Beyond the Pale (5 page)
Four security agents met him there, and made him look into a portable retinal scanner. The guards knew him and were expecting his return, but security had been tightened in the aftermath of Burnout’s forced entry last night.
As Ryan waited for the scanner to check his retinal image against the datastore and give him clearance to enter, Dhin lifted the bird into the air behind him. The ork would return the helicopter to National Airport for a full systems check and any necessary repairs.
The retinal scanner beeped. The guards smiled at Ryan and waved him through. He headed for his recovery room, trying to keep the recurring images of his dream at bay. His wristphone sounded as he passed into the west wing.
He punched the Connect and found himself looking at the most beautiful face he’d ever known. She had cut her hair again, probably to get rid of the parts burned in the explosion. “Nadja, my sweet, it is so lovely to see you.”
Nadja smiled, her green eyes bright. “Likewise, dear. How are you feeling?”
“I’m completely recovered.” Ryan decided not to discuss his nightmare, which had come back to plague him with visions. “I’m worried about you.”
“I came through without a scratch,” Nadja said. “Burnout didn’t hurt me. There’s still some ringing in my ears from the explosion, but I’ve got an appointment with a snake shaman to see if that can be fixed.”
Ryan smiled. “I’m sorry I pulled you into this.”
“Don’t speak nonsense, Ryan. Burnout kidnapped me. Anyone else would have been stopped by security. You had nothing to do with it.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sorry anyway.”
Nadja smiled. “Stubborn slot.”
Ryan removed his guns and his bandoleer. “That’s me.”
“Do you feel up to having lunch with me?” Nadja said.
“Always."
“I don’t have time to leave the hotel, but I’d love to see you here. Can you make noon?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” She disconnected.
Ryan finished removing his running gear and decided to make his way to the arboretum to dance some katas. He needed to think, to sort out some things. Was getting Lethe back important enough to plan a run into Aztlan? Or would that simply divert his attention when it should be focused on his mission?
The Silent Way will help me.
Wearing his black plycra unibody with the Dragon Heart still strapped around his waist, Ryan walked through the house to the arboretum. When he reached the shattered double glass doors, he stepped beyond the yellow hazard tape and into the room where he and Burnout had fought just the night before.
In the center of the room, Ryan began his katas, moving in slow motion, dancing in morning sunshine. Mana came to him through the physical contraction and stretching of his muscles. The power came, bringing focus with it. Concentration into his mind.
All around him were the remnants of the burned arboretum. Scorched plants and blackened marble trees stood beneath open sky. Most of the broken macroglass had been removed, cleaned in the hours since the explosion. Since Ryan had used his distance strike to make Burnout pull the trigger on his Colt Manhunter, and in so doing trigger a massive oxygen explosion.
Miraculously, they had both survived.
Now, the morning air blew cool through the skeletal stone trees of the destroyed arboretum, bringing the smell of cherry blossoms and azaleas from the mansion gardens outside. Dunkelzahn’s estate boasted some of the most impressive grounds in all of the Washington FDC sprawl. Even so, Ryan could still smell the acrid tinge of burning corpses underneath the aroma of flowers. The stench of death from the sprawl-wide rioting that had followed Dunkelzahn’s assassination two weeks earlier.
Ryan danced the moves of the Silent Way, the physical adept path that Dunkelzahn had taught him years ago, concentrating as his body flowed with deliberately slow gestures. He searched inward as he moved, looking with his magic, until he found his core, the solid rock that was his essence, the fountainhead of all his power. He became centered.
Ryan’s power grew from his core, expanding outward until it touched the Dragon Heart, resting in its pouch by his gut. He sensed the immense puissance from the item, radiating like white-hot spray of sunfire. He could feel it like a molten orb, a searing ball of slag in his stomach, but he did not tap into its power. He had decided to use it only when absolutely necessary.
As his power brushed over the Dragon Heart, the nightmare dream flooded back through his mind . . .
In the dream, he stands on a cracked plane of rock, a rough and windswept wasteland bathed in a light so brilliant and so lustrous that he cannot bear to look at it.
The light sings to him, beckoning for him to come to her. To help her. And all he can think about is pleasing the light. He wants to protect the joyous voice that sings like a chorus of angels.
When he sees the wedge of darkness growing on the rock, a vile stain spreading against the light, he tries to move. He tries to run to the light. He can protect her, he can help.
He finds that he cannot move. An invisible membrane surrounds him, like clear latex, and prevents him from going into the light. The membrane stretches and yields when he pushes against it, but it does not break, and the more he tries, the more he finds himself tangled up in it, struggling to breathe.
Suddenly, the voice stops and the light fades. Ryan has failed, and great sadness washes over him as he holds his breath and watches the woman who had been singing. She falls under the onslaught of darkness, her throat ripped out first. Then her heart. Her eyes. Until she is in fleshy tatters, and the light that had radiated from her is blanketed by the stain of blackened blood.
The dream faded from Ryan’s awareness, and he remembered to breathe. He knew some of what the dream meant now. The place was a spike of mana in the astral plane, a point where the world was closest to a plane where horrible creatures existed. Dunkelzahn had called these creatures the Enemy in his message to Ryan.
The light was Thayla. She protected the site from those who would use magic to finish the bridge to the plane of the Enemy so that they could come across and destroy the world. But Thayla’s song was not impenetrable, and perhaps the dream was telling Ryan that the place had been breached.
Perhaps it's paranoia and means nothing.
Dunkelzahn had given Ryan instructions to take the
Dragon Heart to Thayla; she knew how to use it to stop the
darkness. If he didn’t get the Heart to her soon, it would be too late to stop the war.
Now, in the ruins of Dunkeizahn’s arboretum. Ryan drew mana around him as he moved. As he walked the forms of the Silent Way.
