by Jane Yolen
Sssargon was his only hope of finding the other dragons. Jakkin needed all the eyes and ears he could get.
Now it was fully Dark-After, the bowl of sky lit only by the flickering stars. He'd have but four hours, stumbling about in the dark, to search the warehouses. So he planted himself in front of Sssargon, put his hands on either side of that long, scaly face, and gazed deep into the dragon's eyes.
"Thee must find thy sisters," he sent, making that a command, not a request. He pictured Sssasha and the triplets, individually, and then as a group in rainbow colors. "Bring them to me still in the dark at the place of great houses." He sent a picture of the map, with a red circle around the warehouse district, hoping this would make sense to Sssargon, to all of them.
"Dark?" Sssargon was evidently able to chew and send at the same time, just not able to think.
"Before the sun comes up," Jakkin said, sending Sssargon a picture of the sun rising over a pinkish landscape, which included The Rokk.
Then he rubbed his palm down Sssargon's nose. "There is danger. I need thy help." The scales were cold under his fingers. "Fly, mighty worm. Find Sssasha and the triplets. Then we find Akki. Together." He stepped back and flung his right arm up, pointing to the sky. "Go, go, go."
It took Sssargon a moment to chew the last of the wort he'd snagged with his long tongue, another moment to digest what Jakkin had asked of him.
"Akki is in danger!" Jakkin sent, wondering how long it would be before Sssargon finally got it. Just when he was beginning to wish he'd taken Garrekk's prod after all, the dragon made a startling noise, something like a takk pot beginning to boil.
"YYYYYYYYYesssssss!" Pumping his mighty wings, he leaped rather heavily into the air, his tail a rudder. "Sssargon goesss. Sssargon fliesss." The mountain met the sky as he sailed low and sluggishly over the wort fields before turning north.
Jakkin could only hope Sssargon knew where he was going. Hoped Sssargon knew where he could find his sisters. If the dragon found another wort field before then, Jakkin would have no backup at all.
"Fair wind!" Jakkin sent, along with the picture of the big dragon sailing across the stars.
There was nothing more he could do now but get to the warehouses himself, and as quickly as possible. He could tell by the intensity of the cold river running across the back of his neck, it was past time for him to move along. He'd already wasted half an hour of Dark-After getting this far with Sssargon.
Now he started to run briskly along the walkway, but he was already exhausted by the long day, the battle with the trogs, his days of captivity. By the end of the second long block, he had to slow down, then stop.
He suddenly remembered he hadn't eaten since the cup of tea at Dr. Henkky's house. He took out the thermos and had several sips of the sweet hot tea and ate one of the hard-boiled lizard eggs in the sling. There was a cake there, as well, and he scarfed it down, followed by some more sweetened tea. Except for wort plants in the field across the street, there was little to see, especially in the dark. This was a wasteland, where someday—he supposed—more houses would be built.
He began running again, with a new burst of energy. At the end of each block, he sent his message to Akki.
Nothing but silence greeted him.
***
AT THE END of a fifth block, he came upon a broken-down farmhouse within acres of unkempt land. Even with the starlight, he could barely make out the ruins of the house. Still, he took the time to walk its perimeter, calling to Akki in long sendings, full of golds shot through with fireworks. Just in case.
The roof of the house had caved in, as had two of the walls. There was an old barn behind it that he hadn't seen at first. Sections of the barn's roof had also fallen down, though one part bulged out oddly. He legged over a collapsed stone wall, nearly twisting his ankle in the dark.
Steady, steady. The last thing he needed to do was to get hurt before he could find Akki. Without thinking, he rubbed his wrists, and the pain reminded him that he had Henkky's salve in the sling. Later, he promised himself.
Working by feel, he managed to lift one end of the bulging roof and found a steel door underneath.
Truck—or car!
