Only it wasn’t the dragon.
A squat shuttlecar, about as graceful as an overweight beetle, hovered over the canyon. Tristan clamped down his first reaction—anger that someone had violated the sanctuary—and pressed into a small crevasse in the rock. If someone was risking violation of the area, it could mean danger. He held perfectly still, in the cover of shadow of the rock, and hoped he wouldn’t be noticed. The vehicle dropped closer to the ground, still being careful to stay above the “red zone” that would trigger alarms. It turned slowly, for the first time ever Tristan was glad the cliffs were hot, the temperature would cover any attempt to locate him by body heat. He held his breath, not daring to move. Sweat trickled off his face and ran over his scalp, feeling like the feet of tiny insects.
The nose of the car swung slowly towards him, and Tristan knew they had a lock on him. He closed his eyes, waiting for what was to come. Suddenly, he heard the claxon as the shuttlecar brushed the top of the “red zone.” Opening his eyes, he saw it shoot off towards the north at high speed. Tristan let out the breath he was holding and slid down the rock, listening to the hammering of his heart, wondering what had happened.
“They can spot tiny you down there, but they miss me right here,” Fenfyr huffed from above his head. Tristan looked up, the dragon was peering over the cliff at him. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.” Tristan stood. “What did you do?”
“I just fanned my wings a little, just enough to push them into the alarms. This is a secluded sanctuary for dragons, how dare they invade it!” the dragon said, sounding aggrieved.
“Which is why you did it?” Tristan asked with a snort.
“Of course.”
“Thanks.”
There was a soft whoosh of air as Fenfyr dropped to the ground, by the time Tristan rounded the corner where the spring trickled out of the rock and into a deep pool, the dragon was stretched out, basking in the rays of the setting sun. Tristan set his pack down in the mouth of the cave at the back of the pool and unrolled his bed roll. He grabbed his cook-kit and carried it back out to sit beside Fenfyr. After heating some soup, with the comforting flame of the small camp stove lighting the walls and glistening on the dragon’s feathers, Tristan sighed and leaned back against Fenfyr.
“Remember?” the dragon asked softly.
“How could I forget?” Tristan smiled gently at the dragon. They had met in this spot when he was first in the Guild. Before Weaving his first set of sails, he was sent out to find the Elements for the Interface. It was his second day out when he realized that part of the test was surviving in the desert. He had been watching a huge electrical storm building in the west for hours as he headed towards a massive red cliff, hoping to find shelter there. The imbalance in the world caused by massive plasma and other weapons used during the last part of the Great Second War made for deadly storms if you were caught out in them. He guessed he had less than an hour before it struck, and he was hurrying towards shelter when he realized he wasn’t alone. There was nothing to confirm that notion, he just knew. When he reached the cliff and the spring, the rain was starting and he dove into the cave. A deep growl greeted him as the first strike of lightning slammed into the ground.
“I considered eating you,” Fenfyr joked, nudging him out of the memory.
“I expected you to,” Tristan replied.
“You were too scrawny, not enough meat. Besides, I like flavored protein soup, and I didn’t want to have to cook it myself.”
“You are lazy.”
“And diabolical,” the dragon added.
Tristan laughed softly. “Right, that’s what it is. I knew it was something like that.” Had he known that long-ago storm would bring this friendship, he would have walked into the desert more sure of himself. Their friendship was not well known, Darius knew, and for reasons only known to him, encouraged it. Brian Rhoads knew and was a little less sure, but it was generally not known that Fenfyr was more attached to the Weavers’ Guild than just “security”—that is, when he chose to perform his duties and not chase Naval shuttles.
“Why were they trying to kill you?” Fenfyr asked suddenly.
“I have no idea who ‘they’ even were, do you?”
“No, there were no markings on the shuttle, but they were so intent on getting to you, they didn’t notice me. And really,” he snorted out a burst of laughter, “you should watch out for dragons.”
“Very true.” Tristan laughed with him, feeling a niggle of unease at the base of his spine. “What were you saying earlier about the Navy?”
“It’s nothing we can confirm, but there is something going on, and we think this ship you are foolishly killing yourself for is the reason.”
“Obviously, someone thinks I am not killing myself, Fen.”
“I don’t either.” A huge sigh buffeted Tristan. “But it is a massive undertaking, you know it is; and it irks me that it might be for naught.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t think they want the sails at all.”
“They can’t fly without them,” Tristan protested. “There is no way!”
“But there is,” Fenfyr insisted.
“No! There’s…” Tristan broke off and looked in horror at the dragon. “No.”
“It’s what we fear.”
“They wouldn’t!” He turned to look at Fenfyr. The dragon was regarding him, his eyes dark. “But…”
“I told you, it could mean war.”
Tristan realized he was shaking his head in denial. What Fenfyr was proposing was beyond horrific. It broke the Treaty with the dragons, it tossed the Edicts aside. But that wasn’t the worst part of it. “You mean they…”
“I told you, they took a ship, and we believe it was not killed.”
