A Play of Shadow (50 page)

Something bumped his boot.

Another something.

He had to look down again. Ancestors Harried and Helpless! They were—they were eating his boots!

Regardless of the real threat of falling off the road—for falling might be an improvement—Bannan moved faster, wheeling his arms to keep his balance. Each time his foot touched, there’d be one or more bumps. The boots were—had been—his favorites and new, with thick soles. Ancestors Witness. Would they be thick enough?

One of the little smiles broke free of the rock, like a fish jumping into air, narrowly missing his hand!

Proving—oh, yes—there was a body belonging to that wicked set of teeth. A body he recognized, however much smaller and stubbier.

Dragon!

Brood, Sand had warned. He’d walked right into it, hadn’t he?

Bannan shouted, half-warning, half-plea. “Jenn!”

More dragonlings erupted from the rock to snap at him, nipping holes in his shirt, pulling at his hair. The yling appeared on his shoulder, brandishing a spear, and accounted for one that fell tumbling through the sky, but there were more.

They were small and seemed able only to jump, then plunge back. Small mercy, Bannan discovered as he used his hands to protect his face. Their teeth resembled a rabbit’s, rather than Wisp’s long fangs, but were as sharp as they looked. The bag over his shoulders protected his back but confined the little cousin, whose desperate wriggles to join the battle threatened Bannan’s balance.

All while the brood ripped and tore at his clothing, as if tearing away skin. It would take only the taste of blood, Bannan feared, to send them into a frenzy.

“Jenn—!” but she’d left him behind, surely thinking him safe.

A slash opened his cheek, spilling warm blood down his shirt. Bannan hunched, arms over his face, but his arms simply became the new target.

Crunch.

The attacks ceased. He lowered his arms only to flinch as most of a full-size dragon flew by his face and into the rock, the young scattering.

Flinched and might have fallen but for the mass behind him. Bannan grabbed for Scourge as the kruar snapped up a hapless dragonling. Once the truthseer felt steady, he voiced a heartfelt, “Couldn’t have got here a moment sooner, could you? Before they were eating me?”

~Sooner and there wouldn’t be enough.~ Another snap and capture. With purring.

“‘Enough—?’” As if to answer his question, Wisp’s head appeared from the rock, jaws crammed with little bodies, then slipped back again. “—oh,” Bannan finished, now distinctly queasy. So dragons ate their young. Here he’d been pleased to have one sleep with his nephews.

Something he might not tell Lila.

Using a sleeve of his dragonling-shredded shirt, Bannan wiped the blood from his cheek, ignoring the rest. Shallow, the cuts. He rued the lost clothing more. “Where’s Jenn? Is she all right?”

~Why wouldn’t she be?~ as if he’d asked something ridiculous.

Maybe he had. Bannan sighed and started walking up—along—the rock again. By the feel of his feet, he’d need new boots as well as clothes. “Aren’t you coming?” he asked, when Scourge didn’t move with him.

~Tasty!~

Not for the first time, Bannan was grateful the old kruar didn’t think the same about his rider.

Not that he’d mentioned, anyway.

Of course, Scourge was far from the only kruar in the Verge, as Wisp wasn’t the only adult dragon.

Wasn’t that a thought to put a shiver down the spine?

A sliver of paper, touched by ink and finger’s tip . . . a drop of sleep, under the tongue . . .

And the dream unfolds . . .

Up is down and behind is before and nothing is but madness—

Nothing is but madness—

Nothing is—

The dream breaks . . .

Jenn was delighted to discover, upon closer inspection, that what she’d thought a cloud was composed of dragons that would fit in her hand. Like a flock of late-summer birds, they flew in vast murmurations, tails and wings in constant motion. Some flew higher than she could see, while others plunged into the rock and disappeared.

On impulse, Jenn held out her hands as she might to birds, but the baby dragons—was that the right word?—were too shy to approach, though heads turned to watch her as they passed and she thought a couple were tempted.

Bannan wasn’t far behind, so he should see them too. She hoped so; a flock of baby dragons surely a marvel even in the Verge.

Ahead the rock split apart, a third bending up again—or was it over—and the rest verging at a tangent to the right. Between was something new.

Yet almost ordinary. It looked to be a grassy meadow, surrounded by what she decided to call trees, in lieu of a proper name for what had a woody trunk like a tree, but instead of branches sprouted clumps of black feathers. The feathers met at the tops, forming a canopy a little like a night sky, complete with stars.

Stars that were ylings, who danced overhead, their hair afire with light. Entranced, Jenn stepped from rock to meadow.

