It was all Collins could do not to throw up. Grimly, he turned his attention directly on Falima and concentrated on the soaked and grimy mass his socks had become inside his shoes. Suddenly, he thought of the mouse again. "Are you sure Vernon's all right?"
"He's Aisa's charge." Ialin spoke around a mouthful of some fish part Collins did not want to recognize. He had eaten sushi and liked it well enough, but he wondered how the Barakhain got around all the tiny bones. "You're mine."
"Aisa's?" Collins had last seen the parrot in the company of Prinivere, though he supposed she could easily have followed Carrie Quinton and himself without their knowledge. The renegades had surprised him so many times, he had begun to believe they used him for sneaking-up-on practice. He discarded the thought, suspecting that spending half their lives as animals and a chronic need to dodge danger simply made them more cautious than the average man on the American streets. At least before September 11th.
"Aisa's," Ialin repeated, though Collins' thoughts had gone way past the original question. "We thought it logical to give the inexperienced man to the man and the mouse to the bird big enough to carry him. But silly us. What do we know about strategy?"
Already tired of Ialin's hostility, Collins defended himself. "I wasn't questioning your perfectly perfect plan, Mister Perfection. I just didn't know Aisa had made it back here, yet. Is that all right with you?"
Ialin glanced at Collins over his shoulder, his lips bowed into a smile. "I suppose 'Mister Perfection' can live with that explanation." He went back to leading, and Falima turned to wink at Collins.
Collins shrugged. Ordinarily, self-doubt and politeness would have kept him from such a tirade; but his filthy, water-saturated, boulderlike shoes worried at his patience and mood. He understood the need for diversionary tactics, but it seemed more logical to get to Prinivere as swiftly as possible. Once they climbed on her back, she could fly anywhere and no dog could ever pick up the scent from there. Collins did not voice his opinion, however, as he harbored no wish for Ialin to belittle him in front of Falima again. He did not care what the hummingbird/man thought of him, but Falima's opinion mattered deeply.
At length, Ialin hopped from the stream to a rock, then to another farther away, and finally to the stony ledge of a hill tucked into a tangle of forest. Falima performed the same maneuver, then Korfius bounded after them. Collins leaped heavily to the first stone, throwing out his arms for balance. Water squirted from his running shoe, spilling in rivulets down the gray face. He jumped to the next rock, his shoes sloshing.
Ialin said nothing, though his head waggled disapprovingly at Collins' gracelessness. Ordinarily, Collins could make those jumps with ease, but the loads of water he carried like cement blocks turned the task into a monumental undertaking. If he ever came back to this magical world, he vowed, he would wear waterproof boots. Eventually, he straggled to the ledge, hoping they had reached the end of their journey.
Ialin wandered around the hill, then disappeared.
Falima took Collins' hand to lead him into the cave opening he had, once again, not previously noticed. Korfius wriggled between them and rushed into the cave, the humans following. This one was smaller than the previous ones had been, its edges worn smooth, with moss and tiny plants lining every crack. Prinivere took up most of the space, and Collins saw no supplies, such as the usual chests. He wondered how many safe houses the renegades had and how they communicated where to find Prinivere, their gear, and one another. *A lot,* Prinivere sent.*We've practiced a long time and have a lot of spies.*
Collins drew up his left foot and removed his shoe, pouring several ounces of water onto the dirt floor. It disappeared quickly, soaking into the soil, leaving him with a slimy sock that had once been white. Hopping on his squishy right running shoe, he removed the sock, tossed it to the ground, and started on the other shoe.
"My lady." Ialin made a swift, slight bow. "As soon as Carriequinton got back to the castle, she sent a contingent of guards out to kill him." He gestured at Collins, who continued to hop around the cave, now on his bare left foot.
Prinivere lowered her scaly head.*I know, Aisa brought the news. I sent her to check on the caverns, see if Carrie lied about them, too.*
Collins paused to dump the water from his muddy right shoe.
