Dragonlinks

by Paul Collins

  ‘Well, we still have his money, and he was too scrawny to be of much use in repairing the bridge,’ said the mayor. ‘Besides, he only had one hand.’

  Jelindel rummaged around outside and found one sheet of Korok’s reedbond paper that had slipped behind one of the benches beside the wall. It had only a few lines of script on it, but she could make nothing of it at all. She sat in the sunlight for a moment, considering what to do. Daretor was away, and she had Korok’s link. Korok had been writing frantically and wearing the link when she had found him. When he had escaped he had taken only the sheets of paper.

  Almost of their own volition her fingers popped open the lead-lined locket, and the link glowed faintly in the sunlight. She slipped the link onto her finger.

  All at once the script became legible, yet there was very little of it, and she was seeing it out of context.

  Giving up for the moment, she took out the thundercast and held it in her hand. Its touch triggered a whole series of associations and facts: settings for stun, burn, cut, blast, something called auto-sighting, feedback shield option, and password.

  Password. Jelindel probed what seemed to be her own thoughts, and found that the thundercast was set to Korok’s aura, but that the password was stored within the link and available to her.

  ‘Reset on password JILG’MIS AK-TO-JI-7-YA,’ she said as she held the thundercast.

  ‘New password please?’ asked the weapon.

  At hearing the weapon speak Jelindel got such a fright that she nearly dropped it. She opened her writing kit and wrote down SENGITO 7-6-F-5, then spoke the password to the thundercast.

  ‘Please repeat,’ it responded flatly, and she did so. ‘Confirmed. You are the new and exclusive user,’ the flat voice informed her.

  Now the little studs on the thundercast made sense. She reset it to ‘cut’ and aimed at the edge of the table before squeezing the trigger bar. A piece of wood about the size of her fist fell away, leaving a charred, smoking surface behind. There had been no blast or flash of light, as there had been back in the port.

  With shaking hands Jelindel copied down the settings and operating procedures for when she took the link off later. After putting the thundercast away she turned her attention back to Korok’s page of script. Probing the false memories that the link gave her revealed nothing about what it all meant: MASTER CONTROL INVOKE, NAVIGATION AUTO INVOKE, FIRE CONTROL, DEFLECTION FIELDS, DAMAGE CONTROL SUBSTRATE, SINGULARITY RESONANCE FURNACE, CLOAKING OPTION.

  Jelindel wished there was someone to train her in what the thing was meant to do – and the thought TRAIN set off a whole set of link-induced memories! It was training her, just like her governess, kindermaid and tutors once had.

  Jelindel sat there, aghast, as she realised what the link was telling her by means of the false memories.

  The late afternoon sun was bright; there was little wind, and children played happily among the folk from the outlying farms setting up stalls for the market day. Jelindel tried to imagine it all as a bubbling lake of glowing, melted rock, but her mind recoiled from the vision.

  ‘Are you all right, Mage Auditor?’ asked a serving girl who had just arrived at the tavern for the evening’s work.

  ‘Yes, perhaps,’ replied Jelindel, barely aware of her.

  ‘I’ll get you a nice mug of ale from the chill cellar.’

  ‘Do you have limewater?’

  ‘Not so far into the mountains, sir, but I could make a cherrymelt for you.’

  ‘Yes please,’ responded Jelindel, more to get rid of her than because she was thirsty.

  Daretor returned with Zimak just after sunset. The bridge had indeed been burned, and their horses were still on the other side of the chasm that Zimak had been pulled across with ropes.

  Daretor was annoyed that Korok had escaped, but said that there seemed to be little harm in it. Because she had used the link, Jelindel could not tell him what she knew, or how she had found out.

  All that night Jelindel sat in her room with a lamp and her writing kit, exploring the false memories from the link and growing steadily more desperate. Korok’s other weapon was overwhelming in its power, and she knew that she could barely comprehend it, let alone fight it.

  The next day was the weekly market, and in spite of his bandaged ankle Zimak gave a challenge to all comers to wrestle with him for a stake of five silver argents. Much to Jelindel’s amusement, he was beaten in the first round by the blacksmith.

