Dragon Ultimate (38 page)

That day he'd had a message from Lagdalen, who was upstream at Dalhousie, on her way back to Marneri. She expected to be home within the week. She was riding up to Razac because that was quicker than taking the boats up the last section of the river below the Argo watershed. After Razac she'd crest the slope and the rest of the way to Marneri would be downhill.

Marneri! More than ever he felt the call of the white city on the Long Sound. Relkin knew that he should receive notice of his retirement date sometime soon. A lot of things were backed up in the bureaucracy since the plagues, but in time it would arrive and they would have to make the journey to Marneri for the official ceremony of mustering out. Whenever possible, soldiers left the Legion from the same place they signed up.

For now, though, they were still on active duty, still posted to the Fort Kenor command. The enemy was in full retreat, and no further attacks were expected, but no chances would be taken, and that meant nobody would be getting leave or a posting to Marneri just yet.

Marneri also meant seeing Eilsa. She was in Widarf, completely recovered, she wrote in her letters. She would join him the moment he reached Marneri. They would be able to schedule a wedding.

She would give up the clan leadership then, and accept that she was out-clan by marriage. They would be together, just as they'd dreamed all these years, able to move out to the virgin lands along the Bur and start their farm. They'd have Bazil's great strength to call on, and they'd have enough money for horses, oxen, and men to do most of the hard work of clearing enough land to get in some crops. They'd build a house, a beautiful house. Bazil would live with them, in his own ample quarters. He'd specified a large plunge pool.

Of course there was one remaining fly in the ointment: the trial for the gold tabis. As soon as the emergency was over and the Legions went back to peacetime postings, he assumed the trial would be rescheduled and he would be summoned back to the court in Marneri.

And if he was found guilty? Not worth thinking about. Could mean five or ten years on the Guano Isles. At the least a fine of the tabis and maybe more.

So preoccupied was he that he never noticed when the curtain was pulled back at the door, and a slim figure stepped inside.

"Hello, Relkin," said a quiet voice that was strangely familiar. He jumped to his feet; his buttons and rag fell off the table.

"Lady!" he said, astonished by the sudden intrusion. Behind her, in the doorway he glimpsed the tall figure of Mirk. Another familiar feeling spread over him—fear. When Lessis came to call trouble was never very far away.

The Lady bent over and picked up two of the buttons.

"Those buttons are exceedingly well polished," she said, handing them to him before embracing him with a warm hug, her calm facade shattering for a moment.

"Oh my dear, my dear Relkin. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to startle you. I just got directions to find you and came in and there you were and I just was so taken with the sight of you that I forgot my manners. I remember how diligent you always were, how all the boys were."

"Lady, this is a surprise; Lagdalen just left a few days ago."

"Yes, my dear I know. I'm sorry. You look as if you'd seen a ghost." She was smiling.

She squinted a moment, looked away, and looked back to him. "You know what happened to me, Lagdalen told you. Thanks to our friend here, Mirk, I was rescued from his grip."

Relkin and Mirk exchanged another glance. Relkin's respect for Mirk had climbed another notch when he'd heard Lagdalen's tale.

"By the Grace of the Mother and the courage of Mirk, I have survived. And my first order of priority was to find you, Relkin. I have some things to tell you, things I have only very recently learned."

Relkin felt his heart sink. He hoped she didn't notice his sudden gloom.

"First, I have some wonderful news from Marneri. The case against you has been dismissed. A message was received from Mirchaz. It was favorable to your position, and all the charges have been dropped."

"Oh! That's great news. To be free of all that, at last, oh thank the gods!"

Lessis felt her eyes widen at such bald-faced mention of the Old Gods. Relkin had obviously remained immune to the efforts of the priestesses.

"Well, that may be, but the Mother has blessed you in many ways, my dear. So that may help with the rest of what I have to tell you."

The elation faded as suddenly as it had bloomed.

"Our enemy has left our world, but he has not abandoned his war upon us."

"How can he harm us if he is no longer on our world?"

"Oh, he can return. Whenever he wants to he will come back. But he has bigger game in mind. He has gone to make war on the High Ones, the Sinni themselves."

Relkin felt his eyes boggle and his throat go dry. Whenever that name was invoked things became very dangerous indeed.

"They have called for you and Bazil to come to their aid."

"Come… ?" Relkin looked at her, helpless for a moment. "Aid?"

"Yes. It is a tremendous thing they ask of you, my dear. They have foreseen this crisis. It was foretold to them long ago, by the Great Bos, before he fled Gelderen the Golden and took his people to found Mirchaz. You remember Mirchaz, Relkin?"

"By the gods, I thought this was all done with. We beat them! We knocked them right back across the Gan."

Relkin remembered Mirchaz all too well; the city of the brazen elf lords with their evil game that consumed human minds for its fuel. He wanted nothing more to do with Mirchaz.

"This service will not be performed here on Ryetelth, Relkin. You are called to help them on the higher planes."

"How are we supposed to get there?"

"There are ways to accomplish the journey. You will have to receive training. I will have to give it to you, since there is no time for you to get to Andiquant."

"No, not Andiquant, please. You said that was all over."

"Well, you might prefer Andiquant to this mission."

"I don't think so." He put the buttons away in his coat pocket. He'd have to sew them on later. He wouldn't be too good with a needle for a while. In fact, he was physically trembling with all this news.

No case! They'd dropped the whole damned thing. The gold was all his. The clouds cleared from the future ahead, and the sun beamed down.

Except for this sorcery problem again. He was begged to give aid, and not even on the world he knew.

She was smiling. "No Andiquant then, Relkin. But we do have a lot to accomplish in a very short time."

