Chasing Legends

by Pippa Amberwine

  It took a while to drive there, as we stuck to the least busy roads in an attempt to avoid a coming together with any SCAR units that were out on patrol, but eventually we managed to reach Nampa and onward to the end of Roosevelt Avenue. Right at the end, I pulled the car into a small lot and disconnected the wires I’d pulled out to hotwire it back at Boise. The place seemed deserted. No other cars. More importantly, no SCAR.

  I tucked the loose wires under the dash. “Come on. Let’s go find your friend,” I said.

  “Nindock is no friend of mine, Katie. He’s a madman. If you think Lynnette is crazy, then Nindock would need locking up for his own safety.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “Yes, that bad. He has the power to open up a rift. Unfortunately, his power is so underdeveloped that most people die trying to get through. If not, they end up maimed or missing a limb or with some other malformation they didn’t have going in. He is a liability all around.”

  “So, why are you in such a hurry to go see him?”

  We were walking along a road, past houses and farmland, tall communication towers slowly getting closer. One of them, painted white and red, had collapsed in a tangle of metal.

  Jevyn stopped and wiped his brow with the back of his hand. “To stop him of course.”

  Once we reached the opening in the fences that ran along either side of the road, the first signs of a presence were apparent. The opening had been blocked to prevent any vehicular access, and the remaining gap was guarded by two men, each well-armed with a semi-automatic rifle and guns holstered on their hips. This seemed serious. It was the first place I’d come across that had guards posted.

  “Wait right there. What do you want?” one of them, the bigger of the two, said loudly as we stood still on the road with our hands up.

  “We’re here to see Nindock.”

  “And you are?”

  “My name is Katie, and this is Jevyn.” I stood stiffly. Guns, especially guns in the hands of amateurs like these two, made me nervous.

  “Wait there. Do not come any closer.” He stood to one side, lowering his weapon while he spoke into a walkie-talkie. Nothing happened for a while, and then a reply squawked through.

  “Okay, come on over. You two are lucky; he’s in a good mood today. I’ll take you to him.”

  That surprised me. Nindock was obviously trying to keep a low profile, and I didn’t expect to get through so easily.

  We followed the guard across an open yard and then around a couple of large storage buildings. Behind the buildings, hidden from the road, Nindock’s town stretched out. It was like the wild west had been transported to Nampa. A wild west occupied by dragons and humans together.

  Most of the town that had sprung up seemed to be temporary buildings, made of wood and in many ways not that different to the refugee camp we’d been in just an hour or so earlier. The one difference was in the people. Instead of being rail thin, they all looked fit and well fed. Most of them even looked happy, although it seemed to be in a kind of distant, not-quite-sure-what’s-going-on kind of way.

  Beyond the run of temporary buildings, there were three or four more large storage buildings, which was where we seemed to be heading. Smoke was rising from a chimney on one, and for once, I was baffled by the smell it was giving off.

  “Smells like Nindock has a brewery up and running,” Jevyn said quietly.

  Whatever it was, it smelled better than the refugee camp, and it made my stomach start to boil with hunger. I had been feeling light-headed for a while, which I’d put down to being out in the bright sun, but with a growing sense of dread at the back of my mind, I realized what was causing it and my hunger. The last drops of dragon blood I’d had were starting to wear off, and here I was in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by dragons, but none of them knew what I was or what I needed, even Jevyn. I gritted my teeth, determined to try and get through whatever came next without going full-on bloodlust. If I did, we could end up in a whole mess of trouble.

  Between two of the large buildings, another wooden structure had been built. Nailed onto the front of the place, above the door, a plank of wood with the word Saloon in bright blue paint on it had been hung.

  The man guiding us pushed open the door to allow us in.

  I’d never believed in time travel. Travel between dimensions I knew existed, but time travel? Nah, not so much. But I could have sworn that when Jevyn and I stepped through that door, we stepped back in time.

