by Anthology
Don't trust her…
The door rattled again. "I didn’t mean to scare you."
I didn't think much about what I did next. I shoved the gun in my pocket, threw open the bathroom window, and climbed outside and into the cold.
***
NEWSREEL (iii)
LOYAL DOG LEADS FLIGHT CREW HOME
THERE GOES THE AIR-SIREN, AND THE COMMONWEALTH’S FURRIEST AIR-MAN IS READY TO MEET THE THREAT! WHEEL-BLOCKS AWAY AND UP INTO THE SKY! BUT WHAT’S THIS? MANDATE SABOTAGE! FROM THE WRECKAGE DIETER PULLS HIS UNCONCSIOUS CREW TO SAFETY! AND NOW, STRANDED IN THE VAST AND EMPTY PLATEAU, THEY MUST SURVIVE. BUT DON’T WORRY BOYS, DIETER KNOWS THE WAY! HOME TO A WARM BED AND A FEW EXTRA BONES, RIGHT DIETER? AIR-MARSHALL YAKUPOV AWARDS DIETER THE DISTINGUISHED AIR-MEDAL! COURAGE, BRAVERY, LOYALTY! AND LOVE FOR THE PARTY!
***
8
I had spent too much time worrying, thinking about things that were lost and could never be replaced. I needed to act.
I needed: an auto; petrol; food and supplies; a map that would show me exactly where the coordinates I’d scrawled onto that wrinkled slip of paper would take me.
I started with the auto.
The night streets of Korla were cold and dimly lit. Streetlights like paper lanterns glowed softly: rows of firebugs perched on a wire. The only movement on the streets were the lines of military trucks that hissed by now and again in the gloom, and the occasional vagrant who would stumble drunkenly into my path.
I slunk through the night streets, sweating despite the cold, looking back over my shoulder, sure that Song or a Mandate Army Man would be behind me, gun levelled at my face. But each time I looked back there were only empty streets. I found a line of parked autos on a side street and settled on a heavy sedan. It was all rounded curves and chrome finish, and the long front-end stretched out like the barrel of a gun. I could see a pair of keys glittering in the passenger side foot well. I took the butt-end of the revolver and smashed it into the side-window. The shattering of glass made me jump and close my eyes. A dog barked wildly.
Lights flickered on in the gated row houses. I keyed the ignition and pressed the gas pedal all the way to the floor. The engine roared to life. I swung the auto onto the road and drove off.
I looked furtively back in the rearview mirror as I peeled away. No Song. No sign of chase. I wanted to vomit.
Cold desert air pressed through the shattered window. A massive sign perched atop of a warehouse across the river and bled red light into the dark. I couldn't read the ideograms, but recognized the ubiquitous double-happiness shuāngxĭ. Reciprocal joy, like that shared between lovers.
Attia…had she changed so much? Was she even the woman I remembered from all those years ago? She was a magister of the first order, one of the most respected metallurgists in the world. What did that have to do with dragon’s eggs?
Did I even really care anymore? Or was it about Attia. At one time our love had burned hot. Brighter than dragonfire. And now what? I was hurtling down night streets of a city I didn’t know, drawn into the orbit of a woman whose motives I didn’t understand, who had left me for dead and then drawn me back into her mad world.
I needed the map and supplies now.
Dawn was breaking and I drove through the chaotic morning traffic (blowing through intersections, driving at turns too fast and too slow, and all the time feeling my heart hammer at my ribcage as the wheel slipped though sweaty palms) until I found a fillingstation by a ramp that led onto an expressway. The store seemed to have a random collection of items: packaged foods, a gun-rack, maps and travelling equipment. The man running the station was Han, tall and thin but with jowly cheeks that drooped like empty bags. He had eyes always on the verge of laughter and spoke Türkik well enough for us to communicate.
I opened the billfold that had accompanied my passport and laid several wide bills on the counter. "I need a grid map, four petrol cans, and several jugs of water." I then pulled a last item from my pocket and placed it on the counter. "And I need more of these."