He was surprised. Had the old farmer—or his heirs—left such a valuable object in the broken wreckage of the barn? That seemed unlikely. Living on a metal-poor planet meant that everyone knew how to recycle old metal appliances. A truck or car, even if it no longer worked, would be worth a fortune in parts. Especially now, with the Feder embargo.
Jakkin felt along the lines of the vehicle. It's back was too low-slung for a truck, of that much he was certain. Still, it might be useful. He'd never driven one before. But how hard can that be? He couldn't possibly drive any worse than old Likkarn. He smiled. Uncle Likkarn. Besides, he had two working hands, unlike Likkarn, who'd driven them to The Rokk with one. And there won't be any traffic during Dark-After! A car would get him to the warehouses faster than walking. He found a handle, pulled, and the door opened.
Something tumbled out at his feet.
The smell was awful.
He bent and touched a hand.
"Oh, Akki! Akki!" Jakkin cried aloud, tears blurring his eyes. Turning the body over, he realized with relief his mistake.
"It's a man!" he whispered. He knew that dead bodies smelled after a day, stank after a few, and then the smell dissipated. This one still stank. That told Jakkin the man hadn't been dead all that long. He forced himself to feel the man's head. It seemed to be moving, till he realized there were bugs, maggoties, he thought they were called. He shook his hands frantically to get them off his fingers. Then he stopped. No hair. The man has no hair. He's completely bald.
Not the bad man of the hatchling's sending, then. But who?
He stepped away, thought a minute, had it. The low-slung car. The newly dead man. The old barn. This must be the driver of the senate car. The one who everyone thinks kidnapped Akki.
In a whisper, he said, "But if he's dead and been stashed here..."
For a moment he wondered if the driver had actually killed Akki, then himself. Her body might be inside the car as well, might have been there all along, dead alongside her kidnapper. Climbing into the car, he went from the front to the back, feeling his way along. Terrified, stomach ready to heave out its contents.
But there was no other body in the car. And no gun, either.
Jakkin's mind was awhirl with questions. If there is no weapon, how did the man die? Who stashed him in the old barn? And who now has the gun?
Then an even more troubling thought hit him. Why has no one searched this place before?
He wondered if he should race back to tell Golden what he'd found, but then shook his head. I can't go get help—not in Dark-After, anyway. He'd end up giving away the secret of the dragons for nothing. He was sure he knew who the killer was, the kidnapper. It had to be the white-haired "bad man" that the hatchling saw. The man who was so helpful, who searched the warehouse area himself. Who said he'd been attacked by the driver. The dead driver. Who'd probably said he searched this building and found nothing. Not once, but several times. On his lunch hours away from the rest.
"I have to get to the warehouses now!" Jakkin told himself. It was the only place that it made sense to search. Close enough to this old barn and the hidden car for someone to stash it and get back to the live victim.
The live victim! Akki had to still be alive.
The dead man would wait.
I can do the search in the cold, which no one else can do, Jakkin thought. And even if he didn't find Akki there, he'd go back in the early morning to report what he'd discovered here, in the barn. Let Golden and his crew know who to look for then. Jakkin and the dragons would find Akki all on their own, in their own way.
He sat in the front seat, hands on the wheel, thinking again that it would be faster to drive the rest of the way. But finally he had to admit to himself that he had no idea how to start the car. None.
I'll actua
lly go faster by foot. And I'll be less obvious. The last thing he wanted to do was to alert the kidnapper by driving through Dark-After, in case he was in one of the warehouses himself.
Getting out on the far side of the car so as not to stumble over the body, he headed back to the road. His heart was thudding in his chest, his palms sweating despite the cold. He felt—no, he knew —that Akki was somewhere near. He only hoped she was still alive. The dead man was no comfort, no comfort at all.
He called for her, a blood-red spear of a sending piercing the air. "Akki!"
He walked on, waiting for an answer. "Akki!"
He sent cascades of red hearts. "Akki!"
And still there was no sending in return.
