Dragon Spawn

by Eileen Wilks

  Shut up, she told herself. She lifted her arm so her right elbow pointed at the sky, then pulled on that elbow with her other hand. Her rifle was in the way, but she managed.

  “You look funny,” Gan observed. “How come you’re doing what he said?”

  “Because he’s in charge.”

  “How come he’s in charge?”

  “Because he’s very, very good at this.” She switched arms. “Gan, you need to obey Benedict, too, because he’ll do a good job of keeping you alive. If he says duck, you duck. If he says for you to cross, you do that.”

  Gan gave the big man a doubtful look. “I don’t have to wait to cross until he says.”

  “You don’t have to, but you want to wait if you can. You wouldn’t want to waste power crossing if you don’t have to.”

  “I have lots of power now,” Gan assured her. “And crossing around here is as easy as it gets. Pretty much everywhere I stand there’s a realm bumping up against me. Twin nodes, you know.”

  “Actually, I don’t.”

  Gan was astonished. “How could you not know about that? But maybe you’ve never seen twin nodes. They’re really rare. They thin out”—she waved both pudgy hands vaguely—“stuff. Whatever separates the realms, it’s thin here, lots thinner than with just one node. Makes it easy to fall through even if you aren’t a crosser like me. That’s why Xitil made her palace in the dead volcano, so she could soak up power from those nodes and grab anyone that fell into Dis from some other realm. Mostly she ate them,” Gan added, “but sometimes she kept one around, if they were useful or interesting.”

  “Humans?” Benedict asked, looking mildly curious.

  “Sometimes. She didn’t eat them, of course, because of their souls, but mostly they died pretty fast anyway. Humans are really bad at healing.”

  Grandmother snorted. Cynna frowned. “So you can’t cross just anywhere? If you wanted to cross right here, could you?”

  “Oh, if I crossed here, I’d end up in the air.” She squinted as if thinking. “I’m not sure how far up, but probably too far. Plus that realm isn’t time-congruent at all. The more the time is out-of-whack, the harder it is to cross, and if you don’t match the time closely enough, your mind gets all confused, and it takes a while for it to settle down. But if I hopped over a few feet, I could cross into a real nice realm. I don’t know the name of it. It looked a lot like Earth, but it isn’t Earth because there were a lot of elves, which is why I didn’t stay there long. Elves hate demons. Do you think they’d hate me now that I’m not a demon anymore?”

  “The elves in Edge don’t hate you.”

  “Yes, but I’m important there. I wouldn’t be important to elves in other places.”

  “Forget the elves,” Benedict said. “You understand what to do when Seabourne signals?”

  Gan rolled her eyes. “I’m not stupid. I get on your back and—”

  “On my shoulders. The machete’s on my back.”

  “So I get on your shoulders instead. I still think it would be more fun to ride the tiger, as long as she didn’t eat me.”

  Grandmother nudged Lily with her nose. Obediently Lily put her hand on one big paw. Touch made mindspeech easier; it also meant she didn’t have to send out a probe, which Reno said would attenuate her protection from mind magic.

  Grandmother’s mind was a marvel to Lily’s new sense. Power blazed deep within, but the surface was darkly mysterious—like a comet or small asteroid, all crags and crevices. For some reason it wasn’t compelling the way dragons’ minds were. Instead, it felt . . . familiar.

  Yes? she sent, and listened, then said aloud, “Gan, Grandmother wants to know why this Xitil of yours wanted a side door which allowed people to sneak in on her.”

  “Oh, she had lots of side doors. Not always the same ones—she rearranged things all the time, so you never knew if a path in still worked or if it would drop you into a pit like this one does. Or like it did, but Rule said it still does, right? Though not right away.”

  “Yes, but why?”

  “Well, she liked practical jokes, especially if they involved screaming, plus she had to give her courtiers something to do. They were always scheming and trying to kill each other or her, though not her very often because most of them weren’t that stupid. So sometimes she made everyone enter court through a secret entry to see if they could, or else she watched to see who was meeting who secretly, or sometimes she created entertainments where someone she was annoyed with had to go through a trial. That’s how I got to eat old Mevroax. She sent him into a real big maze and he made it out in spite of getting attacked a bunch of times—at least he thought he’d gotten out, but that was her tricking him, so when that big stalactite fell and pinned him, he was so weak that—”

  “I get the idea. So you think—”

  Cynna grunted and bent over, clutching her gut.

