Chasing the Dragon (50 page)

Inside the cell a boy he remembered was lying on a bench, his tricorne hat on his belly, eyes closed. His bare feet poked out of the
bottom of ragged breeches, and an oversized shirt was rolled up at the
sleeves and falling all around his rope belt. On the floor lay a dagger
and a piece of whittled wood along with a fair lot of shavings. A plate
held the remains of a loaf of bread-all crusts. The boy scratched his
nose and rubbed his face with one grubby hand. He opened his eyes
and looked around, peering myopically at the open port. "Hoy, Smith
there, what hour is it? Where is that blackguard taking my ship?" It
was the Admiral.

Smith snored, slumped over the crate he had used as a table for his
dinner.

"It isn't Smith," Zal whispered. "Shh, quiet and come here."

The boy got up quickly, feeling around him for his dagger with his
foot and flipping it up to his hand with an astonishing dexterity. He
slapped his hat on and came closer, but not within arm's reach. "Who
the hell is that? If you're one of his fiends you can throw yourself overboard, I'll-"

"Shut up!" Zal hissed again. "I'm for you."

"Let me out!" At least he had understood. He was quiet.

"I can't. Not yet. I need to know about this guy first. Who is he?"

"Who the devil are you, sir?" the Admiral said with some rehearsed
effort, coming no closer. "I say nothing more until you reveal yourself!"

Zal put his hand through the porthole. "I am an elf. A shadowkin.
I am here to rescue you." He was aware of Glinda's strong objection
but he ignored her. As he guessed, she wasn't ready to come forth and
declare herself. She railed at him, but he took his hand away and put
his face back there. "But I am afraid of this man in your cabin. He has
with him-"

"Angels, yes I know! Oh they are marvelous! But why they are
with him I don't know. They are not quite like the angels I have seen
before in the deep. Shadowkin? But you look familiar."

"Amida brought me here," he said before he realized he had used
the name of the goddess in her full form. Glinda's shock was
rewarding. She hadn't mentioned it in her story. "A time ago. I was different then."

"You are the castaway! From the elemental shores!" The boy came
forward suddenly and peered into Zal's face. "But you are darkness
now. What happened?"

"Long story," Zal said. "Another time. What happened to you?"

The Admiral stood straight, his ankle bones touching, chin high.
"I surrendered to save the Fleet." Then he added, "We found him, like you, floating in the Void. We brought him aboard. At first he was
pleasant, for one of the death traders, and we took him to that shore,
but he refused to leave and then he called them angels and they tore
apart one of me ships, so I said they could stay but they threw me in
here. He said he was only lending it. He said he was going to the Black
Deep. I would never, but he wanted to go and so he put me here. There
was another one here before you too. Dunno what happened to her."

"Who?"

"A woman, girl really. Real navvy-mouth she was and all. She said
he was no good and she was going to stop him. Was a while ago, but
when she left we stopped moving and we only just got under way again
now. Was it you started them moving?"

"No." Zal wondered who she could be. "What did she look like?
Silver eyes?"

"Eh? No. Ord'nary ones. Listen, there's things in the deep you
don't go fishin' for. Where's this bloke going? What's he want?"

"I hoped you knew that," Zal said, sighing in disappointment.
"There must be something. What about these angels?"

"What about them?"

"I never saw one before."

"They don't usually come here and never where you are really, so
what? People say they's always good, but these two seem more like servants than leaders. They're just powerful in spirit, more than we are.
They come and go as they like, I guess, got they own plans and stuff.
I dunno." He shrugged and scowled. "What're you gonna do? Don't
look like you could handle my cook let alone that bastard."

"I don't know," Zal admitted, "but I think the angels can see me,
so I'll have to be careful."

The Admiral snorted his opinion of that and picked his nose
thoughtfully. "Then you're as stuck as me. Rescue! Cuh!" He turned
away and sat down on his bench again, picked up his stick, and began
to hack at it with the dagger. Chips flew.

Zal stood back and looked over his shoulder at Glinda. She was
glaring with her golden stare. "Any ideas?"

