Dragon Ultimate (47 page)

He came up against a sheet of tough woven material which resisted the sword's first cut. Gas from the wound caught fire in blue flashes. He stabbed down again and broke through. He pulled the sword across the webbed material, and it parted for a hundred feet.

Inside was a circular chamber half-filled with translucent gel. On the gel floated a crystalline globe some twenty feet across, set in the center of the golemoid's huge head. Inside the globe was Waakzaam himself, staring back at him in horror. The gel blackened rapidly and began to shrink. As it collapsed, the crystal bubble sank down inside the empty space. The crystalline bubble was all that stood between Waakzaam himself and the harsh air of Xuban.

The perfect elven features of the Dominator of Twelve Worlds distended in sudden terror.

A purple bolt of energy spat forth from the bubble and knocked Relkin back for a moment.

The Intruder had missed his stroke, his hammer falling harmlessly past where the dragon crouched. Bazil rose up and drove the sword home once more. The golemoid staggered. One huge hand came up in a desperate, but clumsy slap that missed Relkin where he was dug into the monstrous neck. He heaved back and drove down with the sword, which skittered off the crystal bubble.

A mind-disabling blast leaped from Waakzaam's eyes, but Relkin felt the spell skitter away from his defenses. He had heard the voice of the gestalt being from Mirchaz; he had found the key to his own powers once again.

The bubble had settled into the bottom of the golemoid head. Relkin's hands were wrapped around the handle of the sword, and he brought it down just as the Intruder's huge hand finally caught hold of him from behind.

The force of the blow crushed Relkin's body and drove the sword home into the crystal bubble, which burst with a flash of green light and a howl that ran across the universe.

Waakzaam was slain. The Intruder's governing intelligence was gone. The hand fell away. A cloud of vapor lofted from the ruined head of the giant.

Relkin slid broken-backed down the clifflike shoulder of the Intruder, bounced off the lower leg, and slammed into the hot ground with punishing force.

His senses vanished, then returned, but weakly. He still lived, somehow, but his great body was broken. His legs did not respond.

His vision remained, though, and thus he witnessed the end.

Above him the Intruder's integument had darkened. The hammer slipped from nerveless fingers. The great body toppled, slowly at first, with a plume of dark vapor escaping from the head as it fell. It accelerated as it went and slammed into the ground with an impact to end an aeon.

The ground leaped beneath them, and there came a long, thrumming roar that went on for several seconds as the ground shook and rumbled. Walls of crystal slid down from the higher ground.

Bazil stumbled back and went down on one knee.

"Waakzaam has fallen. The worlds are saved from his wrath," said the voice of Sweetwater in their minds, while the world shook and shuddered and vast clouds of crystalline fragments flew up at the base of the cliffs and began to fall around them like snowflakes.

The Sinni immediately lifted their voices in song and in bittersweet beauty they incorporated the fall of Waakzaam and the deaths of Yelgia, Vuga, Gel-Marj Bos, and all the others into their great saga. Particularly they sang of Bazil of Quosh, and the dragonboy Relkin, whose strange tale was both a part of their own and entirely his.

While they sang, the dragon got back on his feet once more. He looked down at the small broken body on the surface.

"Boy dead?" he wondered. That last fall had been terribly hard.

The dragon bent down and poked the fallen body with a huge finger.

"Boy dead?" A huge sense of sorrow enveloped him.

Then Relkin spoke. "Not dead. But I don't think I can move."

"Boy live!" Bazil bent over and carefully picked up the broken body.

The Sinni continued their great song.

"This body is done for, Bazil. I have to leave this place."

"Dragon, too, must leave. This not a place for us."

Yeer spoke to them, his thoughts appearing magically among their own, exactly as if he spoke across a quiet room.

"Yes, you must both leave this place, and soon. Your forms are temporary and cannot function here for very much longer."

"Boy is hurt badly."

"We know."

Golden light suddenly suffused Relkin's broken body.

"He lives still," said Sweetwater. "But both of you must return to the Temple of Gold."

"This dragon not sure how to do that."

"We shall help. But first you must go back to the exact spot on which you entered this world."

"This dragon not sure he remembers how we came to this place."

"We will guide you. But you must hurry. Every moment is precious now."

And so the dragon turned and without a second look back at the prone form of the great Intruder, he headed for the crystal cliffs, carrying Relkin cradled in his arms, pushing the great body to its limits.

Behind him the Sinni were still singing, for to them there was a great deal more to the story. They were the recorders of the First Aeon, when fair Gelderen stood upon the hill and Waakzaam was not yet the evil master of magic that he would become. They had many endings to relate and beginnings to recount, before the end would be fitted to the song.

Bazil pushed himself. Guided by the voice of Yeer in his mind, he made a quick passage across the hot surface of the giant world.

"Hurry," repeated Yeer now and then. "Your form cannot last much longer here."

At last it was done, and Bazil stood at the exact spot where they had entered this hellish place. Just another zone of rock and naked metal.

Then great Yeer called upon the other Sinni, and they turned away from the Great Song and focused all their energy upon Bazil and his plight.

