Centyr Dominance (12 page)

Chad held perfectly still as he watched Alyssa leave.
He sat on an empty door stoop, an empty pipe dangling loosely from the fingers
of one hand. Many people made the mistake of ducking or looking away when
their quarry came into sight, but he knew better. Any sudden movement would
draw eyes to the hunter. Better to remain still. Alyssa probably noted his
presence, but she instinctively avoided looking directly at him to prevent an
awkward meeting of the eyes. Consequently, she had no chance of identifying
him.

Not that she would have recognized him anyway. Gone
were his hunting leathers, covered by a rough tunic and loose trousers. His
bow was stashed in a trash pile nearby, and a broad brimmed hat covered his
head. The ranger’s eyes followed her as she walked a short distance down the
road before turning to enter the Drunken Goat.

Didn’t go very far, did she?
he
noted mentally. He kept his place. Patience was his only remaining ally.

After escaping from Gram and Alyssa it had been
surprisingly easy to avoid the other people of the town who had been hunting
them. Before it had seemed as though no matter how he and Gram had hidden they
were eventually discovered. The only conclusion he could draw from that was
that somehow they had been able to track or follow Gram. Now that he was alone,
there was little to differentiate him from the other citizens of Halam.

An’ it was somethin’ other than just our
looks.
At a guess, he figured it must have been Gram’s
magical sword, either that, or they simply didn’t care about a middle-aged
bowman.

Chad couldn’t disagree with that assessment, though.
He had no arrows and no magic, and he preferred it that way. Better to be in
the background than to draw notice or be seen as important. Being
underestimated had always been to his benefit, and while he wasn’t proud of it,
he had probably killed more people than anyone he had ever met, except the
Count di’Cameron, of course. It was rather hard to compete with
that
man’s
body count.

Moira will just have to take care of
herself for a day or two,
he told himself.
Once I know what
these two are up to, I can find her or the dragons an’ we can decide what needs
doin’.

A rumble drew his attention, and he glanced at the
sky. Storm clouds were gathering, indicating an impending downpour, which
suited him just fine. He would watch until Alyssa returned home before
catching a few hours of sleep for himself. Looking back at the doorway, he knew
that no one would be bothering him. The owner of the small house was no longer
in any position to complain.

“An’ he was kind enough to lend me these fine
clothes,” muttered the hunter. He checked his tunic once more to make sure
there were no visible blood stains.
I should check to see where he keeps
his tobacco. Long as I’m holdin’ this fine pipe, I might as well have a smoke.

***

It was close to midnight when Cassandra and Grace
began their flyover. There should have been a half-moon that night, but the
clouds had solved that problem for them. They flew barely a thousand feet
above the town, confident that no one could spot them in the gloom. Grace was
the first to find her partner.

Gram!

Grace,
came his somewhat
hesitant reply.

She sensed something off in his response,
What’s
wrong?

I’ve been captured, sort of…

What?!
she asked in
alarm.

You have to stay away from me, I’m not in
control of myself anymore,
he replied quickly.

Not in control? What does that mean?

It’s hard to explain. There’s something
inside me. I’m not sure if it can hear my thoughts. This isn’t safe,
he
told her.

Grace was confused and frustrated by his statements.
She needed to know more.
None of that makes sense. You need to tell me
more. I can help you,
she returned.

Gram’s answer was quick and emphatic,
Stay away,
Grace! Warn the others…
His thoughts stopped abruptly as she felt a surge
of pain rip through his mind, pain that passed straight to her through their
link. For a second, her nerves felt as if they had been set on fire, and then
darkness overwhelmed her. Her wings twitched and folded. She was falling.

She came to herself a short time later. She lay in a
dim alley, but that was no obstacle for her keen eyes. The wall beside her was
made of timber, cracked and bowing inward, as though it had been struck by
something moving at high speed. That probably explained the pain she felt when
she began untangling her wings. Something had broken in one of them, one of
the long bones.

If I had known bodies could hurt so much,
I might have rethought my decision to become a dragon,
thought
Grace. She could feel Gram nearby. He was walking toward her, and focusing
her vision in his direction she saw him turn the corner.

She felt a sense of relief at the sight of him, but
only for a moment. As she got her legs under her she could sense the wrongness
in him. His eyes were open as he approached, but Gram’s mind was silent, as
though he had fallen into a deep slumber.
No, not even slumber,
she
realized,
more like a coma.