***
AT LAST he came to the first of the three-story warehouses, laid out not in a straight line, but in a kind of large rainbow, a crescent, so that part of the first of the seven block-long stone buildings could look across to the last. He supposed they were out here on the road to make it easy for trucks to load and unload, and easy access to the pits and the city without getting in the way of the houses.
He tried to think like a kidnapper. This is where I'd take my victim. As far from the center of the city as possible.
Especially at night, in Dark-After, the crescent of warehouses seemed really far from the city, though during the day, without an embargo, and with a full complement of pits going, it might be quite a beehive of activity.
So, he thought, I've stashed my kidnap victim here, kept her quiet, told everyone I've searched it thoroughly. When I'm done with her ... It was an ugly thought, but he'd done a lot of ugly things in the last few days, so he found it easy to put himself in the kidnapper's head.
I could put her body in a car I'd already stashed for the purpose nearby. Drive them both out on my lunch break into the wort fields. "Or better—right before Dark-After, when no one is on the roads," he whispered. Leave the gun, with a single bullet left in it, in the passenger seat.
And then discover it with a group of searchers from the nursery!
He shuddered at the thought, but figured it was probably pretty close to what the fair-haired man planned. Jakkin hated him, whoever he was.
Taking a deep breath to steady himself, he tiptoed around the back of the first building. A long, rickety, outside staircase led from the ground to the flat roof. For such large buildings, there were few windows, mostly near the top, and all in the front.
This was the drill, then: He'd circle the perimeter of each warehouse and check every door to see if any opened. And if he couldn't get in, he'd have to cross the roofs as well. The warehouses were very wide buildings. Akki might not hear his sending from one side to the other. Especially if she's stuck somewhere in the middle... Well, he'd have to get closer, either on the inside or from the roof.
He kept sending as he went around the first building. There were no lights on anywhere, no sounds. The doors were all securely locked. No one sent back even a single syllable or picture.
He'd have to go across the roof, then.
Climbing the stairs, he was glad that it was still Dark-After and that the twin moons were firmly tucked behind the mountains. Even with the starlight, he couldn't actually see the ground. Not that he was scared of heights exactly, but...
As he crisscrossed the roof, he began sending again; as before, he heard nothing in return. Nothing. Nothing from Akki or a dragon. Or a drakk or a lizard, for that matter. The cold ran across his arms, down his sides. It was the deepest part of Dark-After. The silence was so great that he began to shiver, and not from the cold.
Looking up to the sky, he whispered, "Sssargon, where are you?" because now, on top of his other fears, he worried that it had been a mistake to let the dragon go off on his own.
Taking a quick sip of tea, he peeled and ate the second egg, washed it down with more tea, then went on.
The second, third, fourth, and fifth buildings brought the same results.
"Nothing!" he said, thinking that maybe he should walk around them all again, in case Akki had just been sleeping. But he had to tackle the rest of the buildings first. Though even without getting a response from her, he was convinced she was here somewhere. The dead man had convinced him. The hatchling's sending about the "bad man" convinced him.
When he went to drink some more tea, he noted that there was less than half a thermos left. If Akki is here, she might need some. He noticed he'd used the word if.
Have I given up on her? Had the dead man shaken him that much? Should he have waited till dawn and searched the farmhouse barn more thoroughly?
Now the light was beginning to go gray, which meant there was about a half hour of Dark-After left. He'd taken too much time with Sssargon, with the dead man and the car. Calling himself an idiot, worm waste, he raced around the next building so fast he almost threw up with the effort. In fact, he'd had to stand behind the sixth building, bent over, till the spasm of nausea went away. Wasting time. Akki's time.
Also, his knees were beginning to get weak, which meant that when he climbed the stairs, he put himself into danger and maybe Akki, too. Desperate, depressed, about to throw himself down on the stony ground and weep, he came around the building to check its front. The floop-floop of large wings overhead made him look up.
"Danger. Here." The sending was full of pinks and reds, but decreasing as the dragon flew away, toward the north. Jakkin could just about see its outline in the graying light. He thought he recognized that sending.
