Chasing the Dragon (56 page)

"You look scary," she said, unaccountably shy. The last she had
seen of him he had been naked except for her DO YOU WANT FRIES WITH

THAT T-shirt, facing down the Giantkiller. Now he was almost as
intimidating as Jack himself.

"I do my best," he said, and smiled at her. "I missed you."

"I missed you," she said.

"Hey, who missed me?" Teazle had put his swords away and strode
across to them.

"Turn it down," Malachi grumbled, shading his eyes with a paw.
"Some of us had night vision."

Zal looked at Ilya uncertainly. "Was I supposed to miss him?"

Ilya shrugged elaborately. "You married him."

"I what? She didn't mention anything about that! Are you having
me on?"

Malachi's tail lashed side to side. "Zal has a small memory problem
involving everything except Ilya. And an invisible friend. We should
go. None of us are made for this."

Beside them on the open deck a circle slowly bloomed vertically in
the air. It held a picture of a land full of snow, the sky grey and promising more. "Faery awaits," Ilya said.

"We have to go another way," Lila said. "We left from Demonia.
It'll be tricky to get out alive, so I'll come and meet you in Faery, if
you can take me there, Malachi. We'll be at Madame Des Loupes old
house."

Malachi nodded at her.

"Zal, with us." Ilya moved towards the portal he had made.

"I will," Zal said, "just a minute." He stepped past Lila, kissing the
top of her head, and crossed the few metres to the prow rail, where
Xaviendra stood. Of the two angels there was no sign.

"They left," she whispered. She wouldn't meet his eye. "They were
with me so long."

"Come with me." He held out his hand.

She looked at it, half turned away from them. It was clear at this
angle that she had a long, saurian tail as well as her horns, and
although the shadow that made her had shifted its colours from black
to the blue spectrum, she was no less shadow than she had been, no
more elf. Her gaze wandered often to the dark, but wandered back
again without finding help. "Where?"

"Anywhere," he said. "We'll look for your father. He can't have
gone far."

Still she hesitated. "He never came for me," she said. "I don't
know." She kept glancing at the rail. It was clear that she was considering jumping it. "Where did it all go? My resolve, my power, my
will? What happened to me?"

Lila held out the book. "It says in here."

Zal took it and passed it across. Xaviendra took it with shaking
hands and opened it, fumbling the pages. She took a while reading and
then looked up. "I don't understand. I am no different. I feel no different. And I wanted to."

"What were you going to do?" Zal asked.

"I was going to be ... I would have found my father," she said
slowly and deliberately, "and I would have made him love me."

"And now?"

"And now ... it's gone. And there's nothing." She turned and
gripped the rail and stared out at the nothing. A few seconds passed,
and then she began to laugh, weakly and ironically and in a hurting
way but laughing. "And I am free."

"I'm going home," Zal said. "Come with us. We're all unredeemable to the core."

"And free," Lila added.

"And magnificent," Teazle said.

"And late," Ilya and Malachi insisted, and then looked at one another
suspiciously for speaking at the same time. Then Malachi stepped
through the portal and Ilya followed him, calling, "Zal, hurry up."

"I am," said Zal, staying where he was.

"Zal," said Lila gently, pleading.

"All right." He turned and walked to the gate, at the last moment
turning back to Xaviendra. "Let the Admiral out before you come find
us. He deserves to get his ship back. He's a good kid."

Xaviendra watched him go and the portal closed. Then only Lila
and Teazle were left. "You were kind," Xaviendra said.

"How many chances did you get in your life to write a happy
ending?" Lila asked her, taking Teazle's hand.

"I did not deserve it."

"Elves," muttered Teazle under his breath. He kissed Lila's neck.

"You can still deserve it," Lila said; then she put her arms around
Teazle's neck and closed her eyes. "Do you think we can wish ourselves
back there?"

"You said you didn't need the bloody sword anymore," he murmured, sliding his hands down her back and under the ribbons on her
bottom. "I'm only repeating your very words."

"I should talk less," she said, but she was confident. She lost sensation for a moment, felt a strange discontinuity, as though seconds
had been lost; then she was standing in the dank, stinking blackness of the labyrinth. Somewhere just ahead of her she heard Teazle swear
horribly, and then there was a crashing and smashing sound as he fell
over and knocked into the standing statues and they broke on the floor.

"Come on," she said. "Let's see what's left of your empire."

"Hah." He got up and found his feet, and shook his head. "Excellent. Let's get in a fight." She slapped him as she ran past him, sonar
for vision. "Can't catch me!"

"Stay naked and I'll get you before you reach the exit," he promised.

Around her the faery ribbons didn't change themselves. She ran,
feeling the wet stone, the chilly air, laughing.

Zal looked over his left shoulder, but he saw no sign of Glinda. Ilya sat
beside him, as solid as he was not.

"How long will it take?" Zal asked, staring into the fire. He
couldn't stop thinking about Lila.

"Not too long," Ilya replied, as he had replied steadily to the same
question for the last few hours. Malachi had left them as soon as they
arrived, bounding down the hillsides without a backwards glance. Ilya
had explained that Madrigal was down there, and it was probably
summer by now. Zal inferred the rest without asking any details; it
seemed obvious.

"Explain the marriage thing again," Zal said. "What was our relationship like?"

"No. I have done that three times and three is the limit." Ilya
banked the fire and lay down on the thick furs before it.

"And you and I were best friends?"

"Always," Ilya said in a way that Zal thought meant it wasn't true.

"Did we have an affair or something?" He couldn't figure it out.

"Go to sleep, Zal. She'll be here tomorrow, I am sure of it. She will
be here very soon." He closed his eyes. "And don't touch the fire."

"But the dragon said ..."

"Zal!"

"All right, all right, keep your hair on." He sat awake in the night,
watching Ilya sleeping among his dogs, listening to the sound of the
wind restlessly moving the crystals on the surface of the snow and
seeing himself slowly alter in the firelight's steady glow, gaining
colour, gaining form, absorbing the beauty of the fire's light.

NSTINR ROBSON was born in Yorkshire, England, in 1968. She
studied philosophy and linguistics at University. After only seven
years of working as a temporary secretary and 2.5 million words of fiction thrown in the bin, she sold her first novel in 1999.

Since then she has won the 2000 amazon.co.uk Writers' Bursary
Award. She has also been a student (1992) and a teacher (2002, 2006)
at the Arvon Foundation, in the UK. Her books have been variously
shortlisted for the British Science Fiction Best Novel Award, the
Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Philip K. Dick Award, and the John W.
Campbell Award.

In 2004 Justina was a judge for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, on
behalf of the Science Fiction Foundation.

hrough the agency of arcane powers beyond imagination Zal's
band, The No Shows, have been in collaboration with real-world
band Cynic Guru, so that together they are able to bring you a free
track for your entertainment. Listen live to "Doom,"* at www
.thenoshows.com.

This page is dedicated to Cynic Guru as a thank you for allowing themselves to be temporarily possessed by beings from beyond. They are:

Roland Hartwell (vocals, violin, guitar)

Ricky Korn (bass)

Oli Holm (drums)

Einar Johannsson (lead guitar, vocals)

They also write and record many great songs entirely their own that
have nothing to do with channelling the mystical aether of imaginary
space-time. More information about them, their tour dates, and their
music can be found on their Web sites: www.cynicguru.com and www
.myspace.com/CynicGuru.