Gram stopped ten yards away, and his lips opened,
“Destroy the other dragon.”

Grace’s eyes widened, “What’s wrong with you? You
know I won’t do that!”

“I command it, and you will obey.” The words fell
from lips empty of all emotion.

Despite herself, Grace sank her clawed feet into the
timbered wall beside her and began to climb. She would have flown, but her
damaged wing made that impossible.
Gram! Wake up!
she shouted at him
with her mind, but she couldn’t reach him.

Cassandra was flying closer, having circled to return after
seeing Grace fall from the sky beside her.
Grace are you alright? What
happened?

Grace had reached the roof now, and she knew Cassandra
would spot her momentarily. She couldn’t fly, but she expected that her
companion would likely fly down to help her. Inside she was screaming, raging
at herself, but her body refused to obey, and her mind quietly calculated a
plan of attack. She felt as though her heart and soul had been split into two
separate entities. One blindly following orders, while the other watched in
horror.

She could see the chain of events forming already.
Once she was close she would make a surprise attack. Cassandra was more than
twice her size, but Grace had grown considerably over the past week. If she
could get her jaws around the soft part of the other dragon’s neck, just below
the head, she might well succeed.

Cassandra was landing now, her heavy body making the
roof beams groan as her weight came to bear on them.

Grace had no choice, but rather than let the surprise
scenario her mind had provided play out, she threw herself voluntarily at the
other dragon, shrieking a roar of challenge and baring her teeth as she
charged.

That at least gave Cassandra a brief warning, and she
turned her head to meet the unexpected attack. She caught the smaller dragon’s
initial assault with the bony crest that protected the upper portion of her
head before sweeping Grace aside with a heavy blow from one forelimb. Grace
rolled and scrabbled along the slate roof tiles before slipping off and hitting
the ground with a heavy thud.

What are you doing?!
shouted
Cassandra in Grace’s head, but she couldn’t answer. All her desired responses
were warnings, and the enchantment that bound her to obedience had clamped down
even more strongly after her subtle attempt to undermine Gram’s command a
moment before.

Grace began clawing her way up the side of the
building once more, her sharp claws tearing heavy splinters and shards of wood
away as she struggled to reach her designated foe. Cassandra watched her for a
moment before spreading her wings and launching herself skyward once more.

Rising quickly, the larger dragon spotted Gram in the
alleyway and understanding dawned as she realized the source of Grace’s sudden
change in behavior, although it still made little sense. Cassandra began
flying away.

Faced with a target she couldn’t hope to reach, Grace
dropped back to the ground and began running through the streets, following as
closely as she could from her earthbound position. She knew she couldn’t catch
the flying dragon, but inwardly she was glad, not only of that, but also that
she was now out of earshot. Gram couldn’t give her any further orders if she
couldn’t hear him.

Fortunately, there were very few people on the streets
that late, but the few she encountered got the fright of their lives. Grace
had grown and was now slightly larger than the average horse. One man turned
and saw her racing toward him in the dim light, and once she was close enough
for his eyes to resolve her reptilian features he screamed and threw himself
sideways.

She hoped he wasn’t injured as he fell against a building
in his haste. Grace ran past without pausing. She could still sense Cassandra
in the air above, and she couldn’t stop.

Did he order this?
asked
Cassandra.

Nothing in her order prevented honesty, especially now
that the element of surprise was lost.
Yes,
answered Grace.
Something
has happened to him. When he first spoke to me, before he started acting
oddly, he told me he was no longer in control.

If it wasn’t him, shouldn’t the
enchantment allow you to ignore the command?

It was a verbal order. Apparently the
enchantment doesn’t discriminate very well,
she replied.

What if Moira has also fallen prey to
whatever has Gram?
wondered Cassandra.

That hadn’t occurred to Grace yet, but it was a
terrible thought.
Then you must avoid her, otherwise she might give you a
similar command.

You said it was a verbal command,
noted
Cassandra,
but he warned you mentally beforehand. Correct?

Grace gave the mental equivalent of a nod.

Then I will lead you on a futile chase
until I locate her. Once I have found her, I will fly beyond your range, which
should leave you free to help her.

