Special Passage (The Coursodon Dimension Book 4)

by M. L. Ryan

  Feeling somewhat improved physically after the meal, I stopped at the river for a quick bath before heading back. When I landed, Alex was waiting.

  He walked over and gave me the same surveying appraisal as Ulut and Sebastian had earlier. “How was the hunt?”

  “Fine, it felt good.”

  Our conversations lately were more frequent, but still awkward. Like we didn’t really know what to say to each other, but felt obligated to speak. I’d had more intimate exchanges with strangers.

  Leaning closer, he whispered, “I’m worried about you.”

  “I’m a little worried myself,” I admitted, “but I feel stronger now. Hopefully, I just needed to get out and let myself get a little wild.”

  His face lit up, and I saw, for the first time in what seemed like forever, a hint of one of his glorious smiles.

  “I know how much you enjoy that.” Glancing behind us to where the guards stood, he waited until they weren’t watching and placed a hand on my neck. “I miss you,” he murmured.

  “I miss me, too.”

  I rubbed the side of my head on his shoulder, but pulled back when I noticed the guards looking our way. He turned to leave, but I had something else I had to ask. “Alex, do you think this will turn out okay?”

  “Of course, carisa. Everything will be fine.”

  If only he sounded like he meant it.

  27

  Any beneficial effects of the hunting expedition disappeared by morning. Truthfully, I was worse, with exhaustion now tacked onto my list of growing symptoms. Of course, Jifga called for a previously unannounced raid, and I couldn’t very well beg off because of illness. The only thing keeping all of us in one piece was me helping the bastard in his quest for domination of the southwest. Without my ability to scare his victims into submission, I was just an oversized chicken capable of flight.

  Thankfully, the village wasn’t far away and the purpose of our visit was to collect the next installment in “protection” booty from a previously decimated town. All that was required was a quick fly-over, and the shakedown proceeded as planned. Good thing—had fireworks been required, I feared I’d be a dud. I barely made it back to the camp, and once certain only Hyattia and Ulut were around, collapsed.

  “Hailey, what can I do for you?” Ulut was frantic, pacing back and forth beside me, ears flattened upon his head.

  “I… I just have to rest,” I panted. I had the oddest set of sensations: shortness of breath, dizziness, raw throat, debilitating fatigue. “Maybe some water?”

  Realizing no hands might make fulfilling the request difficult for Ulut, I searched through my limited vocabulary and pushed out, “boki,” to Hyattia. I must have chosen the correct word, because within minutes, he placed a large, wooden pail in front of me. “Nitkew,” I muttered, and slowly sucked up some of the cool liquid.

  The water was like nectar for the gods on my parched throat, and I realized there was something other than just H2O in the bucket. I glanced up, staring quizzically at Hyattia. He rattled off a long explanation, which Ulut translated.

  “He included something he makes. The healers use similar medicinal brews when people are ill, and he hoped it would help you.”

  “What’s in it?”

  “As far as I can tell, it’s some extract from fermented cactus.”

  “Fermented… oh,” I said, realization dawning. “It’s like tequila!”

  I drank more deeply, and memories of margaritas flooded my muddled head. “This isn’t half bad.”

  “Hyattia said it is against the rules to distill alcohol—only Jifga is allowed to imbibe in hard liquor—so we must keep this quiet.”

  “Tell Hyattia this is genius,” I said, slurping up all the concoction. “It might not help, but at least I won’t care as much.”

  Ulut cocked his head. “Well, you always said you wanted a cabana boy.”

  I did often say if a genie granted me three wishes, the first two would be a million dollars and a cabana boy. If I didn’t feel as though a train had hit me, I’d have laughed at his joke. I managed what I thought was a grin, but judging by the way both Ulut and Hyattia stepped back, I likely missed the mark. It was tough enough to smile and appear friendly with a full set of fangs when you were well, much less in my current state of ill health.

  The alcohol didn’t take long to have an effect. “Do you think it’s wise to consume alcohol?” Ulut asked when I rested my head onto one of the covered structure’s poles. “It could be toxic to you in your current form.”