Magic built inside him, and he remembered his mission—told to him by a messenger spirit that had been instructed by Dunkelzahn. The messenger had emerged from the shining silver statue of a small dracoform deep inside the dragon’s lair.
“I have taught you of the cycles of magic,” it said, speaking with Dunkeizahn’s voice, “but no one has dared manipulate them as they do now
.
. . The discovery of a Locus by Darke may be the single most devastating event in all of history. If the metaplanar Chasm is breached before we are ready, we will all suffer. All beings will die.
All
beings."
“My fellow dragons are overconfident. . . Technology changes everything. No magic can protect against it. There will be no hiding this time. There will only be war. We must gain the time we need to build up
our
technology so that we have the ability to fight the Enemy when it can cross. But to gain that time we must protect our natural defenses. They must not be allowed to fail, and the Dragon Heart will ensure that they don’t. Thayla will know how to use it. Get it to her before it is too late.”
Now, in the decimated arboretum, the spirit’s voice faded from Ryan’s memory as he finished his dance. He stood perfectly still for several seconds, trying to prepare himself mentally for the coming days, and enjoying the fleeting feel of warm sunshine on the freshly healed new skin of his face.
Gone were the insecurities and doubts that had plagued him before he’d defeated Burnout and regained the Dragon Heart. Forgotten were his desires for vengeance on Dunkeizahn’s assassin. Out of his mind for the moment. Shelved until the task at hand was successfully accomplished. The task of delivering the Dragon Heart to Thayla.
More words came back to Ryan from the messenger
spirit’s speech. “In order to complete your task, you must
enlist the service of a powerful mage who knows the ritual that can carry you and the Dragon Heart into the metaplanes . . . Harlequin would be my first choice.”
Now that I am completely healed,
Ryan thought,
I must begin the search for the mage, Harlequin. Anything else is but a distraction.
Ryan returned to his room, showered and shaved, then dressed in a comfortable suit and tie, restrapping the Dragon Heart to his waist under his suit coat. The Heart bulged at his abdomen, almost making him look like he had a gut, but Ryan had decided to carry the artifact with him until his mission was complete.
He tucked the Walther PB-100 pistol into a discreet ankle holster and took two extra clips of armor-piercing ammo. Just in case. Then he allowed himself to be chauffeured to the Watergate Hotel. He arrived a little before noon, very hungry for having skipped breakfast.
The crowd around the Watergate was thinner than it had been the past few days, mainly concentrated in the front by the manastorm. Someone had erected a temporary macroplast podium and was addressing the crowd, spouting off about how Dunkelzahn had martyred himself, about how the dragon had been a saint and had been called up to heaven by God.
Ryan had heard of the Church of Dunkelzahn fanatics, and apparently their numbers were spreading worldwide. The limousine driver pulled into the circular drive, newly repaired since the explosion had taken out much of the hotel’s façade and the overhanging canopy. The limo stopped by the brand-new revolving glass doors and the driver came around to let Ryan out
.
Initially, Ryan had felt a tad conspicuous in corporate attire, but that had lasted only a few minutes. He knew that in this part of the Federal cluster, a suit and tie were almost
as effective as an invisibility spell. He stepped inside and
up to the elevator.
Nadja greeted him at the door to the penthouse suite, a beaming smile on her lips. And Ryan ran to her, ignoring the defensive looks from the secret servicemen clustered around her. He plunged himself into her arms, pulling her off her feet in a rugged embrace. She smelled sweetly of faint vanilla.
She laughed and kissed his neck. Squeezed his body tightly.
Ryan ran his fingers through her hair. “I’m sorry,” he said
.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Shh,” she whispered in his ear.
He held her close, her face in the hollow of his neck. His tears threatening to come. He loved her more than he’d loved anyone, and he’d nearly caused her death. Burnout had gone for her because of what she meant to Ryan.
After a minute Nadja pulled back and straightened her suit and skirt, the deep green going perfectly with her eyes and hair. She always did know how to kill in the fashion department. “You hungry?” she asked.
“Famished.”
“Come. I’ve ordered Greek from Aesop’s.”
Nadja led Ryan into the raised dining area, situated next to the kitchen. A young human male poured him wine and brought a plate of stuffed grape leaves, hummus, and pita bread.
Ryan’s stomach rumbled. He took a sip of his wine and helped himself to the food.
“I heard Burnout was taken by the Azzies,” Nadja said.
“Yes.”
“Any idea where?”
“Not exactly,” Ryan said. “Jane is trying to track him."
Nadja nodded and swallowed a piece of pita smothered in hummus. She was so beautiful, so strong. Ryan would do anything for her.
“I was hoping to have Lethe’s help, but he and Burnout can’t be my main focus right now,”
Nadja nodded as though she instinctively understood what Ryan had spent an hour of meditation figuring out.
“Yes, and I need to figure out how to get it to Thayla.”
“It’s curious,” Nadja said. “I met someone else today who knows of Thayla.”
Ryan snapped his attention on her. “Who?”
“A strange one. Elf with a painted face. Calls himself Harlequin.”
“You met Harlequin? He’s the one Dunkelzahn said I should ask for help. Where is he?”
Nadja sat back and delicately wiped her mouth with the corner of her napkin. “I’m sorry to say that he left.”
“Do you have an LTG number or a satellite telecom code for him?”
“No."
Ryan held his breath, waiting for Nadja to finish.
“But I do have an address where I’m supposed to deliver his suit of armor.”
“Thank the spirits! Where?”
“It’s an island in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of France—Chateau d’If. It’s where the Count of Monte Cristo was held prisoner.”
“He owns a castle on an island?”
“An ancient French prison. Have you read Alexandre Dumas?”