With a startled gasp, the meadow being a far higher step than she’d thought to take. It took her a moment to regain her balance. She’d have to watch for Bannan and warn him about that.

The short brown grass was pleasantly soft underfoot and warm. The meadow itself, now that she stood within it, stretched like an open, welcoming hand, each finger and thumb a path whose end she couldn’t see from where she stood.

While the palm was a depression, with a round fountain in its midst; a fountain so like those of Marrowdell Jenn didn’t need the tangle of turn-born expectation to tell her who’d made it. She started walking toward it, then stopped to look back, abruptly uneasy.

“Bannan?”

He should be mere steps behind her. Mere steps—but what did that mean in the Verge? Where was he?

Jenn ran back to where the meadow ended and rock began, only to find herself confronted by tree trunks and darkening shadows. Their road was gone.

What had she done?

He was to be
here
. Now and
safe!
WITH HER!

Every wish she began slammed into
DENIAL
until she stopped, gasping, and fell to her knees
.
“I wasn’t to leave him,” Jenn whispered. “Ancestors Blessed and Beloved, how could I have left him?”

Well, this was a problem.

Bannan considered the wall of—stalks, he decided to call them—that had sprung into existence around him between one step and the next. They were topped by silky black feathers, like one of Lorra’s hats, and seemed harmless.

He’d keep his distance.

As best he could. They grew, or sprouted, or stood, no more than two arm’s lengths apart, though some touched and others merged. The ground was covered in what appeared brown fur—and might be—leaving him grateful for what remained of his boots.

Closing his eyes, he rubbed them with thumb and forefinger, seeking relief from the strain. Never before had his deeper sight cost him like this. Then again, Bannan thought ruefully, he’d not wandered a world where he’d needed to look deeper simply to see where to put his feet.

Pat. Pat.

Dropping his hand, he opened his eyes to find a yling—his yling—hovering just out of reach. It faced him, two hands gripping the barbed spear it had used to such good effect, another holding a shield made from polished acorn shell. Yling possessed two pairs of arms and one pair of legs, with hands at the ends of each. Its remaining three hands were held empty and open. He, for this was certainly male, wore a cape of purple aster petals. Wisp’s doing, Bannan remembered.

Hair like threads of glass stood out from the yling’s head; dark eyes regarded him.

Waiting. For what?

Bannan bowed, leaving his hand over his heart, fingers and thumb forming a circle. “By the Hearts of my Ancestors, accept my thanks for your courage, my friend.”

The yling tipped his head, light splintering into rainbows around it.

How much did the creatures understand? “I must find Jenn Nalynn,” Bannan said hopefully. “Can you help me?”

“Can I help you?”

The voice, querulous and high-pitched, seemed to come from everywhere at once. The yling dove into the truthseer’s hair. As Bannan whirled around, searching in vain for the source, the house toad warned, ~Do not answer! Do NOT!~

“Can I?” the voice said again, abruptly high overhead. “Will I, is the better question.”

~Let me out,~ demanded the toad. ~Our elder sister is near. Do not believe him!~

Good advice, Bannan decided grimly. The disembodied voice grated unpleasantly along every nerve; he needn’t see who spoke to feel ill intent. He unslung the pack, tearing open the ties. The toad burst out between his hands to land on the furry ground, puffed and battle-ready.

Nostrils flared and red, Scourge plunged into the clearing, shattering wood to clear an opening. Plumes of black fluttered up and away, frightened from their hold. A furious wind followed on the kruar’s heels, whirling splinters into a dizzying wall. The dragon’s roar sent Bannan to his knees, hands over his ears, wondering why the ground hadn’t shattered as well.

~SHOW YOURSELF!~

Jenn sat on one of the stones ringing the fountain, facing the direction Bannan should come. She’d tried to push her way to him through the trees and managed only to scrape the skin of her arms and tear the bodice of her dress. It was Peggs’ second-best and, while she greatly regretted the tear, her sister did have a baby growing inside. Having witnessed the blossoming of Hettie’s bosom, Jenn supposed Peggs was unlikely to fit into the dress again for at least a while.

Not that she truly cared about clothes at the moment. Ancestors Despondent and Despairing. She’d left Bannan behind. How could she have been so—so absentminded!?

The Verge. It sang through her. Songs of magic. Of wonders! Foolish, foolish to let the new and strange claim her attention, and now Bannan—

Jenn folded her hands just so, careful of the knuckle with the long scratch, prepared to sit on the stone as long as necessary. She’d done harm enough moving around. Those lost would stay lost, Uncle Horst had impressed upon all the children of Marrowdell, unless they stayed to be found.