  It was a vast collection of ruins. Dobryn didn't know how many hectares it covered. Long before they came to its nominal edge, where the ancient buildings stood whole or nearly intact, they passed broken pieces and fragments buried in the detritus of millennia.

  The transition between rubble and standing buildings, when they came to it, was abrupt. Within a space of just a hundred meters, the ruins stopped being a dense scattering of broken chunks and became upright walls. By then it was dark.

  Rikard stopped the jeep in a rubble-strewn street between structures mat rose fifteen meters and more. In the light of the jeep's headlamps, he gazed at the remnants of the city ahead of them.

  "We've almost made it," Dobryn said. His voice was tired and strained.

  "How far to the Tower?"

  "About ten kilometers."

  "That far?"

  "It's a big city. The Tower is more or less in the middle, and it's not easy to get to. You can't see it from here, even in daylight."

  "It shouldn't take long to find it. I mean, it's the tallest building standing, isn't it?"

  "It is, but you can't drive there. Farther in, the ruins break down again. You'll have to walk most of the way."

  Part Eight

  1

  It rained that night, but they had found a place with an intact roof, and that, along with the shelter, kept them dry. Dobryn was stronger the next day, but stiffer than before.

  They drove into the city as far as they could. After half a kilometer or so, the streets became choked with the rubble of the crumbling upper stories. Many of the hexagonal structures were nearly intact, but many more had broken and fallen in.

  They spent most of the morning zigzagging back and forth, trying to find a place from which they could see the Tower of Fives. Rikard was fascinated by the ruins. He would have stopped to explore if the goal of his search hadn't been so near.

  "You'll see plenty of ruins later," Dobryn reminded him. "I wish I could find the place where we camped before. From there I could give you pretty good directions. But I really don't have any idea where we are. Once we can see the Tower, you'll be able to find your way, though it may take a couple of days."

  Shortly after noon they came to a plaza with great avenues leading off in six directions. The street by which they entered was relatively clear, but the other five ways were choked with heaps of broken plastic. Down one of the avenues, leading east, they could see, a long way off, a great towering spire.

  "The Tower of Fives," Dobryn said. "That's it."

  "Why do they call it that?"

  "I don't know. Something to do with some of the things that have been found there, I think. It's been called that as long as I can remember. Hey, I'm no expert. I just came along to clear rubble and like that."

  "You still know more than I do. So that's the place."

  "It is. I don't know how we can get any closer by jeep."

  "We might as well stop here, then. Let's find you a nice place to wait."

  "I wish I could go with you. Maybe by tomorrow I'll be loosened up a bit."

  "Maybe. And I'd feel better if you came along. But we'll worry about that later. Right now I want to find a place where you can stay and be safe from anything that might live here. And a place to hide the jeep."

  "Yeah, just in case Old Iron Jaws didn't come out alone. And if I'm going to be waiting five to ten days, I'd like to be comfortable."

  They left the jeep in the middle of the plaza and went to explore the nearby buildings. They didn't bother with any that did not give easy access. That still left them a lot of choices. The first place they tried was one that had had a great window, long since fallen out, through which they could maneuver the jeep if they wanted to.

  The first room here was large and empty. Dust lay thick on the bare floor. In the rooms beyond were fragments of furnishings, which crumbled when they were touched. They could find no access to the upper floors. In one small room they found the lair of some carnivorous animal. They decided to try another place.

  They went through several buildings. In one, a passageway had the same translucency Rikard had seen in the ruins in the forest. If that meant that living Belshpaer still used this build­ing, then it was no good as a hideout. Rikard didn't think the Belshpaer would be dangerous, but he couldn't trust Dob-ryn's reactions. He didn't want trouble of any kind while he was gone.

  As they explored, Rikard felt more and more a sense of age and strangeness about the place. A trilateral symmetry would give the people who had built this city a completely different outlook from that of any other species he had met. They could have no concept of front or back. Nothing could ever be behind a Belshpaer. There would be no thought of moving forward.

  Having six hands gave a whole new meaning to the concept of dexterity, though other peoples had four hands, occasionally six, rarely more. But combined with the Belshpaer's rotating mode
of locomotion, they would be equally adept with any hand. Right and left-handedness to them would be an abstract concept. They would have observed it in plants and crystals and in all the other animals of this world, but it would be an idea they themselves would never have to deal with in any personal sense.

  These anatomical and psychological differences were subtly reflected in the structure of their buildings, beyond the obvious six-sidedness. Every room was somehow wrong. Rikard more than once found himself slowly turning in place, trying to orient himself. It made him dizzy.

  And the age of the place was oppressive. Five to ten thousand years was not a long time in the overall history of any people, but these ruins were remarkably well preserved, producing a conflicting sense of recentness and age greater than the facts warranted. It made Rikard feel that he was somehow trespassing and at the same time wandering into antiquity beyond reckoning.

  Dobryn seemed unaffected by thoughts of that kind, but he was tiring. Rikard left him on a comfortable rock in front of one building while he hurriedly searched through it.

  Most of the places they'd looked at had been rejected because of exposure, difficulty of access, presence of ani­mals, or some such. But they had to find a place soon, before Dobryn's strength gave out, even if they had to relax their standards a bit to do it. Rikard would not be able to set out for the Tower this afternoon in any event.

  At last he found a place that suited him. Double doors which were still intact opened onto a great foyer. Beyond that were several smaller rooms. There were no signs of animals or Belshpaer. There was a stair going up into the interior darkness, but the dust on the steps was undisturbed.

  One of the small rooms off the foyer had windows that looked out onto the plaza. They were no longer glazed, but they could be closed from the inside by ornamental shutters. The room itself was all but bare. The only thing in it was the crumbling remains of what might have been a desk.

  Rikard went back to where he'd left Dobryn and found him dozing in the afternoon sun.