Patterns in the Dark (Dragon Blood Book 4) (3 page)

Zirkander turned around again, though his voice floated back to them. “
Some
men get to meet their fathers down at the pub for a beer when they want to spend time together.
I
have to fly halfway across the world and deal with spear-wielding natives who hate my flier.” Cas almost missed his lower mutter of, “I
knew
I should have brought my dragon with me.”

“His what?” Tolemek muttered, heading across the rocks at Cas’s side.

“He has a figurine he hangs in his cockpit for luck.”

“I… see.”

“A lot of pilots do,” she said, feeling defensive on Zirkander’s behalf. Every now and then, someone teased him about being superstitious, usually someone who had no idea how dangerous the job was.

“Do you?”

“You’re looking at it.” Cas patted the side of her rifle.

Tolemek snorted softly. “Brings good luck, does it?”

“Good luck to me, bad luck to the targets.”

As they walked, Cas glanced back often and kept an eye toward the jungle, as well. Maybe she didn’t need to be so alert, with Sardelle and her sword seemingly aware of everything around them, but she didn’t know what else to do. This was so different from her usual missions, and she felt superfluous. She had contributed little, aside from shooting at a few Cofah scientists back at the volcano base. When they weren’t flying, she wasn’t sure what to do with herself. She wasn’t even sure if she and Duck should be here, or if Zirkander should be here, either, for that matter. That other colonel, the one he had dumped along the Iskandian coast somewhere before they left, had been in charge of this mission, and technically, the squadron wasn’t even on that mission any more. Zirkander had assigned
himself
to this quest of finding the source of those dragon blood vials and making sure the Cofah couldn’t continue to get their hands on them. Even if it seemed like something the king would approve of, Zirkander was making decisions without consulting his chain of command, and that was never a good thing in the military. Cas hoped everything worked out and that he wouldn’t get in trouble—again.

“That’s impressive,” Tolemek said, pointing ahead of them.

Cas had been so wrapped up in looking behind them—and worrying about her concerns—that she hadn’t noticed the carvings in a rock wall rising up ahead of them. Two massive dragon heads framed a rectangular opening. Time had worn the edges from the carvings, and the sea air had pitted the stone, but the monolithic statues remained identifiable—and imposing as they gazed out at the dark blue ocean and choppy waves beyond the lagoon. The cave opening wasn’t large enough to drive a flier through, but a real dragon might be able to fold up its wings and slip inside, at least judging by the skeleton erected in the museum in the capital. Her experience with “real” dragons was nonexistent. Like the rest of the civilized world, she had believed them extinct until that blood had shown up.

“Maybe we’ll find some dragons with blood to share right here,” Duck drawled, walking up to pat one of the statues.

Sardelle shook her head. “It’s possible this was a dragon rider outpost a millennium or more ago, but there aren’t any dragons here. I would feel it.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Duck said, giving her a wary look. Even though he seemed to have made his peace with her vocation back at the Cofah volcano base, he still wasn’t comfortable with the idea of a sorceress on the team. Not that Cas was entirely, either.

Zirkander stuck his head into the cave.

Cas almost offered to scout ahead, but she continued to sense that trouble, if it came, would be from behind them, not ahead of them.

“Er, hello, ladies,” Zirkander said, a strange note in his voice. “I don’t suppose any of you has seen this man?”

The rest of the group approached the cave entrance, but paused on the threshold. With Sardelle, Tolemek, and Duck spread out in front of her, Cas couldn’t see much. She was debating whether it was dignified to crouch down and look between Tolemek’s legs when a distant voice called out from somewhere in the cave depths.

“Hello?” the drawn-out note echoed from the walls. “Do I hear an Iskandian voice?”

“Dad?” Zirkander called.

A long pause followed his question, punctuated only by the splashes of the waves battering at the rocks fifty feet below.

“Ridgewalker?” came the distance-muffled voice.

Tolemek shifted sideways, looking down at Cas. “His parents actually use that name, huh?”

“I think his father is the one who picked it,” Cas said and made a move-aside motion. “Wanted him to be a mountain climber.”