  I hoped the liquor wasn’t dangerous, but I vaguely recalled one should never feed alcohol to a bird. I didn’t know much about the dietary restrictions for reptiles, but guessed booze wasn’t a good choice for them, either.

  “It’s probably okay. I read chocolate was toxic, but I’ve eaten that as a hawk without it killing me.”

  Ulut’s eyes narrowed. “Really? Did it taste the same as a bird as it does when you’re human?”

  “It tasted like chicken,” I teased.

  He produced a short, snorting exhalation of air, his canine version of a chuckle. “You must be feeling better if you are joking.” Ulut was close enough so I could feel his breath on my face, and I inhaled deeply.

  I closed my eyes and said dreamily, “Ah, puppy breath. The best scent ever.” Inexplicably, Ulut’s man-breath smelled like puppy breath to me as well, but I hardly ever got close enough to him to smell it when he was walking upright.

  “I think we should limit how much of that stuff you drink. You are acting slightly inebriated,” Ulut warned.

  “Because I complimented you on the awesomeness of your exhalations?”

  “No, because your eyes are glassy and you’ve tried to pat my head with your wing three times, and missed twice.”

  “Huh,” I said, gazing at the slightly out of focus appendage. “I wasn’t aware I was doing that.”

  “Yet another reason for moderation,” he proclaimed, and trotted off, no doubt to inform Hyattia of my new bar restrictions.

  “Party pooper,” I called out after him. Party pooper? I didn’t remember using that phrase before, ever. In my head, I started to giggle and just before I passed out, I thought, I might just be a little shitfaced.

  I awoke mid-morning to a chorus of chirping, white-crowned sparrows and a head that felt like a mastodon was sitting on it. The sunlight was annoying even though my eyes were still closed.

  “Can’t you damn birds keep it down,” I grumbled, turning over so I faced away from the blinding rays.

  Hyattia scurried over, placing my breakfast before me. I cracked one eye open, surveyed the four roasted jackrabbits, and dry-heaved.

  “Ulut was right, my dear. You did overdo it last night.”

  “Thanks for the update, Captain Obvious.” I was in no mood for Sebastian, but his unique fragrance of fresh-cut grass did quell the nausea.

  “As yesterday’s experiment with ethanol was unsuccessful, Alexander and I thought we might attempt something less ill-advised.”

  “Hey,” I protested. “That booze helped me forget my aches and pains.” I didn’t mention I still had all the old aches and pains, plus some new, alcohol-related ones.

  “Much as I know you enjoy tequila, my dear, I’m not sure an inebriated dragon is in anyone’s best interests.”

  “I’m not a dragon, and besides, it’s not like I was a mean drunk.”

  Sebastian raised one eyebrow. “For last night, that was true. Let us not tempt fate, however. Would you be opposed to me trying to infuse some healing magic? Bex will keep an eye on your vital signs.”

  Why wasn’t Alex going to monitor the procedure? My question, while not thought out loud, must have shown in my face, because Sebastian divined it immediately.

  “Under the circumstances, Alexander believes he is not best suited to oversee the session.”

  “Under the circumstances?” I repeated skeptically. “He just doesn’t want to do it, right?” While lately, Alex seemed less awkward
around me, it was the only explanation that made sense.

  Sebastian took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “My dear, if Alexander were a doctor, no one would allow him to provide medical treatment to a loved one. This situation is no different. While I love you, I am not in love with you. How do you think he would react if something went wrong?”

  Sebastian’s last comment was something I hadn’t considered. “Just how dangerous do you think this might be?

  “Of all my abilities, healing is the only one seemingly unaltered in this dimension. I believe it highly unlikely anything will go awry, however, our power is unpredictable here. We shall take every precaution, of course, and Bex is more than able to make certain you remain in good health during the process.”

  As well as the most calm, cool, and collected of the Jyryxahal. “Fine. Let’s just get it over with.”