The dragon's massive head swung toward Collins. Miss's gone to check where Carrie said they hid the dragon kits.*
Ialin gave Prinivere an earnest look as Falima came up beside Collins and put a hand on his shoulder to steady him while he removed his other sock. Collins guessed the hummingbird/man addressed the dragon in thought, perhaps to warn her not to say too much in the presence of one he still did not wholly trust.
Prinivere returned with a communication they could all hear.*He needs to know, Ialin. He's the only one who can get inside.*
Collins froze in mid-motion, the grubby, sodden sock dangling from his hand. "Are you saying I've got to sneak into the royal chambers? Again?" He touched his face with his free hand. "How many times can we pull that off?" *You don't have to go back there.*
Ialin added, "And your face is back to normal, by the way."
Falima squeezed Collins' shoulder. "Dirt-streaked and tired, but normal."
Good. Collins wondered how long Quinton's illusion would last and how much worse she could do to him when it failed. Though her double cross had caught him by surprise, he could not wholly condemn it. After all, he had deceived her, too. In fact, he found her betrayal a bit of a relief, easing some of the guilt of his own.
Though Collins now stood squarely on bare feet, Falima still held his shoulder as she asked, "Did Aisa get Vernon out safely?" *He's with me,* Prinivere confirmed.*From what I can get, the royals have identified Zylas. Then, Carrie Quinton ordered Ben killed and locked up Zylas.*
Collins wriggled feet becoming dangerously cold and wondered where they had left his backpack. "Locked him up? He was already locked up." He glanced directly at Falima, then at Ialin from the corner of his eye, wondering if he had missed something. The woman nodded agreement, and even Ialin seemed interested in the answer. *In a rat-sized cage.*
Falima gasped; and, this time, Collins knew he had failed to consider something important. He kept his mouth shut, hoping it would come out in context, but he could not help wondering, What? Is he a claustrophobic rat? *At noon…* Prinivere started, then left Collins to finish.
"He turns into a human and… and what happens?"
Ialin said gruffly, "If the iron's sturdy enough, it crushes him dead."
Something wet splashed Collins' cheek, and he glanced at Falima. Spidery red lines wound through her eyes, the lids half-closed in pain.
"Not Zylas." Collins put a comforting arm around Falima, and she folded against him. Though well-muscled, she felt strangely small and helpless to Collins, who could never have imagined her surrendering to despair. He wondered if her relationship with the albino went deeper than he had known, despite the vast difference in their ages, surprised to suffer a flare of jealousy. He could no longer deny his feelings for her. He drew himself up, willing a determination he did not feel. "So we have to rescue him before noon tomorrow." He shrugged, as if it were the simplest matter in the world. "We can do that."
Ialin nodded, though the gesture seemed more habitual than reassuring. He had clearly weathered a lot for this cause, and it never seemed to end. *You still have the right to go home whenever you wish. You don't have to risk yourself for this.*
Though cautiously sent and clearly intended out of fairness, Prinivere's reminder irritated Collins. He turned on the dragon with a tone that surely baffled his companions, who had not received the message. "I'm not going anywhere till I know Zylas is safe. I got him into this mess-"
Falima interrupted, "No, he got himself into it. He insisted on going, and-"
"It was my fault." Collins' voice cracked, and he felt tears building, "I got us caught. I did something very very stupid."
Ialin's head rose and swiveled
toward Collins. His expression still presented an image of sorrow, but his eyes gained the stormy darkness that had become so familiar to Collins. Even Falima stiffened.
"There's a mirror in Carrie's room. It reflected me as me-the real me, not the illusion. I thought the disguise had worn off. I… thought my cover… gone, and I panicked. I didn't think things through clearly and… " Collins swallowed hard, and the tears dribbled down his cheeks. "I'm sorry." Now, he could almost feel Prinivere scanning his mind for details. *A mirror that sees through illusions is magical.*
"Clearly." Ialin scratched his head, rearranging the disarray of his hair into further chaos. "But why would Carriequinton have such a thing?"