The merchant considered the bills laid out on the counter, and then my face.
I had no idea how much money I’d lain down. I had no idea of the value of the goods I’d requested. I was in no mood to bargain.
After a moment of silence, the merchant muttered something to himself in his native tongue and gave a quick, curt nod.
As he filled out the order, I spread a grid-map open on the hood of the autocar. I unfolded the yellow slip of paper and traced my finger along coordinate lines. It moved across desert, stopping finally off the shore of a large body of water marked in characters that I couldn’t read.
I waved the owner of the fillingstation over. "Where is this," I asked the man, indicating the spot on the map.
The merchant squinted and leaned in to inspect the place that I’d indicated. "Lop Lake," he said. Then he frowned. "Why are you wanting to go there?"
I said nothing.
The man watched my face for too long a moment, and then shrugged. "Not much to see. The lake's all dried up now. The dams." He gestured broadly as if that explained everything. "It's all desert. Not much but sand and salt."
"There's not anything there?"
"Just ruins." He chewed a bit and then spat. "Lots of army out there. Trucks been driving things out into the desert day and night. Rumour says that this is about where they are going." He surveyed the stolen auto. "That part of the desert…Death Sea, they call it."
"Sounds friendly," I muttered, and when the merchant stared at me dumbly I realized that I’d spoken Gothic. Not a very good spy.
"You're not planning on taking this?" The merchant rapped the hood of the large sedan.
"Why?"
"That autocar is for towns. The roads out in the desert are not for town autos."
"I'll take my chances."
The merchant shook his head and then pointed to a two-seat truck hidden behind the petroleum pumps. "I'll trade you for my truck."
The truck’s paint was chipping and it was covered in gray dust. "How much is it worth?" I asked.
"Same as the sedan.”
I shook my head. "I think this sedan is worth four of those trucks."
The man considered my stolen auto. "The window is broken," he said. And then he looked me in the eyes and any sense of mirth was gone.
I swallowed. That truck looked like it would fall apart at any moment. I glanced at my watch. Time was moving fast. "Get the keys," I said.
***
EXCERPT FROM, “THE DRAGONRIDERS”
REVISED EDITION, RAVENNA UNIVERSITY PRESS
Dragons imprint. It is how the first riders tamed them. Some part of their avian, prehistoric brains will attach to one rider and bond to him for life. This process seems to have no relation to filial instinct. A wild dragon will imprint not upon its parent as a child, but rather upon its mate as an adolescent. So in some real sense the dragons viewed their masters not as parents or guardians, but rather as lovers. The lengths to which they would go to defend the body of a fallen rider are legendary.
***
9
I drove all day and into the next night. The landscape stretched endlessly in all directions, hard clay and loose gravel, coloured like a cigarette stain. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being followed. The first part of the journey had been over paved, arrow-straight road. There had been two army checkpoints, but I’d been waved through without incident. As night fell I had turned off onto a smaller road of hardened earth and had bounded slowly over a rugged dirt track that faded beneath me with the light. I was actually glad for the truck. The engine made noises I didn't like or recognize, but the thing seemed to do well on the ripped up road and I made better time than I would have in the autocar. The desert was featureless but for wind-carved yardangs. I felt almost like a dragon rider, setting off into the air above the wide ocean to discover the New World. Into uncharted territory.
What was Song doing now? Searching for me, m
ost likely. I charged on. The need to sleep pressed down on me like a massive weight.
I had nearly nodded off at the wheel when the flare of headlights moving towards me snapped me back. I geared down and pulled to the side of the road. The lights were so bright that I had to squint, and they jerked like bad dancers as a vehicle bounced over the hardpan. As it neared the vehicle swung into the middle of the track and stopped.
I chewed my lip. Army? Magistrates? Some lost farmer?
I skidded the truck to a stop and plumes of dust spiralled up and away from the big wheels. I was very suddenly and very definitely awake. With the glare of headlights in my eyes I couldn’t see anything. My hand found the revolver on the seat in beside me. I rolled down my window.