Tolemek pressed his back to the side of the stone entrance, so she could slip into the cave. She paused on the threshold, too, in part because she was in awe of the vast cavern that opened up inside, the walls covered with pictographs, hieroglyphics, and petroglyphs, and in part because six pretty young women in grass skirts were standing on the ledge inside. Like the rest of the villagers, they saw no need for shirts. They were looking curiously at Sardelle, Tolemek, and Duck, and whispering among each other. Two of them held stone knives. Cas didn’t see any other weapons, and she was confident she could deal with the women if they decided to attack. They weren’t close to the threshold, anyway. Rather, they stood near the far side of the ledge, about fifteen feet from the cave entrance. A rope bridge extended across a chasm to a tunnel on the far side, and narrow stone staircases carved into the walls ascended and descended from the ledge, disappearing into darkness above and below, darkness the sun’s influence couldn’t reach. Despite the possible routes from the ledge, a single rope attached to the base of a dragon statue carved from a stalagmite snaked across the stone floor and disappeared over the edge.

“It’s me, Dad.” Zirkander walked to the edge by the rope and peered down. “We could use some help if you’re not too busy doing… whatever it is you’re doing down there. Are you upside down?”

“Examining carvings on the underside of this ledge, yes.” A scrape and a couple of grunts drifted upward. He—it occurred to Cas that she didn’t know Zirkander’s father’s first name—sounded like he was at least twenty feet below them.

“Does Mom know about this harem of women you have helping you?”

“It’s less a harem and more of a death squad. The mean-looking ones with the knives have orders to cut my rope if I disturb the sacred temple.” More scrapes sounded, along with the clank of metal against rock. A moment later, a wiry man with shaggy white hair and a shaggy beard pulled himself over the side. He was attached to the rope by way of a harness that went around his waist and through his legs, but he soon unclipped himself and stepped away from the edge. The sleeves of his loose, button-down shirt were rolled up, revealing lean, ropy arms, and despite his seventy years, he had proved fit and agile as he pulled himself into view. He wore cut-away trousers that fell to the knees and lightweight, close-fitting shoes for climbing. “Ridge, it
is
you. I don’t believe it.”

“It’s good to see you still alive, Dad.”

They started toward each other, lifting their arms for a hug, but Zirkander’s father snapped his fingers before they met and pulled a leather-bound notebook out of a bulging pocket. “One moment. I don’t want to forget…” He patted himself down, pulled spectacles and a pen out of a shirt pocket, and started sketching something on a page that didn’t look like it had room to hold anything more.

Zirkander lowered his arms, his lips twisting wryly as he met Sardelle’s eyes. “For those who were wondering about my childhood, I assure you this is a representative glimpse.”

“Actually, we were wondering about the paddling, sir,” Duck said.

“You had a fabulous childhood,” Zirkander’s father said without looking up. “What boy has the kinds of freedoms that you had? To study whatever you wished? To play however you wished to play? To roam wherever you wanted? I would have
adored
such a childhood.”

Cas wouldn’t have minded more freedom during her childhood, but judging by the continuing wryness on Zirkander’s face, it hadn’t been that perfect.

“You would have adored having a father who was never around?” Zirkander didn’t sound bitter, exactly, and had probably accepted his past at this point in his life, but his tone
was
dryer than usual.

“Better than one who’s always standing over your shoulder, judging your every move, insisting you become someone you don’t want to be.”

“That’s the truth,” Tolemek muttered.

Cas met his eyes, a wry smile of her own on her lips. He responded with a similar gesture. They had figured out early on that they had some of the same grievances when it came to fathers.

“Certainly, I would have been pleased if you had decided to come with me on my explorations, but you became a fine young man, despite your insistence on traveling in those flying deathtraps.” Zirkander’s father held up the journal. “Does that look like an Anksarian number seven? I think it does. I’m finding more and more evidence that suggests they were colonizing these islands millennium before the Iskandians even knew they were here. Do you know what this means?”

“You’re going to find the Lost Treasure of Anksari Prime before you die?” Zirkander asked.

“Seven gods, I hope so.”

“I’m happy for you, Dad. Did you want to meet my team and hear why we’re here?”

“Mom didn’t send you?”

“I don’t think Mom even knows I’m out of the country.”

“Oh. Huh.” Zirkander’s father scratched his jaw with his pen, apparently not realizing he was using the nib, because he left a black streak on his cheek. He pushed his spectacles up into his hair—the snarled tangles had no trouble supporting the frames—and considered Cas and the others.