That was a clever plan, and Grace had to admire the
other dragon’s forethought. She had another question though, and despite her
better judgement the enchantment forced her to ask,
What will you do after
that?

A brief pause came then, as Cassandra considered her
response.
Nothing. I will fly higher for a while.

Grace smiled inwardly, grateful that her friend had
realized the trap. If she had told her what her plans were, Grace would have
been forced to try and follow her. Leaving her in the dark would allow her the
freedom to actually help Moira.

***

Gram found himself standing alone in an alley, not far
from Alyssa’s apartment. He remembered warning Grace, but his memories turned
black after that. He had lost control.

The last time, while hunting Chad, he had been able to
remember most of what had happened, but this time he was left wondering. There
had been a flash of pain, and then—nothing. He couldn’t be sure why he had
been able to remember the time before, but not this time. It might have to do
with the duration, or the method of transition, but such things were beyond
him.

He waited quietly for several minutes, considering his
options. He didn’t know where Grace had gone, or where any of his other
companions were, nor did he really want to meet them—not in his current
condition. There was only one practical option left to him. Turning back, he
headed for Alyssa’s door.

As he began to move he heard a faint sound. His ears
automatically focused, and then he could hear the sound of breathing, along
with a heartbeat. He might have missed it in the ordinary noise of the city,
but at this time of night it was quiet enough to pick out from the background
noise. Someone lurked, hidden half a block away around a corner. Whether it
was a stranger or someone deliberately watching him, he had no way of knowing.

He kept those observations in the silence of his
unspoken awareness, the place that Cyhan had taught him, the darkness of raw
sensation where the unconscious worked beneath formalized thought. As his
perception worked its way into the light of his conscious he gave it a verbal
form,
probably just a late night drunk out wandering.
But somewhere
deeper, he doubted the truth of that statement.

Gram walked on, returning to the room where Alyssa
lived.

Moira watched the rain from a small window. The house
that held the window was situated in one of the most squalid parts of Halam.
It belonged to Wat’s mother, his father had died years earlier.

His mother, Lana Perkins, was elderly to say the very
least. In fact, Moira thought she might be the most decrepit example of
womankind that she had ever met. The crone had no teeth that she could
discern, not that she had wanted to get close enough to count them. The smell
had been enough to discourage close proximity.

Such thoughts are unbecoming and
uncharitable,
Moira chided herself mentally. She had
accepted their offer of shelter, and now she felt bad about her observations.
Still, she couldn’t help but wrinkle her nose. The elderly Mrs. Perkins was
not the only thing that smelled. The house itself reeked of old refuse and new
mold.

Gerold had awoken briefly, when Stretch had gently
deposited him in what passed for a bed at the Perkins house. The pain of his
shifting position had elicited a cry from him, and his eyes had opened.

Focusing blearily on Moira he had managed a short
question, “Where are we?”

“I’m not really sure,” she had answered, “Somewhere in
the city, hiding from your king’s guardsmen.”

“How…?” Gerold gasped at a sudden pain, unable to
finish his next question.

“The answer to that is complicated,” she told him.
“The short answer is that we escaped and are now fugitives.”

The Baron’s eyes widened with alarm, but he couldn’t
seem to form any more words. His eyes were losing focus, and she could sense
his consciousness becoming more diffuse. Moira hurried to offer him a cup of
water. The man badly needed fluids to help make up for the blood he had lost.

“Drink as much as you can,” she urged, but after two
long swallows his hand sagged, and she had to catch the cup before it fell to
the floor. Her eyes misted as she considered his wounds once more.
Poor Gerold,
he didn’t deserve this…
Leaning over, she brushed the hair back from his
forehead. “Rest now, you are safe. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

The words were more of a promise to herself than for
him. Her magesight had already shown her that he was beyond hearing her.

Wat stepped into the room, a question in his eyes.

“What is it?” she asked, fighting to keep her own
exhaustion at bay.

“Nothing milady,” answered the ex-prisoner, a look of
embarrassment on his face.

Irritation bloomed suddenly, a product of her
fatigue. “Just ask me. Standing there making stupid faces is just going to
annoy me. Whatever it is, I’ll answer.”

Wat’s face blanched, and he began to fiddle with his
hands, but after a moment he spoke, “Is he your betrothed?”

“What? No!” The question startled her. “Why would
you think that?”