  Daretor set off for the wrecked bridge with the prisoners. Several villagers accompanied him with a block-and-beam hoist to haul their horses across the few yards of nothingness that had replaced the bridge.

  ‘Jaelin, is that you?’ a familiar voice shouted.

  Jelindel turned to see Kelricka running towards her, with three temple guards following close behind. The young priestess stopped two yards from Jelindel, as if she had hit an invisible wall.

  ‘Mage Auditor, I – I am very pleased to see you again,’ said Kelricka.

  She can’t be seen to embrace a youth in front of her guards, Jelindel reminded herself, even though she was aching to throw her arms about her.

  ‘I’m pleased that you reached the Great Temple safely, Holy Kelricka.’

  ‘And are you still collecting your, ah, links, Mage Auditor?’

  ‘I have but one to go. What are you doing here in the mountains?’

  ‘A village was burned away to nothing by a real dragon. I was sent to check for myself and scribe out a report for the local high priest and the governor. I did find the ruins of such a village, and something hideous had indeed happened there.’

  ‘I am surprised that the Preceptor of Skelt’s governors care about the fate of mere villages,’ said Jelindel, genuinely puzzled.

  ‘We are in Hamaria, not Skelt. The border is a few miles further along at Serpent’s Gap.’

  ‘Ah, so that is why they speak both Skeltian and Hamarian here. But what are you doing on such a lonely road?’

  ‘I was on my way into Skelt when the Galenian Bridge was destroyed by the Baltorians, so I have come down the back roads. Now these villagers tell me that the bridge ahead is gone as well.’

  ‘Give it a week and the bridge will be up again,’ said the blacksmith as he joined them. ‘Meantime any friend of the Mage Auditor is a friend of ours, so ye can stay here. Mind now, ye wouldn’t be a priestess, would ye?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Kelricka.

  ‘Ho ho, now! We have a wedding tomorrow, but no clergion to do the blessing. I can do it meself under the laws of Hamaria, as any blacksmith can officiate. Joinin’ together couples and joinin’ together metals is seen as a like skill, or so the laws say. If ye be a priestess, though, well so much the better and what a blessing for the young couple.’

  That evening Daretor, Zimak and Jelindel walked some distance along the flood plain of the river. Jelindel had the thundercast with her, and she looked very unhappy.

  ‘I wish to stay in this village for a time,’ she announced as they gazed out across the valley that had been scoured out by a glacier many millennia ago.

  ‘For how long?’ asked Daretor.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What about the last link?’

  ‘I’m aware of the last link, but this could be even more important. This village is in terrible danger, and I could be the only one who can defend it.’

  Zimak laughed. ‘Gah, Jaelin the Mighty, caster of mighty spells and protector of the weak and stupid.’

  ‘Next time you need protection we’ll look the other way,’ said Daretor to Zimak. ‘Jaelin, if you want us to help then you’re going to have to tell us more.’

  Jelindel took out the thundercast.

  ‘Just as a castle gatekeep knows passwords to admit only allies and keep out enemies, so too does this thing have a password to permit its use. I have just barred Korok and authorised myself, with a new password.’

  ‘Gah! Prove it,’ cried Zimak.

  Without hesitation Je
lindel aimed at a boulder across the valley, flicked a safety catch and squeezed the firing bar. The boulder detonated with a blast that echoed up and down the valley, and a few fragments even fell into the river at the valley’s centre.

  ‘Impressive,’ said Zimak shakily. ‘Could you reset it so that I – er, any of us could use it?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Jelindel coldly. ‘But instructions are from a mind that has very alien paths of thought, and some of them are hard to interpret.’

  ‘How did you learn to do that?’ asked Daretor suspiciously. ‘You didn’t use Korok’s dragonlink, did you?’

  ‘No, I just talked to the weapon,’ Jelindel lied. ‘It was lonely, so it told me how to use it.’

  ‘What?’ gasped Daretor.

  ‘It’s like a hunting dog,’ Jelindel quoted in carefully rehearsed lines. ‘It’s a sort of live weapon. Korok has other weapons, though, and he might still be dangerous.’

  ‘It’s a bit late to tell us that,’ said Zimak.

  ‘How could he use his weapons with the dragonlink in our hands?’ asked Daretor.