Zirkander spread his arm toward the cave entrance. “That’s Lieutenant Duck there, the big-eared fellow ogling the women.” Duck flushed and jerked his wandering gaze away. “That’s Lieutenant Cas Ahn, best marksman on Wolf Squadron. Tolemek, a Cofah scientist who’s come over to our side.”

Tolemek tensed, watching Zirkander’s father warily, but the man’s expression didn’t change as his son ran through the introductions. If he spent his life in places like this, he might not have even heard of Tolemek; of course, Zirkander hadn’t introduced him by his infamous Deathmaker moniker, either.

Zirkander shifted his arm so that his hand extended toward Sardelle. “And this is… ah…”

Sardelle lifted her eyebrows.

“Your soul snozzle?” Tolemek suggested, his eyes glinting.

Cas hadn’t heard the term, but she got the gist and had a feeling Tolemek’s humor was piqued at the chance of embarrassing Zirkander.

“Sardelle,” Zirkander finally said, leaving off any further explanation as to what she did or what she meant to him. “Team, this is my father, Moe Zirkander.”

“You can call me Rock Cheetah.” Moe smiled, almost hopefully. “Or Rock. Or Cheetah.”

“But you don’t have to,” Zirkander said. “My father has always lamented having what he calls an ordinary name. Thus perhaps explaining his need to give me an unordinary one.”

“The women have always called me Rock Cheetah,” Moe said. “Because of my blazing mountain climbing speed. It’s less blazing than it used to be, I’ll admit, but I can still ascend a peak faster than the boy can take off in his flying contraption.”

“Mom doesn’t call you that,” Zirkander said.

“She did when we were younger.”

“She’s told me the story of how mortified her parents were when you first met and introduced yourself as Rock Cheetah.”

“Fine,” Moe said. “
Other
ladies, then.” He nodded toward the women in the grass skirts.

“I’ll wager twenty nucros that they call you Old White Man in their language.”

Moe put his journal away and started coiling his rope. “It’s
Strange
White Man, thank you.”

“Sir,” Tolemek said, stepping forward. “The reason we’re here is that Zirkander believed you’d be able to help us with… a quest.” He withdrew his roll of paper.

“A quest? I assumed this was some military mission.”

“We’re a mixed party of military and civilians,” Zirkander said. “With two missions that happen to coincide with each other. Tee has some flowers he needs identified. More specifically, we need to know where they can be found.”

While Tolemek unrolled his drawing for Moe, Zirkander joined Sardelle at the cave mouth. Her arms were folded over her chest. It was always hard to read her face, but Cas guessed she might have been peeved at not being introduced as Zirkander’s lady friend, love of his life, future wife… whatever it was they had decided they were to each other. It was none of Cas’s business, so she stepped back out into the sun to make sure nobody had approached while the team was inside.

“Sorry about that,” Zirkander murmured to Sardelle, his voice just loud enough that Cas could make out the words. “My father is more open-minded than most, not to mention oblivious to racial tensions much of the time, but I wasn’t sure I could reveal your occupation in the first two minutes he knew you.”

“It wasn’t my
occupation
I thought you might share with him,” Sardelle said dryly.

Zirkander paused. “Oh. Right. I mean, I thought
that
would be obvious from the way I gazed adoringly at you from across the cave.”

“Nice save, sir,” Duck said.

Sardelle’s snort wasn’t quite in agreement.

Two seagulls squawked and leaped from perches high in the rocks above the cave. Cas frowned in that direction. Anything might have startled them, but now that she was out in the open, she once again had that feeling of being watched.

“Everything all right, Ahn?” Zirkander asked.

“I have a bad feeling about this island and these people,” she said.

“Will it make you feel better to learn that you’re not the only one?”

“It’ll make me feel better to leave.”

“Let’s check on that, then.”

Zirkander didn’t have to go far. Tolemek and Moe had come closer to the entrance, to look at the drawing in the sunlight slanting inside. Cas twitched when she realized the women had disappeared. The rope had been pulled up, so they must have gone across the bridge or up one of the staircases. It bothered her that she hadn’t noticed—and that there was apparently more than one way in and out of that cave. She should be watching in both directions.