“You seem to care a lot for him—and he’s a nobleman,
and you’re a lady…”

Moira stifled a laugh as her irritation faded away, “I
care for a lot of people. I hardly know this one. Anyway, the nobility aren’t
like cats and dogs. You don’t just throw a male and a female together and
expect them to pair up. Besides, how do you know I’m a noblewoman?”

Now it was Wat’s turn to look amused. “I may be slow,
but I ain’t daft. You certainly ain’t common.”

She pursed her lips, uncertain how to respond, finally
she said, “I guess I can’t argue with that. Since you aren’t daft, what do you
propose we do from here?”

The lanky man shrugged, “We can’t stay here too long.
If they find us here, it’ll mean trouble for my mam. Don’t you have a castle
or someplace we can escape to?”

If only it were that simple,
she
thought. “I wish I did, but my home is far away. In any case, I cannot leave
until I find my father. The King has him locked away somewhere.”

“Then he is doomed,” pronounced Wat.

Moira gave him a determined look, “I got us out of the
King’s dungeon.”

“Once maybe, but the whole palace will be stirring
like a nest of mad ants,” said Wat. “It’ll take more than some magic tricks
and strange animals to go against the King.”

She opened her mouth to argue, but after a second she
closed it again. Wat hadn’t seen most of what occurred. Part of it he had
been forced to forget, and the rest had been mostly invisible to his eyes.
Other than summoning Stretch, most of the escape had just been strange behavior
on the part of the guards, at least from Wat’s viewpoint.

“I’ll see you safely out of the city, Wat, you and the
Baron both. Maybe he has some place to keep you both safe, but that’s as far
as I go. I have unfinished business with the King here,” she told him.

A fire was building in her heart. The deaths and the
fighting she had seen and caused, at the palace had left her uncertain, but now
her resolve was returning. Moira hadn’t asked for this fight, but now that she
knew her father was near, and now that she had seen the monster lurking at the
heart of Halam, she could not turn aside.

“You’ll die, milady.”

Moira blinked, “A lot of innocent people will die,
Wat, but I won’t be among them, and I’ll hold the King accountable for their
deaths. There is an evil lurking in this city. Even if my father weren’t here,
I couldn’t turn back. What they are doing to these people is unforgivable.”

What about what you’ve done to some of
these people? Wat for example...,
suggested her silent
observer.

Shut up.

Needing a distraction from that uncomfortable thought,
she glanced at Lenny. The dead man had been sitting quietly in a corner since
they arrived. “I need some time to think,” she told Wat since he hadn’t spoken
after her last remark. “And I need to work on Lenny here.”

“What will you do with him?” asked Wat. “He’s one of
the King’s guards after all, he shouldn’t even be here.”

“Just leave me be,” she sighed.

Wat stared at her for a moment and then bowed his head
before backing out of the room. Moira let the ensuing silence soak into her
bones for a moment and then let her magesight roam outward, exploring the
neighborhood around their new hideout. She found nothing out of the ordinary,
no guards or watchers studying the house.
Perhaps things will be quiet for
a while,
she thought.

Turning her attention to Lenny, she moved closer to the
living corpse that was occupied by one of her spellbeasts. The logical thing
to do would be to let the body die and repurpose the spellbeast as a creature
of pure aythar. She could use a guardian.
I could use several guardians.

But she had other needs. The thing lodged in the
guard’s throat was a mystery, one that lay at the heart of what was going on in
Halam. Being a thing of dead metal, she doubted she could get any information
from it, but she might be able to learn how to remove it.
And who better to
practice on than someone who is already technically dead?

Steeling herself, she focused her senses on his neck,
examining the strange metal
thing
that was lodged within him. In
structure it was like a bizarre metal centipede, with the notable exception
that it had fewer legs, and they were much longer than a centipede’s would be
in comparison with the length of its body. The main body was close to two
inches long and over half an inch in diameter, and it had burrowed into the
soft tissue at the back of the throat, using its claws to anchor itself beside
the spine.

From what she thought of as the creature’s head issued
a long metal filament that followed the spine upward before entering the base
of the skull and branching out. The ends of the branches all terminated in the
apple-like structure at the base of the skull.

Dad would be disappointed in me for not
remembering the name of it,
she thought.
It
started with a ‘c’ I think.