  “I cannot until I bribe the guards to let both Bex and I out at the same time. Now that there are fewer jail attendants, the chance of success is greater. We tried earlier to influence their minds, but that useful trick is still not part of our Dekankaran repertoire.” The corners of his mouth curled, and he added a cryptic, “Not yet, at any rate.”

  The ability to manipulate another’s thoughts or recollections would be a powerful tool in our quest to get the hell out of this hell. “I didn’t know you’d been working on that.”

  Sebastian nodded, and then gazed into the distance. “If we were not in such danger, improvising with non-arcane techniques would be invigorating. It is not often the Xyzok are forced to work without a net, so to speak,” he said with a hint of nostalgia. “Take our drills, for example. You cannot presume you will always be able to rely on magic. Our situation is that lesson put into practice.”

  “Except we aren’t just figuratively dangling off a cliff.”

  “Neither were you, my dear, but that is neither here nor there,” he said, dismissively waving his hand. “I will return tonight if I can find something tantalizing enough to sway the guard.”

  “Hyattia’s cactus hooch is pretty good. Maybe Ulut can convince him to part with some, since you won’t let me have any more. I tried to affect a pout, but as with so many of my facial expressions, I probably failed miserably.

  Sebastian ignored my version of pique. “An excellent suggestion, my dear. While I understand Jifga’s reasoning for prohibiting consumption of alcohol in the group of ruffians he assembled, one of the first rules of leadership is to allow troops an occasional indulgence.”

  “He does, or he did until I made him stop. He used to let them have the women.”

  Sebastian scowled. “Yes… and all the more reason Hyattia’s spirits may be just the ticket. I’ll have Ulut make the necessary inquiries.”

  As it turned out, Hyattia was more than willing to provide some of his stash. He didn’t even inquire why Ulut wanted it. In return, he asked for two concessions: the alcohol’s origins remain secret, and he would receive a small portion of the jail rations, which were more plentiful than were his own. Alex snuck out some food in exchange for two small crocks of the white lightning. Sebastian, being a crafty negotiator, only needed one to persuade the guards to look the other way while he and Bex went out for a midnight visit to my pen. The other he saved to use another day.

  The medical intervention proceeded without a hitch. While I wasn’t as fatigued or achy, I still wasn’t a hundred percent, and after a day or so, my health slid back to where it was before the treatment. We hoped there’d be improvement after multiple sessions, but between Sebastian’s treatments and enough Dekanquila to take the edge off without the unhealthy side effects, I never really felt much better than crappy.

  Eventually, my transformation started to take its toll. If I flew any distance greater than ten miles, it took days to recover before I could take to the sky again, and my flame throwing was spotty at best. These limitations made Jifga unhappy, but Ulut and Hyattia convinced him it was a result of the colder weather. It wasn’t too hard a sell, as parts of me were rather lizard-like, and Jifga, while a more-than-successful hoodlum, was no expert in the physiology of dragon-human-avian hybrids. Reassured that I would regain my blazing awesomeness in time for the spring pillaging season, the warlord eventually took the news in stride. As an additional side benefit, Jifga was less concerned about me raining fire upon him, and he didn’t feel obligated to use my friends as living shields anymore.

  Through it all, Hyattia remained a faithful custodian. When I felt strong enough to hunt—which was becoming more and more infrequent—he’d scope out the vicinity for prospective game so I wouldn’t have to fly too far. When pursuing my own chow was impossible, he made certain I had plenty of rabbit meat to fill me up, and, of course, he kept both the jailers and me afloat in illegal beverages. He was also the first to notice when I started to go bald in earnest. Unbeknownst to me, he kept careful, daily records of the feathers he found in my pen, and notified Alex and Sebastian when the numbers skyrocketed.

  “I don’t like this at all,” Alex declared after viewing Hyattia’s data.

  Previously briefed on the abrupt acceleration of my defoliation, my inability to see most of my body prevented me from judging what that actually meant.

  “Imagine a dog with a rather persistent case of mange,” Sebastian offered to describe my condition.

  The thought of tiny vermin burrowing into me made me shudder. “Do I have mites? Is that why I’m losing my feathers?”