Tristan swallowed the bile that rose in his throat as he considered what Fenfyr was implying. During humanity’s first stumbling steps off-world they had sent generational ships. The ships, though traveling at less than light speed, had penetrated out into the galaxy. Most of them were lost, four survived, and it was one of these that started the battle in what would become the Great Galactic War, though most people called it The War. The hapless settlers had stumbled into “Vermin” space.
The Vermin were creatures that destroyed without thought or pity. No matter how hard the settlers had tried to make peace, that was not an option. They were killed and eaten. The last image to reach Earth was of the side of a ship bearing symbols that looked like VRM, since then humans had called them Vermin. The more they learned about them, the worse it was. The final blow came when the dragons broke their long silence and stepped forward, offering humans the spell to Weave the willowisps into sails for faster-than-light ships. Humankind and dragonkind had a common enemy. Vermin found human flesh satisfying in many ways, and dragons—what happened to dragons that fell to Vermin was enough to make the toughest Naval Officer blanch. The aliens used captured dragons that they had essentially lobotomized and “slaved” to fly their ships in the Winds, it was a complex process, but the end was the same. The “slaved” dragons were still aware enough to know what was happening, and while there was no way to save them once they had been taken, they could at least be freed by death.
“Humans would never do that!” Tristan said, hearing the quiver in his own voice.
“They might already be doing that, maybe not taking dragons, but capturing a Vermin ship and planning to use the technology somehow on this ship you are Weaving.”
“Then why come to us?”
The dragon snorted. “A ship that big would be noticed; they have to have the Guild Weave sails for it even if they never intend to use them.”
“I don’t believe it,” Tristan said, leaning back against the dragon.
“I don’t want to either,” the dragon said softly. “You will seek the rest of the Elements tomorrow?”
“Yes, there is a planetary conjunction, it will increase the magic and I will need all the help I can get.”
; “Sleep, Tris. I will watch.”
The soft light of dawn bathed the cliff in pink when Tristan woke. He had sat with Fenfyr until the moon began to rise, then settled down in the cave, lighting a small fire in the approved ring, more for comfort than warmth. As he looked out of the cave, he noticed the dragon was gone—he briefly wondered why, but knew if there had been something serious Fenfyr would have made sure he was awake before he left. There were enough clouds in the sky to give it an odd blood-red color. It wasn’t a good omen. He laughed to himself, the rest of the world might dismiss omens, but then again, the rest of the world was not entrusted with the magic to make sails.
Although fewer people dismissed magic now than they once had. Tristan remembered reading history books of the time before the Third World War when magic had remained untapped. It wasn’t until a freak incident on the battlefield that someone finally put two and two together and realized many of the “miraculous” things that happened were actually not good luck, but in fact magic. The first workers had mostly been healers, and there were still healers among the magic workers, although they all fell under the auspices of the Weavers’ Guild.
Those gifted with healing proved to be adept at another kind of Weaving. It was the second hurdle they had to jump before launching the first ship more than a century before. In order for the ship to fly, the sails had to come into contact with the Winds—but the crew still needed access to the masts and the decks of the ships. After several failed attempts at creating a ship with plating to protect the crew, they had discovered the spell that would create the other major wing of the Weavers’ craft. The Air Weavers could use their magic not to mend flesh and bone, but to Weave together the particles of space and make a bubble of atmosphere and gravity, creating an artificial environment that allowed activity on the deck and the masts while still leaving the sails free to catch the Winds. It was an eerie feeling, even Tristan admitted, to watch the great plates that protected the ship until the Air Weavers’ spell took over drop down, leaving the ship open to the stars. Some people never adapted, and when the Navy had resurrected the practice of “pressing” crews—forcing them to serve on ships whether they wanted to or not—more than one crew member died when the plates dropped. Knowing that there was nothing more than a spell between you and the vacuum of space was unsettling.
Tristan rolled up his things and tucked them in the pack. This morning he could hear the soft call of one of the Elements for the Interface. It might be all he needed with the piece he’d found the day before, he wouldn’t know until he found it, but now he had a definite direction to go. Pausing long enough to whisper a thank you to the spring for keeping him safe through the night, he set out to the west. The canyon turned and narrowed again. A small ground squirrel wandered under a scrub oak tree gathering acorns, and a lizard was lying on a rock doing the funny push-ups they always did in the morning sun.
The walls of the canyon were humming quietly as the sun rose, Tristan could feel the tug of the far-off alignment of planets as he walked and he hurried his steps. The Element’s call was getting stronger and the piece he had found the day before was vibrating in his backpack, letting him know that the other half of it was getting close. He rounded a corner, the cliffs soared over his head but were so close together it was almost like a cave, only a tiny slit of the red sun filtering through, and there it was. Tristan knew it the moment he saw it. A stone, egg-shaped and close to the size of an emu’s egg was lying partially buried. He realized he was almost running as he reached the rock and knelt beside it. Laying his hand on it, he felt the jolt of connection explode between his eyes.