Prinivere squinted, and her eyes disappeared amidst the scaly folds of her aged face.*Seeing through illusions may not be its primary power. Any magical mirror would cut through to the truth.*
Falima removed her hand from Collins, using the back to wipe tears from her cheeks. "So what's the real purpose of this thing likely to be?"
Collins appreciated that the conversation had gone from his blunder to the significance of the mirror. "If I had to guess, I'd bet it shows her face the way it used to look." *Very likely.* Though Prinivere agreed with Collins' assessment, she still appeared pensive, eyes lost amid the wrinkles.*Though that, too, might simply be a function of it being magical. It might not have anything to do with its intended purpose when it got magicked.*
Ialin made a thoughtful noise. "So, if it has another power, Carrie might not even know about it."
Now Collins frowned. As a scientist, he would examine and experiment with that mirror until he discovered its every secret. He doubted Quinton would have done less. "In any case, is it more likely to give away that her facial repairs are illusion? Or to show her her original face before the scars?" *I… don't know,* the dragon admitted.*This is a distinctly unusual circumstance. If I had it here to examine…*
Stepping out of Collins' embrace, Falima continued to mop up tears with her sleeve. She had seen Quinton's repaired features and had, apparently, figured out the rest by context. "Carriequinton obviously never planned to cooperate with us anyway, so it hardly matters when she realizes we tricked her."
We? Collins appreciated that Falima accepted his deceit as a group decision. It made him feel like an integral part of the renegade operation, though he suspected her word choice had more to do with the fact that Prinivere had decided to assist in the duplicity. In college, he had supported liberal causes with the unambiguous moral certainty only a neophyte to the big bad world could muster.
As his personal burdens grew heavier, he had become essentially apolitical. He wondered what his friends and family would think if they knew he had deliberately embroiled himself in the sticky and perilously deadly affairs of another world.
Prinivere opened her enormous green eyes and rolled her gaze toward Falima.*I'm not so certain she never intended to cooperate. She did trust Ben enough to come with him alone. And she did eventually tell us where to find the dragons.*
Collins shook his head, having difficulty making sense of the matter. "Why would she tell me, then try to have me killed?"
Falima and Ialin remained silent, without the necessary information to participate fully in the conversation.
Prinivere paced out a cautious circle and lay back down in a new position.*She whispered the directions in your ear, remember? Then you left right away, without the chance to tell anyone else. Once you died, you couldn't pass it on. Or, if you lived, she figured you'd forget all those unfamiliar names before you could pass them along.*
Collins realized he already had. *Even if you remembered, she knew it wouldn't do us any good.*
Collins recalled the earlier, unfinished conversation. "Because this place is warded against switchers?" A light dawned. That's got to be the place Carrie considered a "third world." *Right.*
"Why?"
Prinivere glanced at Ialin, who sighed, shrugged, then nodded wearily. Not long ago, he had cautioned the dragon not to tell Collins about this place at all and now she had passed him the job. "Because it's basically a dungeon, and a long-ago king worried that people might either try to release prisoners or blunder in and get themselves killed. The warding works both ways, so it also kept the prisoners from escaping."
Collins paused to consider the words before asking any questions. The more he figured out on his own, the less Ialin would judge him. He knew the king had never warded his dungeon in a similar way, if for no other reason than that it would also exclude guards. However, the current king had nothing to do with the magic that kept switchers from the royal bedchambers either. In fact, he had written decrees banning the possession or use of magic by anyone in the kingdom, which suggested he might not know about Quinton's mirror and explained why she kept it hidden in the wardrobe. He guessed some ancient king had wanted prisoners housed farther from the castle while later ones preferred to keep enemies close and had moved the lockup to the basement. Collins tried a different tack, "Perhaps that king wanted to keep the more violent criminals as far as possible from his home and family."
Ialin's nostrils flared, and the corners of his mouth bent slightly upward. He did not seem disappointed with the direction of Collins' questioning. Yet.
Prinivere provided some assistance without giving Collins the answer. Perhaps she sensed the blow that might cause to his self-esteem.*And the most violent prisoners would be…* meat eaters? Collins guessed, then cringed at the understanding that answer brought. "It's the lockup for the Randoms who take the form of obligate carnivores?"