"Angels," she said with dislike. "This is much more than some
little game about zombies and ordinary necromancers interfering with
my work. The Deep. I don't like this at all."

"Who're you talkin' to?"

Zal turned back to see the Admiral's bony face struggling to get
its chin over the porthole sill.

"Glinda," he said, leaning to the side so she would be visible.

The brown eyes squinted and his nose wrinkled. "Can't see anyone.
You're not mad, are you?"

"No," Zal said cheerfully. "Look. She's my death. Glinda. Tall girl.
Rude stare. Pointy ears." He held his fingers up beside his head but
then realized how stupid that must be, since his own ears were there
and equally pointy.

The brown eyes swiveled to look at him for a moment. "Just my
luck," the Admiral said with deep contempt. "A looney. Well, in that
case my advice is go up and talk to the new captain. Tell him about
... Glinda ... or whatever she's called. Introduce them. Maybe he'll
tell you all about his plans and his angels and whatnot and then you
can come back and tell me."

Zal took a breath to rebut this, hesitated, and turned back. Glinda
was staring at him, her arms folded. She mouthed the words rude stare,
and then looney at him. He turned back to the Admiral and considered
the choices. "It's the best I've heard. I'll do it. Back soon."

"No, no! I di'n't mean it!" the Admiral began to shout as Zal reached
up and closed the porthole on him. "Come back an' let me out, you
lackwit! He'll eat you alive! Let me out! I demand it! Let me ou-utt!"

Smith woke up with snort. "Hey there, Captain, don't go getting
worked up...." But Zal was already gone.

Zal jumped up the stairs, climbed out of the hatch, and walked across
the gently swaying deck to the door of the Admiral's cabin. Glinda was speechless, either with contempt or some other emotion, but he was
intrigued by anything that she thought was bad news, and the threat of
being eaten didn't bother him as much as it used to. At least it sounded
interesting. He didn't look to check Glinda's view; he knocked on the
door instead. He had a feeling that he'd always preferred the direct
approach to things in spite of whatever Glinda said about sneakiness.

The door opened. A demon stood there, one of the humanoid kind.
It was tall and solid with it, and if it hadn't been as part-substantial as
he was and a ghost he would have said it was intimidating. It had a
long, stretched face, with big carnivore's teeth, a beard, and several
long tentacles on either side. More tentacles hung down in its thick
dreadlocked hair. Ironbound horns swept back from its skull in two
pairs, one short, one long enough to scrape the ceiling. In spite of all
this it gave an impression of narrowness, agility, and ease. He was
purple, dark green, black, and crimson; the colouration of deep introversion, spirituality, and corruption. The palette gave away little from
one like him; only the black was interesting-creativity. His eyes were
a dark cowlike brown with a red tint and horizontally slit pupils that
were large in the glow of the lamps. "And who are you?" he said, not
so much asking as looking and making known the nature of his
enquiry. "Ah. I see. Zal Ahriman. How unexpected. Come in."

Zal held out his hand, "I haven't had the pleasure."

"Who I am is not important," the demon said with ease.

"It's important to me; you stole my stuffing," Zal said, still
pleasant but not moving. He saw the angels in the background, their
energies gathering strength as they moved near the lights.

"I am Xavien," the demon said, "but my house name is lost these
days, of no account. I left society a long time ago and I don't like visitors, but since you have come so far, please." He opened the door
wider and held his arm out.

Zal went inside and felt the demon's stare on him as acutely as if
it were a touch.

"You have survived an extraordinary fate," Xavien said. "True
shadow, yet not of the shadow world. Either you have a strong nerve
to come here or you are misinformed about me."

Zal was watching the two beings who moved around at the
periphery of the room. He'd seen demons before, and Xavien showed
no unusual characteristics. "Who're your friends?"

"My guardians," Xavien said. "They would introduce themselves
if they felt you warranted it. I can only follow their judgement in these
matters."

Zal flicked an eyebrow but he was used to insults and he knew
better than to take it personally. "Okay. So, what are you doing with
my stuffing?"

"Do we have some business?" The demon's affability was starting
to falter, Zal felt. A point against him if he was going to simply refuse
an answer. Civility was an important skill when you were out to kill
someone.