He pulled the wood out of his pack and placed it on the ground before gently freeing the stone from the earth that had held it safe for him to find. The stone was black, a few bright flecks caught the light on the surface, deep lines ran along the length of it. He caressed it gently before putting it beside the branch and got out the rest of the items he would need to bond the pieces together to make the Element. Lighting a candle, he focused his mind, feeling the planets lining up. Sensing the sun rising in the sky, he began to speak the spell that would join the Elements. The ground trembled and sand slid down the canyon walls as he recited the spell, his hand tracing patterns in the air as the Latin words fell from his tongue. Reaching down, he picked up the wood and the stone and held them aloft, letting the magic grow until he felt it hum in his bones. He pressed the two Elements together and held them, speaking the final words of the spell. The blast that joined them slammed through his body and pulled his legs out from under him.
He heard a crack and everything went black.
IV
After the silence of the desert, the Weavers’ Guild Compound was almost overwhelming. The shuttlecars buzzing in and out of the parking garage, the larger shuttles from Terra Secundus dropping to the port area and the dragons drifting lazily out of their mountain all fought for Tristan’s attention as he sat behind his desk. The Elemental Interface sat there, the wood wound around the rock as if it had grown around the stone, the soft silver and dark black blending harmoniously. It was proving to be a distraction. Of all the Elemental Interfaces he had made over the years, this one was special—he could feel its soft hum through the desk. The Weaving would begin the next day, Tristan had just returned from gathering the willowisps, coaxing them out of the Winds and into a spell that let them be safely transported to Earth. Now they were waiting patiently to become sails. He wished he could cast aside the doubt that fluttered to life every time he thought of the massive undertaking, but he couldn’t. The sails were more than twice as large as any ever attempted.
Also there at the back of his mind was the information that Fenfyr had passed along. Tristan still refused to believe that humans were capable of using anything that resembled Vermin technology, but it was worrying. The dragon had asked him not to mention it to anyone. The Guild Master knew and the dragons, but that was all. They all believed that letting the information out could prove disastrous, but it weighed heavily on his heart as he contemplated the Weaving to come.
“Master Tristan?” The voice pulled him back from his musings.
“Yes?”
“Master Rhoads is here.”
“Thank you, let him in.” He sat up and focused on the door.
“Tristan!” Brian’s voice boomed as he entered the room, and Tristan smiled. “Back four days and not a word, I’ve been worried.”
“Has it been four days? I was helping gather the willowisps.”
“So I heard, are you sure that’s wise?” Brian dropped into the chair in front of Tristan’s desk and put his feet up.
“”Why wouldn’t it be? I always help gather…”
“I know about the attempt on your life.” The man cut him off. “Lokey Fenfyr informed Darius and Darius informed me. I’ve let you stew about it long enough. We are concerned, as you know.”
“About more than me, I hope.”
“The attempts are part of a larger scheme, yes. We just aren’t sure what it is.”
Tristan sighed. “If it even is, I’m not convinced.”
“We know the ship is there, so that much is confirmed.” Brian met his eyes. “As to the rest, it is yet to be seen.”
“Yes.”
“I have assigned Alden Soldat to Winged Victory.”
“I guessed as much when I saw him in the hall the other day.” Tristan tried to hide his distaste. Alden had risen to the top of the ranks of Warrior Weavers—the Guild member assigned to a ship to control her sails—but he didn’t like Alden. The man was vain, egotistical…
“And a pain in the ass,” Brian said, finishing his thought. “I know what you think about him, but he is the best we have and we need the best for this ship. These sails are massive, and I don’t even know if he can handle it. There are twelve Air Weavers assigned to the project, they’ve been there since the Navy requested Air Weavers for two ships.”
“You’re as worried about this as I am.”
&nbs
p; “No, Tristan.” Brian dropped his feet to the floor. “I’m more worried. The closer it gets, the more I hear, and that makes me uncomfortable. Frankly, I’ve considered pulling out more than once. If Darius hadn’t asked us specifically to be involved, I would.”
“Why do you think the dragons are so interested?” Tristan asked.
“Besides the rumors?” The Guild Master shrugged. “I’m not sure. I don’t trust them to tell us everything, and there is far more going on than we know. I did hear from Sandlin on the corvette Fury. They’re patrolling the Outer Reaches. There have been several Vermin attacks in the last few weeks, like they are probing for a weakness in our defenses.”
“Even if they broke through there, it’s a long way into our space.”
“Not that far, not for Vermin. It’s why the Navy wants the Victory to fly so soon.”
The intercom buzzed. “Sorry, Master Tristan, but Master Alden is here to see you.”
“That didn’t take him long,” Rhoads said. “I sent him his papers this morning.”
“Let him in, Scott,” Tristan said, sitting up straight in his chair. He ranked the warrior by several levels, but Alden tended to behave as if he were the ranking officer no matter what company he was in.
The door opened and Alden strode in, his dark uniform impeccable and his hair worn clubbed at the back of his neck, the formal bow tied so precisely Tristan suspected that it was glued on after the fact by one of his underlings. Stopping in front of the desk, he glanced at Tristan and snapped off a crisp salute to the Guild Master. “Sirs!”
“At ease,” Rhoads said.
“Sir!” Alden made a point of staying at military correct “at ease”, and he looked at the Elemental Interface lying on the desk. “Reporting for duty.”
“A little premature, Alden,” Tristan said, trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice.
The Sail Weaver Page 3