  Every table and chair was occupied, and there were lots of them. Mostly men gathered around the tables, some playing cards, some playing checkers, some just sitting and talking, adding to the hum of voices and laughter that quieted for a few moments before resuming after we walked inside.

  The air itself seemed odd to me.

  The place was full, and from what I could tell, the people losing money, the people buying drinks at the bar, the people talking to what quite clearly were, uh, saloon girls, were all indisputably human and with enough money to spare to flash it around like it was going out of fashion. It was the kind of thoughtless spending I thought I had seen the last of, but here, in this chintzy, faux-western saloon bar, money seemed to be no object. The only thing missing from the whole scene was some toothless dude playing a honky-tonk piano in a corner of the bar.

  “There he is,” Jevyn said, nodding to a table just off to one side of the bar.

  I followed him as he walked over. Jevyn stopped behind the chair of a man angled slightly away from the rest of the room. But something about his posture, and the way others slid furtive looks at him, told me he was the man in charge. Had to be Nindock.

  The smell I’d noticed when I came in seemed to be coming from some incongruous vases of flowers, and when I scanned the room, I noticed they were all around, lots of them.

  One of them was perched on a ledge right near the table Nindock was sitting at. The smell from them was overpowering, sickly sweet, and yet the more I breathed it in, the more I wanted to breathe it in. After no more than a few seconds, I could feel my eyes start to water, and my brain started sending my stomach signals that it was nearly time to hurl. I swallowed hard and forced myself to concentrate on what Jevyn was saying.

  Nindock looked up, surprise registering in his eyes, and then flicked his head at the two other men who were at his table. With a noisy slide of their chairs, they stood and walked away, bumping shoulders with Jevyn on the way past and looking at me like they had picked up some dirt on their boots and couldn’t scrape it off.

  I pushed past Jevyn to sit down on one of the vacated chairs before I fell down, only to realize that the flowers were almost above my head.

  Before Jevyn could sit down, I asked him to move the vase away.

  He gave me a questioning look, so I just pointed to my nose. “Hayfever.”

  He picked up the vase, moved it away, and then came back and sat down.

  “So, Jevyn. You’ve come a long way to share a drink, my friend.”

  With a little distance from the flowers, I focused sharply on Nindock for the first time. Something seemed off about him. Whether it was some kind of subconscious bias after what Jevyn has said about him or something else, I found myself fighting the urge to look away from him, like his very appearance repulsed me in some way. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. His eyes seemed to be dark and brooding, for all I knew masking a lifetime of pain, or if Jevyn was to be believed, masking some kind of instability in his head. Apart from his eyes, he was an unremarkable person physically. He was the sort of person you would pass on the street and not even remember you had.

  I couldn’t work out whether that was a good thing or not.

  Maybe it was dangerous. I decided to reserve judgment on that until I got a better handle on him.

  Jevyn smiled to himself before he replied.

  “Nindock. I most certainly didn’t come here to share a drink with you. I know you’ve been missing for a while back on Dracos. I thought maybe one of your tears in
the veil had claimed you as a victim instead of the poor dragons traveling with you.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you, my prince.” Nindock almost spat out the word. It was clear already that there was no great love lost between the two dragons, but that thought drifted out my mind as a strong gust of air from the door being opened spread more of the scent of the flowers my way.

  My head just seemed to go blank for a moment, and I might have wobbled on my chair. I shook my head and fought with everything I had to stop myself from zoning out.

  Nindock’s attention flicked to me. “Ah, Katie, pleased to meet you at last.”

  I was confused, lack of sleep, lack of blood, and that godawful smell were all combining to cloud my brain.

  “How did you know my name?” I asked, befuddled.