  ‘Until now I thought that he might have used this very thundercast to destroy that other village, but if the tale about the dragon is true, then … Daretor, I – ah, never mind.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Those notes that he snatched from the tavern when he fled may have been instructions for operating some other weapon. He wrote them out while wearing the dragonlink so that he would have the memories back if the link were taken away by us.’

  ‘You can’t write down a skill,’ Daretor scoffed.

  ‘No, but this thundercast only needs words and the crudest of movements to operate it. You could still swing a sword when the dragonlink was first removed from your finger, but you couldn’t do it with skill.’

  ‘Prove it,’ Zimak challenged.

  Jelindel held up the thundercast and pressed a stud.

  ‘Tell them what you are,’ she ordered.

  ‘I am a Gh’viv 57 Remote Singularity GVG,’ said the flat voice. ‘I have twenty-two settings, resonance absorption charging and –’

  ‘That’s enough. Note, Zimak, I am wearing no dragonlink.’

  Jelindel lowered the thundercast and pressed the stud again.

  ‘Were I to wear the link and read what Korok wrote on that sheet of paper, I might know more,’ Jelindel suggested.

  ‘No!’ snapped Daretor. ‘You do not fight a thief by becoming a thief.’

  Jelindel shrugged and looked out over the valley again, where the shadows were lengthening. Two shepherds were hurrying over to where the boulder had exploded, one with his pike-hook ready, the other holding up an axe.

  ‘The bridge will not be repaired for a week,’ Zimak said with a quaver in his voice, ‘so we have to stay here till then.’

  ‘If we go our own ways I want to take the mailshirt,’ Daretor said emphatically. ‘I can’t find the last link without it.’

  ‘Hunting alone is a good way to get killed,’ Jelindel retorted. ‘We only beat those mercenaries by fighting as a team.’

  ‘I killed two!’ Daretor shouted.

  ‘But I defeated the other four!’ Jelindel shouted back. ‘And I snared Korok long enough to take the link from him.’

  Sullen silence descended again.

  ‘If our luck is good, Korok will be back within the week,’ Zimak suggested as he began to shiver with the chill in the air.

  ‘That won’t be good luck,’ said Jelindel.

  ‘And if not?’ asked Daretor.

  ‘Then go!’ snapped Jelindel. ‘Zimak, will you go with him?’

  ‘I – I don’t know,’ mumbled Zimak, squirming. ‘With you I could, ah, learn to read better, but, ah …’

  ‘But with Daretor you two would still be a fighting team. I’m weary of all this – this fighting, searching and hiding.’ She threw her arms up in frustration. ‘I have nothing else to teach you, Zimak. I simply long for a quiet life.’

  ‘You’ll never have that particular curse,’ Daretor said mirthlessly.

  ‘All right, then, consider this: you two take the mailshirt and go in search of the last link. I shall stay here and keep Korok’s link –’

  ‘What?’ exclaimed Daretor.

  ‘Shut up and listen! I shall stay here for a year. If Korok has not returned by then, I shall come after you. I can use the link to find you.’

  ‘I don’t like it,’ muttered Daretor. ‘It’s not safe to leave a link in this fleabag of a village with only a girl to guard it.’

  Jelindel opened her mouth to reply, but recognised that anything that she said would only make things worse. She pressed her lips together instead.

  ‘Zimak?’ asked Daretor.

  ‘I … would go with you, Daretor,’ he said cautiously, ‘but I have to admit that there may be sense in what Jaelin says.’

  ‘She has no grounds to her fears, Zimak.’

  ‘Well, she just may. Korok said that he has met the other linkrider. From what he says, it must have been recently, so it could not have been any of those that we have run to earth. Might Korok also not seek him out and bring him back here to fight us? Just think, the link might come to us!’

  Jelindel nodded, but was still too angry to say anything.

  ‘Wisely put,’ Daretor had to admit. ‘We could give him … perhaps a month.’

  Zimak and Daretor stood up to go but Jelindel stayed sitting on her rock, the chunky, alien thundercast still clasped in her hand.

  ‘Are you coming, Jaelin?’ asked Zimak.