“Need help, friend?” I called in Türkik. The engine of the auto before me shuddered and stopped. The lights remained on. I heard a door swing open. Heeled boots crunched against the desert. A figure crossed over the lights, a silhouette that marched towards me. Tall enough to be Song. What if she’d found me?
The silhouette called out something in Mandarin, his voice hard and sharp as a razor. That settled it. Army. I picked my passport off the seat and held it out the driverside window.
“I’m here on business.” I called out in Türkik.
“This is a restricted area.” This man spoke it naturally. He sounded hard. Not some half-trained boy like those who ran most checkpoints. “Turn off your headlights.”
I did. And then pulled back the hammer of the revolver. I could see from his silhouette that he didn’t have a weapon drawn. But who knew how many more men might be in that truck. I licked my lips. Pulling out the gun might be a death sentence. But then maybe I was already dead.
He started walking towards the truck. A mistake. It would make this easier. I held the revolver against my belly, low enough that he wouldn’t see it until it was too late. He reached down to his belt. I tensed, waiting for him to take out his firearm. But instead he unlooped an electric torch from his belt and clicked it on.
“What are you doing out here this late?”
“I’m on my way to the base,” I said, squinting against the lights that beamed into my face. “They’re importing machine parts for the tests.” The dragonbone handle was slick with sweat. I just needed him to get a bit closer…
“The base is three hundred miles to the south. What’s your clearance? What—”
The desert scuffed beneath his boots as he stopped before the drivers’ window. His eyes locked on the gun that was pointed up at his head.
“How many more in your truck?” I whispered.
“Three.” He said it without hesitation. This close I could finally see his broad pock-marked face, his shaved head with long angry scars webbing their way across the scalp. Patches of shadow hid his eyes, but I knew they were narrowed about my face. “Drop the gun and everything will be okay.”
“Step back,” I said, calmly as I could manage.
He didn’t move for a moment, and then took a half pace away from the truck. I dropped my documents and then opened the truck door, gun aimed at his face. I swung out into the desert. I waited for a sound or cry from the still-idling truck. Nothing. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I had no plan here. “Drop the torch.”
He glared at me, and then let the long chrome tube slip from his hands. The glass cracked against a rock and the light flared out. “Turn around,” I said.
“No.”
The word hung in the air. I was shaking. Could I pull the trigger? Could I kill this man in cold blood? “There’s nobody else in that truck,” I said. “We both know it.”
“Put down the gun,” he said. “I’ll let you get in the truck and drive away.”
Sweat ran down my brow and froze against my skin. “Just turn around,” I whispered. I could hear the desperation in my own voice.
He stared at me a moment, and then turned his back to me. I sucked it a breath. Without taking the gun from his back I knelt down and picked up the torch in my spare hand.
“I don’t know what your plan is,” he said, “but you can—”
I swung the butt end of the torch with all my strength. It cracked against the base of his skull, splitting the skin open. He staggered forward, blood flowing over the collar of his uniform. He cried out in pain. I hit him again. He staggered to his knees. A third hit and he was face down in the desert, not moving. Blood pooled beside him.
I was panting. In the light of his truck’s headlights I could see dark red glinting on the end of the torch. Had I killed him? Cautiously I paced over to his prone body. As I neared I could see his chest rising and falling with shallow breaths.
Relief flooded into me. I took calming breaths. Now what to do? I looked up as his truck, then mine. I looked up at the horizon, where the faintest glow of dawn was beginning to spark in the distance. I needed to make a decision.
The petrol cans and water I moved over to his truck, which was actually a canvass-topped reconnaissance car. I stuffed them into the flatbed which already held several boxes of spare uniforms. I tore the sleeve off one and tied it about the unconscious man’s wound, and then dragged him over to the back of my own truck. I punctured the fuel tank and let all the petrol run out into the desert sand. Even if he did wake up he would be miles and miles anything or anyone, unable to alert the Mandate army before it was too late. By time he walked back to the road and flagged down a passing truck I would have Attia and be out. Or so I told myself.