  “You told my man at the gate. He told me.” He hesitated for a moment, leaning forward to take a long, deep look into Jevyn’s eyes. “When I came here, Jevyn, I had nothing. I saw this planet in a terrible state, and my heart went out to the people here. One of the people who came with me, actually one of the two who were sitting here with me, had a particular skill for growing things. He also had Srisfoot flower seeds. He planted some of the seeds once we found this place, and the weirdest thing happened. Whenever we came across a human, if they smelt the Srisfoot for long enough, we couldn’t keep them away. I have learned that as a race humans have addictive personalities, and the Srisfoot seems to be as addictive as anything humans have produced for themselves. It seems to be working on your friend here too.” He nodded in my direction, but when I watched him, his head seemed to be jerking like in a movie, one of those stop-motion animations, slowed down so I could see every tiny individual movement.

  “What?” Jevyn turned to look at me, his face a picture of concern. He grabbed me by the arm, pulling me to my feet when he stood. “So, you are drugging these people to come back and spend their money here? This has to stop, Nindock. You have no right to treat these people this way. You need to go back to Dracos and take the rest of the dragons here back with you.”

  Nindock stood, facing up to Jevyn, the tips of their noses mere inches apart.

  “I’m sorry, Jevyn. That simply is not going to happen. Here on Earth, or New Earth as we shall call it, your family influence holds no sway over me, nor will it ever. If anyone should return to Dracos, it should be you. Now, if you want to get your friend out of here, feel free. I will accompany you, and as soon as Katie has regained her equilibrium, I can take you on a tour of the complex. You’ll enjoy that, but if you ever try to do anything to make me go back to Dracos, I will happily kill you like the stray dog you are.”

  His eyes were blazing like burning coals, and in a moment of clarity, I could see the madness shining through.

  The two of them glared at each other for a few moments until I groaned at the dizziness in my head. I would have fallen over if it wasn’t for Jevyn supporting me. Jevyn broke the stare first to look down on me as I tried to bend double at the sudden pain that had exploded in my gut.

  I couldn’t imagine how I looked, but he seemed to lose all interest in Nindock for a moment. He hitched me up and walked me toward the door. I could hear Nindock’s steps behind me as he followed.

  As soon as I got out and took a couple of deep breaths of the fresh, untainted air being blown across the site, I began to feel better. Not great, but the pain had gradually disappeared, and I could see straight again. It was a massive improvement. Even though I’d enjoyed the close contact with Jevyn, I pushed myself away to stand on my own two feet.

  “So,” Nindock said, his demeanor much improved as he seemed eager to show off his place. “Do you want the quick tour or the grand tour? I’d suggest the quick tour, and then I will arrange somewhere for you to sleep for tonight. It’ll be dark in an hour. Much too dangerous for you to be wandering around. In the morning, though, I will, respectfully,” he said that word with a sly grin, knowing how Jevyn would react to that, “have to ask you to leave. Permanently.” His voice had deepened as he spoke and again the two faced off for a second. This time Nindock blinked first.

  “Come,” Nindock said briskly. “This over here is our brewery and distillery.” Then he stopped walking and looked at me. “On second thought, Katie, maybe you should stay out here. We grow the Srisfoot in here too, so . . .” He didn’t need to finish the sentence, I knew exactly what he was driving at.

  “We stay together, Nindock,” Jevyn said. I was surprised. I was also a little annoyed. I couldn’t see myself coming to any harm where I was, and I didn’t need anyone to babysit me. I would have said all that, but a pain had started in my mouth, on my gums, and for a moment, until it faded away, I couldn’t speak, holding myself rigid to try and force the pain away.

  “Come on, then. I’ll show you to a shelter where you can sleep tonight, although I do wonder what Famil would say about you spending the night with a human, Jevyn.”

  Jevyn’s face was fixed into an angry grimace, clearly holding himself back, refusing to retaliate to the goading, but since he had said it, I had to wonder too, although only briefly. All I wanted was to lie down, and I pulled on Jevyn’s arm and groaned pathetically to make him stop whatever he was thinking about doing.

  “We’ll talk more in the morning, Nindock. Be sure, you will go back to Dracos though. Now, where is this shelter?”