  ‘You go back, I want to have some practice at thunder -bolt archery,’ she said as she pressed another stud.

  She aimed and fired. Across the valley there was a puff of smoke beside a rock but no dramatic blast this time. Damn, missed, she thought to herself, but she would not admit it to the others.

  The wedding was held mid-morning the following day. Jelindel did not sleep well, and had spent much of the night searching a paraplane for any strange magical auras that might signal Korok’s return.

  She was woken before dawn by the taverner next door and his son, who were rolling barrels out to the square. This disturbance was followed swiftly by the young men of the village seizing the groom and subjecting him to a cold bath right outside Jelindel’s window. After that she dozed for an hour, but then the local band arrived at the tavern to tune up and practise between tankards of ale.

  Jelindel cursed whoever had built the tavern next to the inn and gave up on trying to sleep. She warmed a pot of water in the taproom fireplace, then back in her room she stripped and washed thoroughly. By the time Kelricka called in she had changed into the clean clothes from her saddlebags and was washing her hair.

  Jelindel paused and listened to Kelricka arguing with the guards that it was safe and moral for her to be alone with the Mage Auditor.

  ‘If only they knew the truth,’ Jelindel said as Kelricka entered.

  ‘Even this brief meeting will be entered in Yalok’s trip log,’ grumbled Kelricka. ‘They watch me, even though I lead them.’

  Jelindel began to towel her hair dry, and was surprised it was now so long when unbound.

  ‘One day I would like to walk about in robes again,’ she said. ‘Each day I tell myself that, but each day I put on the mailshirt and sheepskins, strap on a sword – then swing my leg over a horse and ride until my backside hurts. Every so often someone tries to kill me, and from time to time I end up killing one of my attackers.’

  ‘How long before the last dragonlink is found?’ asked Kelricka. ‘Do you have any clues as yet?’

  ‘Yes, and a strong one. I cannot say anything to anyone, but the end is very near now. The mailshirt will be complete and we may be able to render it harmless forever, but that will be at the price of tears, hate, and possibly deaths.’

  ‘How can you know all that?’ exclaimed the shocked Kelricka.

  ‘Were I free to tell you, there would be no problem. Kelricka, that pair I ride with are enough to m
ake me scream most of the time, yet they are my only family now. We have been through so much together, risked our lives for each other, yet … I know in the deepest corners of my heart that the last dragonlink will be the end of us.’

  ‘I do not follow what you mean.’

  ‘Don’t try. It’s … almost impossible, yet I have a scheme to ensnare the last dragonlink that may leave us in harmony. But what then? How could we settle down together? Daretor has a warrior’s heart and thinks of little else but honour. His true destiny is yet to be fully realised; I somehow know this. Zimak is an errand boy and alley fighter, but he too could be much more – if he ever grows up. Much as I despair for him, I think that if he stays with Daretor he may be guided to a better path.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Gah. I am a scholar. I don’t fit in with all that. Besides, I’m a girl. Sooner or later one of them might look my way on some remote road and try to suggest a bit of dalliance. I would not like the idea and, well, things could get quite ugly. Zimak is shiftless, for all his good points, and I know for a fact that he would throw our friendship to the winds to cover himself. Daretor would do the same over some petty matter of honour.’ She gave a mirthless, rueful laugh. ‘While I can admire them both for what they are and can be, I can also see their flaws.’

  ‘Jelindel, you sound as cynical as some old courtier,’ said Kelricka, inclining her head and raising an eyebrow.

  ‘I’ve travelled too far and endured too much with those two in my formative years. I’m sixteen, but I feel like sixty.’

  Kelricka stared at her sternly. ‘No, you’re still in your formative years.’

  Jelindel laughed in spite of herself. ‘Before we reached Dremari I heard what Daretor and Zimak thought about girls in the most candid and lurid of detail. Very few girls hear what men really talk about when they are alone together.’

  ‘But are they typical of all men?’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not.’

  Jelindel began combing her hair back.

  ‘Leave the thonging off, Jelindel, your hair is lovely without it.’

  ‘What? No, it has to stay bound for me to pass as … what am I playing at now? A Mage Auditor passing for a Skeltian freerover, I think.’