  The sky over the caldera erupted in a geyser of rainbow light.

  From the other group, ready on their bikes near the top of the ridge, Cullen cried out, “That’s it!”

  “Go!” Rule said, and engines caught.

  Lily reached Cynna right after Benedict, who was helping her straighten. “What is it?”

  “My Finds. They’re gone, both of them.” Cynna’s face was pale and strained beneath the inky traceries. “I can’t feel Ryder anymore. Or Toby.”

  Shock weakened Lily’s knees. She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t put words to her fear.

  Benedict could, though his voice came out harsh as a crow’s call. “What does that mean? Have they been taken to another realm? Killed?”

  “No! No, that’s not—death would weaken the Finds, not cut them off like this. I incorporated a lot of physical patterns, so even if—if there were just bodies—” Cynna stopped. Gulped. “And I’d still Find them if they were in another realm. I did before, didn’t I? No, someone cut the Finds. Both of them. I don’t know how, but they did. I felt it. The power, the workings—it all slapped back into me, like rubber bands breaking.”

  Benedict grabbed Gan around the waist and flung her up on his shoulders. “Hold on. Can you run?” That was directed at Cynna.

  “Yes. I can try recasting—”

  “Good,” he said, and shouted “Come!” to all of them. And he took off.

  TWENTY-THREE

  THEY ran—Benedict in the lead with Gan on his shoulders, Lily with a mist of mind-stuff pushed out around her. As she reached the top of the slope, she caught a glimpse of the last motorcycle vanishing between two huge rock pillars. The noise of the bikes stayed with her as she hurtled down the other side, where loose rocks and dirt turned her run into a skidding slippery slide. Grandmother bounded ahead and paused at the bottom, nose up and tail lashing.

  As the ground leveled they turned left, away from the route the bikes had taken. A wide, shallow gully ran along the base of the caldera, and their goal was less than half a mile away. Rule hadn’t been able to tell them what the entrance looked like, so they were depending on Gan to recognize a spot that might not look the way she remembered. Or the way old Mevroax remembered. Lily did not understand how one being could hold multiple sets of memories, but Gan didn’t seem to have any trouble with it.

  Explosions—one, two, three—went off some distance away, their percussive fury muted by the caldera’s rocky sides. Lily felt them in her feet. And kept running.

  “Here!” Gan squeaked, and nearly fell off when Benedict stopped.

  “Where?” Cynna demanded.

  The caldera rose along their right, a stony mass unmarred by dead vegetation. There wasn’t enough dirt for anything to have grown. In one tumble of rock Lily spotted a hole. An extremely uninviting hole it was, too, being dark and low. “You mean that crevice?” She pointed. “It’s low. We’d have to crawl in one at a time.”

  “I don’t see a crevice,” Benedict said, reachin
g up to swing Gan off his shoulders and set her on the ground. “If you do . . . illusion?”

  “Xitil couldn’t do illusions,” Gan said. “They’re like lies, and besides, demons don’t do mind magic.”

  “The Great Bitch can,” Cynna said slowing. She was studying Benedict, not the jumble of rock. “But it’s not one of her best things. It doesn’t come easily, so she seldom bothers. Or at least she seldom did, back during the Great War. If . . .” She nodded sharply. “Benedict, your eyes keep flickering past one spot. I think it’s a don’t-see-me spell, not illusion. A strong one.”

  “Isn’t that mind magic, too?” Lily asked dubiously. “Your charms—”

  “Protect against mental attacks, not passive magic. I explained that. A don’t-see-me spell placed on an object is passive.”

  If Cynna said so, Lily believed her. Even if she didn’t get it. Better find out what was in that hole in the ground. Lily gently puffed at the mind-mist she’d been keeping around her, sending it into the hole . . . “One mind just inside,” she reported. “Inside and up about ten feet, as if it’s on a ledge or—Grandmother!”