  “Follow me, Jevyn, but don’t forget what I said. It’s never going to happen.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Jevyn

  Nindock’s town

  Near Lake Lowell, Nampa, Idaho

  WHEN I WOKE up, the first thing I did was roll over and groan.

  “Oh, my back.” It felt like someone had inserted a steel block at the base of my spine and then welded it to me. It was the price I paid for being a well-brought-up gentleman. Sleeping on the hard, wooden floor was really the only option available to me, and even with using my rolled-up jacket as a pillow, it had still taken ages for me to fall asleep.

  Poor Katie had fallen asleep almost as soon as her head touched the mattress. Her muttering and snuffling, and the occasional groan and wince of pain, had kept me awake too. She seemed to be taking a while to get past her exposure to the Srisfoot flowers. I felt guilty that I hadn’t realized they were causing a problem earlier, but the pollen didn’t have much of an effect on me, certainly not to the extent it clearly had on humans.

  Despite Nindock’s goading the night before, I would no more have tried to take advantage of Katie than I would any other woman, more so as she was so clearly suffering. I might be many things, but an insufferable oaf who couldn’t act any better than an animal I most certainly was not.

  I would be lying if the thought of Katie and me hadn’t crossed my mind, because it had, but that was, if it even had a chance of happening, something that would have to wait. Right then, I needed to find a way to get Nindock to go back to Dracos as soon as possible before his madness spread any further than this one relatively small camp.

  Speaking of insufferable oafs, a loud banging on the door woke Katie up, and I had to force myself to sit up, groaning still as I heard Nindock’s voice through the door.

  “Wakey, wakey, my prince. Rise and shine. Up and at ‘em. You and your princess need to get up.”

  When he let out a shallow chuckle, I guessed that the next few hours were not going to be a barrel of laughs for me or Katie.

  Maybe I should just break off a chair leg from the only other piece of furniture in the shack, knock him out, and take him back to Dracos without him knowing anything about it.

  Although the thought was tempting, I knew it wouldn’t work. If what he had built on Earth was left in any substantive form, he’d be back quicker than I could say, “Watch out he’s coming around.”

  To make sure he didn’t try to come back, I had to find a way of making him realize that coming back to Dracos was in his interests or destroy everything he had here, giving him no choice.

  The door rattled again. �
��Come on, I haven’t got all day. Thirty seconds, and I’m coming in, and I don’t care if you two are rutting like pigs.”

  “What did he say?” Katie asked from the bed. She looked awful. Dark rings under her eyes showed up against her paler-than-usual but still porcelain, smooth skin. I couldn’t help myself staring at her.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  “Yeah, yeah. I got distracted for a second is all. He said we need to get up.” I hauled myself to my feet, slipped my jacket back on, and then held out my hand to help Katie off the bed.

  When I pulled, after she took my hand, her knees seemed to quiver, and she had to lean forward against me to avoid falling over. The feeling that shot through me at the close quarters was like the one the day before when we had been forced into close contact. It was a feeling I increasingly would have no objection to continuing and growing.

  But was I being realistic? I mean, we had nothing in common, not even a planet. How could we ever get together under circumstances like the ones we found ourselves having to cope with right then?

  “You sure?” she asked. “You still seem kinda distracted, and I feel a little awkward with my face pressed up against you. Could you let me go?”

  I released the firm grip I didn’t realize I had gotten of her, and she took a step back, still swaying slightly every once in a while.

  “Are you okay? You seem a bit unsteady on your feet.”

  Katie shook her head rapidly and then lifted her eyes to mine. They were still dark-rimmed, but she had gotten her focus back, which I was glad to see.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. C’mon, let’s go see what Nindock wants.”

  I walked over to the door, half-keeping an eye on Katie to make sure she didn’t fall over, but she seemed to have managed to regain a little equilibrium. Maybe she just wasn’t a morning person. I didn’t have time to worry about it then, though. I was more concerned with what kind of madness Nindock had in mind for us before he showed us off the compound.