He cursed himself for answering too quickly. "No, that's not right. King Terrin has them executed."
"King Terrin," Falima said, "and several kings before him. But long ago, rulers tried imprisoning them." She glanced at Ialin, as if willing him to go easier on Collins. "Without much success."
Collins remembered something the current king had told him. "I did know that. The king said most of the carnivores preferred execution." He narrowed his eyes. "But locking them up occurred generations ago. Even if they got to live out their natural lives in prison, wouldn't they all be long dead by now?"
Ialin shifted from foot to foot. "Unless they bred."
Prinivere added the finishing touch.*A long-ago king who didn't believe in executions had an "inescapable" catacomb engineered to house the most recidivist and wicked criminals. After one trickster still got out, he hired dragons to ring it with magic. Some of his successors continued to use it. After the Curse, the wards operated mainly to prevent switchers from entering or, more importantly, leaving and to imprison cannibals.*
After nearly getting hanged for ignorantly eating a rabbit, Collins preferred the term "carnivore." It all made sense now. Likely, the earlier criminals were all male, and the king had expected them to destroy one another or starve. At best, they would die of old age without bothering the honest citizens of Barakhai. Once the worst crime became uncontrollable cannibalism while in animal form, the proportion of men to women would presumably become equal. Thirteen-year-olds not yet used to their new forms would find themselves ripped from loving, protective families and thrust into a lawless world filled with uncivilized people and man-eating carnivores, never to see their loved ones again. He shivered at the implications. The wild animals would instinctively produce more of their own. Rape seemed inevitable, and some would deliberately pair off in human form, creating Random offspring that might find themselves the only rabbits or zebras in a den of lions, tigers, and wolves. No telling what kind of horrors might lurk in such a hellhole.
Then, the realization hit home. Suddenly Collins found his eyes so widely rounded they hurt. "I'm supposed to go… I mean, you expect me to face that… alone?" Suddenly, sneaking into a castle and rescuing a caged rat from dozens of guards did not seem so hard.
Eyes still enormous, Benton Collins glanced around the room, scarcely daring to believe his companions could even consider such a task possible. Each looked back at him with
such desperate hope that it tugged at his heart. Maybe if I had an army, a couple of bazookas, and a whole fleet of war-planes. He shook his head in dumbfounded disbelief. "I want to help. I'll do everything I can. But… I just don't think… " He continued to glance around at his companions, who remained stoically silent. "… it's possible to… " The tears puddled in Falima's eyes again, and it cut Collins to the heart. "But I will help with Zylas."
They did not need Collins for that mission.
"But I'm not sure you'd want me. I don't have any experience. I might mess up again, and-"
Prinivere spoke first, with a mental communication that did not disrupt the uncomfortably heavy silence of his companions.*I could send you home and bring you back for… those things you think you need.*
Collins sighed, not wanting to explain modern weaponry, even to one as intelligent and intuitive as Prinivere. "Armies, bazookas, warplanes. I don't actually have access to those things, although… " He could barely believe he was considering this. "… I could probably scrounge up a gun." Get around the three-day waiting period in the wake of September 11th? Fat chance. Unlike the renegades, he had no sources for illegal goods. Wait, isn't it just handguns that require a permit? Having never purchased such a thing before, he had no idea of the details. He had gone target shooting with his friends a few times but had always borrowed one of their rifles. No one in his family that he knew of had ever owned a gun of any kind. "I suppose I could look into it." It was a flimsy dodge at best. A single shot was unlikely to stop a charging lion, and anything could get him while he reloaded. He did not even know if he would find the dragons tame enough to follow him once, or if, he found them. "How about if we save Zylas first, then worry about how to get the dragons from the catacombs?"
Each of the renegades nodded and, for the moment, Collins found himself free of an impossible burden. It was a temporary reprieve at best.
And Collins knew it.
Chapter 7
The lost Dragons of Barakhai bob-2 Page 15