  The tiger had leaped toward the hole—flattened herself, and sprang inside.

  Benedict sprinted after her—closed his eyes, and dove inside.

  Lily reached the hole two paces ahead of Cynna, who panted, “I can’t see it. I still can’t notice the damn hole. Lily? Can you tell what’s going on?”

  She heard the sounds of battle beneath. No shouts or screams—no roar from a tiger—but thuds, motion . . . she yanked her attention to the mind-mist she’d already sent down there. “Three minds—Grandmother, yes, and Benedict, and the demon—its mind is slick to me. There’s something odd about it, but I can’t tell what with just the mist, and—oh. That one is fading.” She’d never touched/seen a mind die, but she had no doubt that’s what she sensed. “The demon’s dead.”

  “I wish I could’ve seen that fight!” Gan was bouncing on her toes. “Killed the m’reelo just like that? Wow. Was it the tiger or the big man who killed it? How come the tiger doesn’t have to wait for the big man’s orders?”

  “Madame is dragging the body out of the way,” Benedict’s voice came from below. “Come. The drop is about five feet. Toss the little one down first. I’ll catch her. Lily, take the rear.”

  The rock chamber where Lily landed a few moments later was dark, the floor slick with blood. At least she guessed it was blood. She couldn’t see worth shit, but she heard . . . “Grandmother. Ick.”

  “Sensible to eat her kill,” Benedict said. “She has a lot of mass to maintain, and a few bites of jerky won’t have filled her stomach. Cynna, some light, but keep it dim.”

  “She killed the m’reelo?” Gan asked, excited, as two mage lights popped into existence overhead. “All by herself?”

  Lily unslung her rifle and looked around, able to see the chamber better now—only it wasn’t a chamber. It was a broad tunnel, high-ceilinged and round, cut through rock as black as coal. The footing wasn’t great. The floor wasn’t as curved as the ceiling, but it wasn’t flat, either.

  “I helped,” Benedict said dryly, sheathing his machete and pulling his Uzi from the holster. “Madame, we need to go. I’d like you to take rear this time. I’ll take point. Lily, you’re at my left and just behind me. Warn me if you sense any minds. Cynna and Gan, you’re behind Lily. Remember the firing pattern.”

  “You first, then when you drop back to reload, I take over,” Lily said. “Then you again while I drop back and reload.”

  Benedict nodded and started down the tunnel.

  “M’reelo are pretty hard to kill,” Gan told Lily chattily as they followed. The tunnel ran straight for about thirty feet in the direction they were headed, then curved left. “They’re really fast and they grab you with those suckers and hold you so they can punch their venom in. I don’t know what their venom does to humans, but it paralyzes demons. Most demons anyway, though for some it takes more than one bite, and a m’reelo can only bite once because it empties their venom sac. And it doesn’t affect khahlikka, but nothing much hurts them, so—”

  “Shut up, Gan,” Benedict said. “This looks like a lava tube. Igneous rock. Ricochets will be a problem.”

  Gan must have thought “shut up” meant “lower your voice.” She went on more softly, apparently addressing Grandmother. “I guess the m’reelo didn’t punch any venom in you. Did your fur keep the suckers from grabbing hold?”

  Grandmother made a low noise in her throat.

  “How come I can’t understand you? The rules should let me understand you. Unless you lose words when you’re a tiger?”

  “No,” Lily said. “She doesn’t. The rules don’t work on me, either, remember? Gan, you need to be quiet.”

  “Okay,” Gan said, dropping into a whisper. “I really like your grandmother’s claws. I was going to grow claws, but then I stopped being a demon so I grew hair instead. Hair isn’t much good to a demon. It doesn’t kill anything so hardly any demons grow it, so it’s hard to grow because you have to figure out how. I bet that’s why she didn’t get grabbed and venomed by the m’reelo—because she’s hairy all over and the suckers didn’t stick. I wonder why there was just one m’reelo? Do you think the rest all died when Xitil blew up the place?”

  “The rest?” Benedict repeated sharply.

  “Sure, m’reelo always hang out in herds, and there used to be—”

  “Incoming!” Lily sang out, swinging her weapon to her shoulder and releasing the safety. “Lots!”