Bazil sensed a rushing and darting around him, as if a hive of bees had been knocked over. But nothing stung him. The small zooming noises passed, and he felt the presence of the Sinni in his mind.

"Farewell, great dragon of Ryetelth, well have ye served us and the worlds. We shall sing of your great deeds until the last darkness falls across the worlds. May good fortune always smile upon you, friend of the children of Los."

An atmosphere of tension arose. Bazil's nerves jangled. An enormous spell was in the process of being laid. The dragon was sensitized to these things, something big was brewing. He cradled the boy's body carefully.

With a great boom in the superdense air, a Black Mirror twenty feet across snapped open in front of him. White-hot sparks flew from its surface; within whirled the vortices of gray chaos.

"Enter, Bazil, and return to the Temple of Gold. Your bodies will return to their normal selves during the transit of the maze. We shall sing your song for all eternity."

Bazil looked up to the hurrying clouds. "Farewell, dragonfriends."

Steeling himself, the dragon stepped through into the dark whirling gray of chaos and the Black Mirror closed behind him.

This journey proceeded more swiftly than the last, and in the space of a few moments within the ether of chaos they came into a realm filled with intense light.

Bazil felt a sudden warmth course through him. Coming after the intense cold of chaos it made his skin tingle furiously. Then came a strange sensation, as if he were being turned inside out. For a moment a great gagging bout of nausea passed through him. He sensed that his body had changed. And Relkin had changed, too; boy was himself once more.

Bazil let out a bellow of joy and was rewarded with the echo of a wyvern roar scream booming back to him from the walls of the Golden Maze. He had his own senses, his own good arms, his own broken tail.

Because they were descending from the higher plane, the Sinni had been able to use their own great power to place them right back at the beginning of their fantastic trip across the heavens. It was a feat that could not have been attempted going the other way because the energies required were too great, even for the Sinni.

Bazil took a step and almost collapsed. Relkin had gone down on his hands and knees. Yeer had warned them that they would be exhausted. But not this exhausted! Bazil went down on all fours, feeling weaker than he had ever felt in his entire life. He had not the strength of a week-old sprat.

Relkin had rolled onto his back. "Baz! We made it back."

"But we cannot move. We die in here, lost in the maze."

"Can't die now, can't give up."

"Can't move, either."

Keeping those huge bodies going had completely worn them out. They were reduced to crawling, slowly, through the maze.

At each intersection Relkin would rest and study the way ahead. The walls were of gold, the floors and ceilings, too. They cast endless reflections.

And then in one direction there was a noticeable darkness. As they drew closer to it, the walls and ceilings changed from gold to marble, almost imperceptibly.

They were close to the exit now, which was a damned good thing since they were almost too exhausted now even to crawl. Bazil just could not haul his body any farther.

Relkin went on, then came back and tugged on the dragon's ear.

"Come on, Baz, it's not far now."

"This dragon too weak. Cannot move."

"We can do it; we got this far. Can't die here."

"By the fiery breath, feel like I'm going to die here."

"No, we have to go on. Can't stop. You can do it."

With a soft groan Bazil rolled over onto his belly again and got his legs under him. He heaved himself up, felt himself trembling in every limb. Relkin staggered ahead of him down the last passage and they turned and were out of the maze and standing in a room in the Temple of Gold.

It was night on the world Lygarth. A single lamp burned by the doorway. The temple was quiet. Outside in the forest somewhere an animal gave a long whistling cry, then fell silent.

The cat noticed their arrival. Servants came hurrying forward to assist them. Lessis was informed. Mirk woke up when the Lady stirred. He followed.

Outside the temple, lying on the steps in the light of two crescent moons, were the dragon and the dragonboy, exhausted, but still breathing.

They were carried to a large room in the temple forecourt. To carry the dragon required the combined strength of all the members of the order. They moved him on a stretcher made from long poles and many lengths of canvas. A great pile of hay had been set up. A cot was brought in for Relkin.

The greatwitch made powerful medicine for the boy. The dragon was more difficult in that regard, but a concoction of honey, beaten with eggs and lemons and diluted with hot water was poured into him and seemed to do some good.

She made sure that food was brought to them every hour. At first they had gruel, which was thickened meal by meal until they could manage solid nourishment. And with the food they were given water at first, but after a day or so, Lessis allowed a little beer.

As they lay there, drifting in and out of sleep, their wasted bodies slowly recovering strength, they were visited by the members of the order. Some of these beings merely meditated beside them, saying nothing. Others praised them for the selfless courage they had shown in defeating the Dominator. Still others sang the hymns of their kind.

Bazil's appetite came back within a few days, and after that they both seemed to eat their way back to health. After a full month of deep rest, they were able to begin the process of learning the spellsay for reopening the Black Mirror once again.

As before, it was arduous work, but eventually and with the assistance of the Order, they summoned up the baneful black opening into nothingness once again. And with the power of the order behind them, they returned across the simmering wastes of chaos with such speed no Thingweight could match them.

Abruptly they stepped out of the mirror again and found themselves standing on a hill under a gray sky, with clouds moving rapidly past. The wind soughed in the trees. Open meadows lay below.

"Ryetelth," said Lessis. "Home."