"Sssasha?" He sent a trail of red footprints running after her.
She turned, flapped back to him, settled down where he stood, by the front of the sixth building. Then she lowered her neck till her head was close to his.
Putting his hand on her head, he whispered and sent at the same time, "Akki's in danger." He felt tears welling up in his eyes.
Sssasha's head jerked up. "Akki here. Danger here."
"Where?" he said out loud. Then silently, in a sending, trembling as he sent it. "Where?"
She looked up, stretching her neck as if pointing at the seventh building, but said nothing.
"Where?"
She made a peculiar growling sound low in her throat, and looked around again.
"Where?"
She stomped her foot and swatted him with her tail. He was so exhausted, he tumbled over onto his hands and knees. She nudged him with her nose. "Up. Up. Here." There were shards of glass, cascades of foaming water, gouts of blood in her sending.
After all the time he'd been looking for Akki, he now hardly dared to believe. His disbelief must have communicated to Sssasha even without a sending.
"Here!"
"Okay, I believe you, but where? Where?"
The picture Sssasha sent him was from inside one of the buildings, of a pair of hands on glass, the scene from the point of view of someone looking out. He saw the gray sky as Dark-After was ending, the arch of the warehouses.
Dragons have little imagination. Their sendings consist of things sent to them, or nature they've observed. Sssasha couldn't have seen that view from the inside of the building. Only from the outside. Someone had to have sent that to her first—the picture of the hands on the glass looking out.
"When?"
Dragons have two times: now and not-now. Now could mean anytime in the understandable present, an hour, even a day. The scene Sssasha sent had been set as Dark-After waned.
"Now," Sssasha sent.
"Akki!" He breathed her name. "Alive."
Carefully, he stood and walked around the front of the seventh building. It was the only one where that picture could have originated. Looking up, he saw that the few windows were shuttered, except for one.
Except for one.
That window was on the third floor. "Akki," he sent.
Even though there was no response, he was sure she was there. Sssasha had heard her.
Dragons can't lie. They can pull pranks, heavy-footed, tail-swatting pranks. They look at the world different
ly than human beings do. But they are incapable of telling a direct lie. And even if they could, Sssasha wouldn't lie about this. He was sure of it.
The window was not shuttered. The view ... the view was definitive. He turned to look behind him where, in the graying light, he could see the exact scene that Sssasha had sent him, except he was three floors below.
Who else can it be up there but Akki? And then he had a secondary, horrifying thought. Is she alone?
Getting up to the third floor silently would be hard. The doors on all the other warehouses had been locked. He doubted any would be open on this building, especially if Akki was being kept here. And what if the kidnapper is still inside, waiting?
He considered how Akki had sent to Sssasha and minutes later had been silent. It could mean one of three things. She might have been moved. She could be injured or asleep.
Or dead.
I won't think about that, he told himself sternly. And then—not for the first time—cursed himself for being too slow. Well, he couldn't afford to be slow any longer.
Turning quickly, he went around to the back of the warehouse, the dragon following him.
"Do? Do?" Sssasha sent, with a series of popping yellow balloons. "Do?"
"Hush," he whispered. "And I will tell you what we are going to do." He sent it to her, his sending all in cool blues. Yes, he had a plan. It was dangerous. Foolish even. But it was all he had.
38
JAKKIN CLIMBED the outside staircase on the seventh building as quietly as he could. The horizon was starting to suffuse with light. It would make his plan easier because he could now see what he was doing. And harder because anyone else could see him.
Sssasha flew overhead, keeping an eye on anything or anyone who might be stirring. Where Sssargon and the triplets were, Jakkin didn't know. He could only hope they were heading his way.
As frightening as climbing the outside stairs in the dark had been, it was even worse going up as the sky lightened. Suddenly he could see how far up he'd come, how far down he could fall. After one awful look, he kept his eyes resolutely on the next step. And the next. And the next one after that.