That didn’t matter at this point, though. She
did
remember
what it did. It was the part of the brain responsible for coordinating
movement.

Moira spent several minutes formulating a plan. Once
she was ready she created a fine shield around each of the tiny filaments that
penetrated the skull. Carefully, she then began easing them out, pulling them
back and simultaneously protecting the soft brain tissue around them. They
were tiny and had inserted themselves in such a way that removing them was
unlikely to damage anything.

Things went smoothly at first, but once they were
removed, the main body of the creature did something unexpected. Several razor
sharp legs moved sideways and before she could react they cut cleanly through
the poor man’s carotid artery.

“Shit!” she exclaimed, panicking. She clamped a
shield around the thing, preventing further damage, but the worst had already
been done. Blood was gushing from the artery, and Lenny’s mouth was full of
it. His body died while she feverishly tried to seal the blood vessel.

Moira had seen plenty of blood before, that didn’t
unnerve her, but watching the metal abomination with her magesight as it began
trying to work its way out of the dead man’s throat nearly caused her to lose
the contents of her stomach. Clamping a powerful shield around the thing, she
crushed it before it could finish escaping.

She wanted to cry. She wanted to run screaming from
the room. She was tired and disgusted and horrified all at once. None of it
was right, none of it was fair. She was too young for this. No one should be
forced to deal with what she had seen and experienced over the last twenty-four
hours.

But she didn’t.

Instead she closed her eyes and thought about her
father.
He needs me.
Taking several deep breaths she tried to slow her
heart and unclench her stomach. Then she felt her spellbeast, whom she still
thought of as ‘Lenny’ despite the unfortunate man’s death. It was still there,
attached to the dead corpse.

Focus on what you can do.
That’s
what her father would have said. Moira ignored the gore and drew the spellmind
from the dead body and began working on it, reshaping it. Speech was
definitely a necessity, as well as a slightly more complex set of decision
making abilities. Once that was accomplished, she began channeling her aythar
into it, strengthening it, and giving it a powerful body constructed of pure
magic. A lion would be nice.

A half hour passed while she worked on it, and then
she created a second one.
Lenny and Larry,
she decided, naming her
guardians. She gave Lenny the form of a great cat, while Larry was shaped as a
massive ape. Hands could be useful. Once the details were accomplished, she
channeled all of her remaining energy into them. She hadn’t sensed any danger
nearby, and once she had rested she would recover most of her own power and have
two powerful companions as well.

Exhaustion granted her the gift that had been denied
her until then. Sleep came quickly as she leaned into the corner and made a
pillow out of her arm. The fact that she slept in a room with a nearly dead
man and an actual corpse didn’t even cross her mind.

She awoke to chaos, “Moira! Milady! Help!” She
blinked and sat upright in alarm.

Well, she attempted to do so. She quickly discovered
that she was no longer propped against the wall. At some point she had slid down
to the dirty floor, and when she tried to use her left arm to push herself
upward, it refused to respond. It had gone completely numb from the shoulder
joint down.

“Wargle!?” she shouted, both a question and a
reassurance to whomever was calling for her aid. A moment later her brain had
identified the voice that had spoken as belonging to Wat, and immediately after
that her eyes focused on him, cowering by the door that led into the room.

Her new guardians were glowering at him menacingly.

“Don’t let them kill me!” cried Wat.

“Relax, you’re perfectly safe,” she replied, but the
movement alerted her to the fact that something was stuck to her face. Raising
one arm, she wiped a large amount of dust and wet lint from the side of her
cheek. Looking down, she saw a small pool of drool where she had been lying.
Spitting, she realized that some of the detritus was clinging to her lips.
“Oh! That’s just…”

Moira paused then, struck by the ridiculousness of her
complaint. Across the room lay a cold body, complete with a disturbingly large
pool of blood around it. Somehow that still didn’t make her feel better about
the unidentified dirt on her lips.

And her arm still didn’t work, although it was
beginning to awaken and send increasingly powerful signals of pain back to let
the rest of her body know it was still alive.
This just keeps getting
better.

She ordered her guardians to relax and took a minute
to settle Wat down. Apparently, they had taken exception to him when he tried
to awaken her by shaking her shoulder. Once she was sure that no one was about
to commit violence, she was finally able to ask Wat the truly important
question, “What’s going on?”