I jumped into his military car, turned a tight bouncing circle, and then drove off into the desert, glancing back only once at the silhouette of the rusted truck I left behind. I hurtled forward towards Attia and whatever else waited for me.
It was dawn when I arrived. The sun had just lifted over the horizon when I saw a massive dark form come into view at the end of the track. There, its enormous skeleton half-buried, black rib bones arcing into the sky like scythes, was a dragon.
I rammed the transmission into a lower gear and rolled down towards the body. The road seemed to end here. Beside the dragon loomed a rock tower that at first I’d thought was a massive yardang, but on closer inspection seemed to be ruins of a building. Nothing moved as I neared. I rolled the vehicle to a stop and carefully climbed out.
I closed my hand tightly about the curved handle of the gun. "Attia?" I called. My voice seemed to boom over the desert and salt flats.
No response. I crunched over the gravel towards the crumbling stone tower.
“Attia!”
Silence. Just a ruined tower and a long-dead dragon. I was alone. Just like in that kaffahouse, all those years ago. She wasn’t here.
She wasn’t coming.
I felt something inside of me break. Some fragile lockbox where for years I’d held all my hope. I yelled at the dead things in front of me. Screamed. I could feel tears welling in the corner of my eyes. I spun back to the auto. I didn’t know what I was going to do. Where I was going to go. She had left me again.
But then, as I spun back around, blinked through tears that still welled in my eyes, I saw a plume of dust rising up on the horizon.
My heart wedged itself in my throat. Somebody was coming. Was it Attia returning? Or had somebody found that army officer already.
Blood thundered in my veins. My head felt light and dizzy. What was I going to do? Hide. The tower, looming above. I ran to the base of the rock hill that it stood on and scrambled up the loose slope. I ducked through the low doorway and into the dark tower.
The inside was pitch black and colder even than the desert. I pressed myself against the wall by the door. I could not see far into the ruin, and had no interest in exploring. Anyone or anything could be in that darkness, watching me.
I heard the tires of an autocar rattle over the gravel. A door opened and then slammed. Boots crunched on the loose rock.
"Artur," Song called. "I know you are here."
My mouth was completely devoid of moisture. How had she found me? I remembered her eye
s in that hotel where I’d first met her, in the safehouse as she'd studied me. I pulled the gun from my pocket.
What could I do? Hide until she made her way up here? Shoot her when she stepped into the building? What if Attia was wrong? Or was playing me for a fool? What if Song was who she said she was and was only trying to help me? I had been so sure Attia would be here to explain it all! What a fool you were. I felt the gun in my hand. The weight of it. Something inside of me resolved.
I stepped out of the tower and into bright sunlight.
Song stood between the two trucks. She had eschewed the business outfit that she'd worn through the border and now sported desert khakis.
She spun towards me as I emerged from the tower, the gun in her hand trained on my head. I raised my hands into the air and paced down the rock slope towards her.
“She’s not here,” I said. “If you were hoping I would lead you to her, then I’m sorry. Looks like neither of our plans worked out.”
She lowered the gun. “Why did you run off like that? You scared me.”
"Don’t pretend, Song, or whatever your real name is. You’ve been in control the whole time, moving me like a piece on a bloody game board." I dropped my arms to my sides. "You, Attia, everybody has been acting on me. Acting through me." No more. I’d been pulled around by my nose for too long. I wanted answers. I raised the gun, aimed it at her.
Song looked neither surprised nor afraid. "What are you doing, Artur?"
"There never was anybody else at the Museum, was there? You’ve been lying to me the whole time.”
"Artur, listen to me. If I meant to betray you, why would I have given you that gun?"
"Because you loaded it with empty shell casings." I cocked the hammer back. "I sorted that out though.” The shopkeep had helped me with that.
Her face became a stone mask. “Has she been in contact? What did she tell you? Tell me what she said to you.”
“You wanted me to be alone after the museum. Why?”
"I thought if I left you alone Attia would make contact. I didn’t realize she had until I came back to the safehouse. How did she get a message to you?”