"I thought I could spy around and figure out what you were doing,
but then it seemed easier to ask you," Zal said. The cabin was much
more luxurious than he remembered. Beautiful rugs were spread
beneath a table at the centre of the room, which held an array of charts
and instruments, including a large gold-and-brass object he thought
must be some kind of star finder. "That's nice. What is it?" He moved
across to the table, noticing how his presence bent light in towards
him and swallowed it. He was transparent, but less than he used to be.
A slight aura of darkness blurred his edges. He admired the effect
against the pale cream colour of the map parchment.

"None of your business. Might I ask what you hoped to achieve?"
Xavien had moved near to the table. Zal got the impression he would
have liked to hide something on it, but it was impossible to say what
that might be.

"Yes. I came here to find out what you wanted with my stuffing, but
then, seeing you had taken this ship off my friend, I thought I'd find out what you wanted with that too, but he said something about sailing into
the Deep Black or whatever, so now I need to ask you what you want to
do there or if you're going to just hand the ship back, I suppose. I mean,
if you've got good explanations"-he looked up at Xavien's stoney face,
took the measure of the two angels burning at the sides of his vision, and
grinned-"then I'm sure we can sort it all out without any trouble." It
was the happiest he had been in a long time.

Xavien looked speculative, and his hesitation let Zal know he was
taking what he thought was a gamble. "Do you know about the
Weapon of Intent?"

"No," Zal said, sorry he couldn't exploit the moment. "But then,
I've lost most of my memory, so I don't know about much. Is it good?
It sounds good."

The demon watched him, looked out the windows, and looked at
his charts. The angels moved slowly like drifting fish in an unseen current. Zal could feel them as a burr of soft vibrations in his own skin. It
was a strange and unnerving sensation. He had never been close to
beings who operated at those kinds of frequencies and he'd have liked
to debate the alleged superiority of such things, but he wasn't sure how
to talk to them. It seemed that they followed the conversation, but he
was sure they were having one of their own, at a pitch he couldn't hear
but that created the feeling in his skin.

"It is an angel's weapon," Xavien said finally.

"That's nice." Zal hadn't known angels had weapons so he took this
with a pinch of salt.

"I need it. I wish to leave this plane and in order to do so I need it."

He didn't understand where this was headed, but he rolled with it.
"Where is it?"

"It will be here shortly. But know this: If you oppose me at any
part of the way I will destroy what is left of you. Leave me be and the
ship, your friend the Admiral, the weapon itself ... everything will be
returned. I only use force when persuasion fails."

Zal smiled. If they'd got to direct threats then whatever was going
to go down was going to happen very soon. It was simple to carry on
playing innocent, since he was. "Good of you."

"What I want is none of your business, elf demon. I have no desire
beyond that moment. It is the pinnacle of my long life. I have never
harmed any who did not stand in my way, and I would rather not start
doing so. I would explain it to you at more length but-"

"Ah, go on," Zal said. "Looks like we've got a way to go." He
walked his fingers across one of the extremely long blank spaces that
roved between the chart's complex lines. He knew the temptation
would be hard to resist. A lifetime's work almost completed. That was
worth talking about, and he was sure the angels already knew the tale.
Besides, he wanted to know what angels would guard. In spite of
appearances and clumsy manners, he was ready to believe that Xavien
was worth the effort.

To his surprise Xavien told him.

Zal looked at the charts, at the necromancer, at the angels. "That's
brilliant!" He didn't turn to see what Glinda thought. It was genius.
A few misdemeanours with the work of ordering forces in the weft of
reality seemed small-fry by comparison. He wished he'd thought of it
himself. "Will it work?" He looked at the demon with new respect and
a bit more caution. Dreams like that didn't come from people who
inhabited normal realms of the mind.

"I do not know."

Honesty, that was disarming. Zal decided to be a believer. "That
part about Night, though. I mean, that's a bit scary. I can see why
nobody wants you to go there. Always a chance that you could just be
consumed in the rising influx of energies and instead of transmigrating
yourself you're just fodder to her rebirth."