  My parents once rescued a puppy with the ailment, and beyond the hair loss, her skin was oozing and crusted where the wretched parasites dug in. I wasn’t itchy, but poor Doodles scratched herself raw until she was treated.

  “I already checked, and no, there does not seem to be an infestation. I used mange only as means to evoke a realistic picture of what is occurring on your back. You have very few feathers left, my dear.”

  Alex walked around me, frowning. “In light of her other symptoms, I think we cannot linger much longer,” he announced to his mentor.

  “I agree,” Sebastian replied. He turned to Ulut, who was observing the proceedings from the lean-to. “Are you in accordance?”

  Ulut nodded his head.

  “You aren’t planning on putting me out of my misery, are you?” I meant it as a joke, but no one seemed particularly amused.

  “Of course not,” Alex said, glancing quickly at Sebastian and then back to me. “But these new symptoms are troubling, and no one is willing to risk you getting worse.” He smiled in a comforting sort of way, but there was something unfathomable in his eyes. Maybe I imagined it, but I could swear they were keeping something from me.

  I persisted in trying to pry out more information, but none was forthcoming. Everyone danced around the issue, spouting stuff that sounded like answers, yet didn’t withstand further scrutiny later on.

  Before Alex and Sebastian returned to their cells, they both made a concerted effort to emphasize how everything would be fine and I shouldn’t worry. I never understood why people believed telling you not to think about something was going to make you not do it. In my experience, it was more likely to have the opposite effect; now all I could do was wonder what the hell was going on. Once we were alone, I focused my interrogation on Ulut, who gave away nothing while dutifully sticking to the company line: No one wanted me to get sicker.

  Neither did I, but there was definitely more to it than simple concern. No matter how I framed what they said and didn’t, one conclusion emerged at the top of the list to explain what was going on. I could think of only one thing they wouldn’t tell me.

  I was dying.

  28

  I really didn’t want to die, but the problem was when you were in the process of doing just that, you started caring less and less about it. Each day, as new symptoms of whatever ailed me popped up, I sunk further into the morass. One day, I started having more breathing problems, the next, every joint in my body swelled and stabbing spasms of agony prevented sleeping longer than a few minu
tes at a stretch. By the time I couldn’t stand to think about food, much less eat it, death seemed like it might not be so terrible.

  The two things that kept me going were a steady resolve not to end my days as a bloated, cranky, whatever-the-hell-I-was indentured to a despicable, power-hungry asstard, and knowing the only way that wouldn’t happen was if we got out of this shithole. Thus, as much as it pained me—literally, most times—I attempted to appear somewhat normal so Jifga would remain oblivious to my deficiencies.

  I hardly saw Alex and Sebastian, so if there was a plan in the making, they didn’t share any details with me. Probably just as well since my brain was on overdrive remembering the normal stuff, like staying upright. Mostly, I spent my days pretending to be less sick than I actually was while watching Ulut and Hyattia pretend they weren’t worried about my mounting decrepitude. Happily, my mood swings had dissipated; I didn’t have enough energy to fuel them.

  Finally fed up with no one stating the obvious, I decided it was time to broach the subject of my failing health. Who to have the conversation with took a bit of thought—Ulut was around the most, but might not have all the facts, and Sebastian, I feared, was likely to gloss over any uncomfortable information to avoid upsetting me. That left Alex, who was really my first choice, except I didn’t have as much contact with him as the others. I never had to make a choice, as Alex fortuitously paid a visit just as I hashed it out.

  After the obligatory small talk, I jumped right in. “Alex, if I ask you something, will you tell me the truth?”

  He tilted his head, as if surprised. “Of course, I would never lie to you.”

  When I planned it out in my head earlier, I stated my concerns with confidence and composure. Now that I was ready to say it out loud, I wasn’t quite as fearless. Did I really want to know for sure? I wondered, but Alex looked at me expectantly, and I knew it was too late to bail.

  “Am I dying?” My practice speech was considerably more eloquent than what actually popped out of my head, but those three words, although blunt, were unequivocal.