  The glow from two little mage lights didn’t reach far. At first all Lily saw was a squirming black mass rushing toward them from around the curve up ahead—a mass that covered the floor, ceiling, and walls of the tunnel. All at once a huge ball of light blazed and she saw bulbous black bodies, triangular heads with mandibles and glittering eyes and legs. Too many legs.

  She hated spiders.

  Benedict didn’t bother to unclip the Uzi’s stock and brace it against his shoulder. He held it out one-handed, Terminator style. Not the preferred method unless you were a lupus and had both the strength and the hours of practice needed to keep the muzzle from climbing.

  The noise was deafening for about four seconds. It didn’t take long to empty a clip at full auto. Black buggy arachnids splattered the rock with goo and body parts. Benedict stepped back. Lily, already sighted in, squeezed the trigger, controlling the recoil automatically. More enormous arachnids splattered—and then she was out of ammo and stepping back, one hand reaching for a new clip.

  Instead of stepping forward, Benedict leaped straight up. She glimpsed that out of the corner of her eye but had no time for more—the m’reelo were still coming, scuttling over the bodies of their comrades, racing along the walls or ceiling as easily as the floor. She shoved the new clip home as Benedict’s machete flashed over her head—and as she resumed firing on advancing uglies, a m’reelo fell on the floor, narrowly missing her. Its blood did not miss her. She didn’t move, emptying her clip at giant spiders that were way too close. Ran out of ammo again, but she had the next clip ready—eject, slap the new one in, fire . . .

  Then silence. Nothing moved. No, wait, a leg was twitching on that one. She should . . . not bother. Benedict had seen it, too, and moved past her. One quick stroke from his blade removed the head from the body.

  Her hand shook as she lowered her weapon. Her ears rang. Carefully she sent her mind-mist out . . . “They’re all dead. Those sons of bitches were linked somehow. Like a hive mind or something. I couldn’t tell when I just sensed one, but when they all came at us . . . my eyes saw lots of creatures. My mindsense saw one mind with lots of moving parts. Weird.”

  Benedict nodded. “So the rest knew it when we killed the first one and came running. Makes sense. Any more of them?”

  “No minds within my range except us.”

  “What�
�s your range here?”

  “Pretty much zero through the rock. About sixty feet if I follow the tunnel.”

  “You can look around the corner, then? Good.” He sheathed his machete, but kept his Uzi in his right hand. Lily realized he must have killed the m’reelo over her head left-handed. He frowned. “Where’s Gan?”

  “She vanished the second you started shooting,” Cynna said. She had her handgun out, but holstered it now. “She can’t go dashtu here, so—”

  “She can’t?” Benedict’s frown deepened. “You’re sure?”

  “Demons can only go dashtu in other realms, not in Dis. I don’t know why. I’m dropping the bonus light now. Takes too much concentration.”

  As abruptly as it had arrived, the largest, brightest ball of light vanished.

  Benedict scowled. “She must have crossed. Dammit, we need her, but I don’t like standing around waiting for—”

  “Whew.” The high-pitched voice came from directly behind Lily. “That was loud. Did you kill them all? I want a machine gun.”

  “You’re too small,” Benedict said. “A mini-Uzi maybe, but we don’t have one. Come on. Same order.”

  The floor of the tunnel was covered in spider bodies. They had to step on them. The carapaces cracked. The guts squished. Lily shuddered.

  “You okay?” Cynna asked.

  “I have spider blood on me.”

  “That’s the girliest thing I’ve ever heard you say.”

  “Lots of people don’t like spiders. It has nothing to do with who has ovaries and who has testicles.”

  “You’re scared of spiders.”

  “Shut up, Cynna.”

  Gan piped up. “I’m scared of m’reelo. Most beings are. Not the khahlikka, I guess, because m’reelo venom doesn’t work on them, and not Xitil’s pets because they eat m’reelo, but a herd of m’reelo can pull down a pretty big demon, so even the big ones are scared of them. Aren’t you scared of m’reelo, Cynna Weaver?”

  “Not as long as Lily has plenty of ammo,” Cynna said as they rounded the curve behind Benedict.