"The dragon?"

"He will have to be trained as well. There are responses, attitudes, understandings that will have to be attained. And quickly. The emergency is very great, critical in fact."

Lessis withdrew a glass ball from within her robe. It was only as wide as her palm, but it glittered peculiarly in her hand. Relkin sensed at once that it was some tool of witchcraft.

"Look in the ball, my dear. You will understand better after that."

Nervously he took the ball and held it in his palm. It was warm to the touch, and there was a tiny golden glow inside it, at its exact center.

After a few minutes he felt a profound tug upon his mind. There came a feeling almost as if he were flipped over onto his back. Things opened out "under" his thoughts, though "over" might equally have applied. He was learning things that he had always known, but never understood, or something like that. It barely made sense, but he understood, that was the important thing.

A small golden face floated up in the ball. It had eyes like green glass. A voice spoke in sweet Intharion, directly into his thoughts.

"Greetings, Relkin. I am honored to meet you. I am Yeer, or Sweetwater in your tongue. You have felt us touch your life several times. All will be explained to you someday, but now we call upon you for help. Alone in the world, you and your dragon are strong enough to take on this task. All was foretold long ago, but we dared to disbelieve. We hoped that Zizma Bos was wrong, but the patterns of fate are hidden even from our sight. You traveled to Mirchaz, and there you became the Iudo Faex. You ended their cruel Game, confirming what we had already suspected. You alone have the strength to do this, as does no other living thing on your world, except Althis and Sternwal who keep their eternal vigil in Valur."

"Althis and Sternwal? I met them, once."

"Yes, Relkin, so you did. You were chosen long ago to play a great role on the Sphereboard of Destiny."

"Are you the gods?"

"No, Relkin, we are not the gods. We are the children of Los, the first comers, who tended the garden when it was still Eden. We left the garden long ago, and our stewardship came to an end. At that time we concluded the oathtaking that removed Waakzaam from the world Ryetelth. We have broken our vow. In truth we could not keep it, for we had to attempt to halt his terrible depredations through the worlds. He knows this. As I speak to you he is searching for us and when he finds us he will kill us.

"Look!"

Relkin blinked at the sudden violence within the glass ball.

Another world.

Blue lightning flashed on the steel hills. The air was as thick as lead but so hot that lead could only exist there as a liquid. The sky was alive with dark clouds writhing past like live things.

Nothing could live here, but something yet moved on the seething rock surface.

Through the canyonlands came the Intruder, a towering manlike figure half a mile high bearing an enormous hammer over its shoulder. Each step from this titan raised sludge off the patches of semimolten rock and sent globs of melt arching away in the thick superheated air as hot rock tore like taffy.

The Intruder glowed with a green internal energy. Its eyes shone like green lamps, but the metallic "face" was otherwise blank. The hills, the metal plains, all rang harshly with noise of its passage. The Dominator was come to smash the shells of the Sinni.

The scene vanished for a moment and was replaced by another.

Within a colossal vertical canyon, under blue lightning, pyramids crouched within the crystalline forest. The pyramids were slow things, their shells made of overlapping ceramic crust, their weight enormous. They crept along at no more than a man's walking pace.

This world was so huge. The clouds so deep, layer upon layer, and the sun was blue!

The voice continued.

"We are the children of Los, the Lord of Light. This is the world Xuban. We chose our world for its energy. We chose a world that could never have indigenous life forms. Nothing can live here without enormous protection. We live within these pyramids. Zizma Bos was one of us in the early days, and he warned us that the great oathtaking with Waakzaam was a mistake. That Waakzaam would never surrender his life willingly, now that he had openly rebelled. That only with his destruction would the worlds be made safe from him.

"Now, Waakzaam comes to destroy us with this terrible weapon. Against it we are helpless. Only you can help. Will you?"

Relkin shook his head for a moment, but only to try and clear his thoughts. What was he getting into? They wanted him to go to that place, where the rocky ground was semimolten?

"I will help, but I don't see how I can. I cannot live in that place. I would die in an instant. So would the dragon."

"You will be altered in the transition between your world and this one. The witch will explain. First, you will voyage to the Temple of Gold. Then you will seek out the Orb and be transformed in the pure light of Los. Eventually you will be ready to operate here. For a while."

Relkin didn't like the sound of that. "How will I find this Temple of Gold?"

"The witch will guide you."

The golden face retreated into the crystalline depths. The ball was merely glass once more. He looked up at Lessis.

"We don't know if the dragon will do this; we never asked him."

"Relkin, I think Bazil will do whatever you ask of him. His great heart will not flinch from such a duty."

Relkin knew she was speaking the truth. Bazil would fight anything and anyone, if Relkin asked him to. Except that the opponent in this case was awesome, a golem thousands of feet tall. Relkin was still not clear just how he and one wyvern dragon were going to handle a thing as tall as a mountain.

"We will train together," said Lessis. "There are things I will teach both of you."

"How can we learn enough in time?"

"It won't be easy, let me assure you."

Lessis wasn't joking.

It was hard work for both dragon and dragonboy. It was arduous to remember the precise order of syllables in what were nonsense words, chains of words, complete paragraphs, actual pages of rhyme and rhythm. They had to memorize these things so that they could be run out without much thought.

Bazil sweated hard to memorize what had to be said. At times it seemed impossible as he wrestled his long, wyvern tongue around the alien sounds and glottals. Relkin found the task somewhat easier and once he'd mastered his part he worked with the dragon every waking moment. Lessis worked with them both, and then with some young witches who arrived one afternoon from Marneri and Bea. They, too, would have an important part to play.