Rogue Dragon (17 page)

“‘He the man is at this present-when to go below and there remain.’”

Jon-Joras moved as quickly as his legs would let him, and as he ran he called out, “Don’t tell them anything and don’t worry. Don’t worry!”

He made his way towards the Old Man’s room, but recollection of its dirt and disorder dissuaded him, so he went to wandering in an off-corridor. A wink of light caught his eye as he passed one of the chambers, and he turned to look. It was a mirror, of the quaint hour-glass shape once so popular… how long ago? On his own distant and orderly world, the
beta
-planet of Moussorgsky Minor, perhaps more than a century ago. Allowing for the lag in time and transport and fashion… here?… who could say how less long ago. Fashionable, yes. But only among women. He entered the room.

Dust had almost deprived the old mirror of reflective capacity, and dust cloaked and choked everything in here. Yet, despite and underneath the dust, things were all arranged in order. A bed was neatly made. Clothes hung in orderly rows. An antique desk still bore a scripter set with all as it had been left, well-readied to use. It came to Jon-Joras with a shock and pang of pity that here had been the room of the previous interpreter, “the Poor Woman.” He opened the scripter, slowly, delicately, with even a slight touch of fear.

it should make no difference to me how things will go here, for well or ill, but as this unfortunate young man must probably remain here for his own forever, it’s well that he has learned as much as I can teach him. And now there is no more reason I should delay Death, that importunate suitor, any longer. He does but carry me across this dim horizon, and I hope it will be brighter there.

He had no time to reflect on this. Somewhere up above someone was calling his name. It sounded vaguely familiar, and a wild surge of hope brought him almost to the door—Delegate Anse?—Delegate Anse’s voice would not sound familiar, he had heard it only twice and was sure this wasn’t it—Por-Paulo? It was not
that
voice at all, the thought made a wave of longing for his still-absent king sweep over him, but it was not his voice—a prickle of unease slowed him up and kept him inside. Who had been in the flyer and knew that he was Jon-Joras and knew that he was here? Aëlorix? It was not the Gentleman’s voice, but it might still be that of one of his associates. But why did it sound so familiar?

Perhaps, though, whoever it was did not know that he was here at all. He might be guessing, trying… trapping. Well. If friend he was, then some delay would little matter. And if he were no friend…

Jon-Joras flitted through the back of the room and into the next one and thence to the next. The voice seemed to be rather nearer, but he was sure it was still in the main corridor. His intention was to get behind it and have a look at whomever it belonged to.

“Jon-Joras?”

“Jon-Jo-o-o-r-as…”

“Jon-Jor-as
…
?”

If it were a friend, why did he not announce and identify himself?

He was about to peer with considerable caution out into the corridor, when a voice, and not that voice, said, close by and with disgust, “It sure stinks in here.” Jon-Joras hugged the webby wall.

“‘Money never stinks,’” a second voice quoted.

“Freaky vermin,” the first one commented, unappeased. And then, “I always hate coming here…Where is that son of a karche’s egg?”

The voices ebbed away. Now Jon-Joras did peer out. The two men met the third one, presumably the first one, the one who had been calling, at the turn of the corridor. They shook their heads. There seemed, certainly, something familiar about his stance and movement, as there had been about his voice. But he was friend to these other two, and they were no friends to Jon-Joras. Friends do not come seeking friends with drawn weapons in their hands. And besides—I
always hate coming here,
one had said. So. These were the “proper men,” the men whose coming was regular and by arrangement, and who had been coming here for decades. At least for decades. Who had provided at least two wretched devils of interpreters. Had allied themselves with the alien Kar-chees and with their murderous dragons. Who?

I must consult with my other self.
What of that, for a conundrum?

Nothing of that, for now. For now there was only the matter of keeping out of the way. Had the Kar-chee, after consulting with its “other self,” decided not to trust Jon-Joras? Decided to turn the matter over to the familiar, the “proper men”? Certainly it did seem so.

He came to another slit-window and looked out. There was no one and nothing to be seen. From the slant rays of the declining sun it appeared that he was now on the other side of the castle from where the Kar-chee (was there only one Kar-chee? Did not its curious reference to the “other self” plainly indicate there was at least one other?) and its domestic dragon were. Jon-Joras sighed. Let him but once get off this troubled world, he would take good care never to return to it. Now, how wide was this window?

It was wide enough.

There were foot-holds enough, too, and a conveniently canting, slanting tree. He made his way to the ground with no more difficulty than that provided by the constant fear of death, and then he crept into the underbrush like a lizard. He had gotten a good ways off and had raised himself from all fours to that same crouching or rather, stooped, walk, which had stood him in such good stead so early this morning, when a shout came from behind him and a tussock beside him exploded into a gout of dust and earth.

They had seen him.

They kept on coming after him.

And, after them, came the dragon.

It was probably futile to try to escape them on foot.

They were fresh, he was weary. They were armed, he was not. And even if he could outrun them, there was still the dragon to contend with… not the chicken-witted wittold of the settled regions, but the murderously intelligent great beast of The Bosky. Various old bywords went rushing through his mind.
If you can’t go across, you must go around. If you can’t go across, you
must
go across.
No, not those. He tried to bring his buttocks even lower than they were, and dragged himself, face first, through something nasty.
If you can’t go across, you must go up.
Probably there was no such byword at all. Or hadn’t been… till now.

He went up and he went up the far side of the twisted old tree. Something had built a nest or a den there once, and it still smelled rotten. Not matter. Such things had ceased to count long ago. He pulled his legs up after him and used the stinging twig-work as a blind to peer through. The men had not seen him, yet. Neither, apparently, had the dragon. It came running along as he had never before seen dragons run: lightly, and on all fours, but as though it ran on its toes and not upon the pads of its feet at all. It made no sound. It made no sound at all that Jon-Joras could hear.

But the men below had heard something. Or had felt or scented or sensed something. One of them whirled around and cried out. The others on the instant did the same. They scattered. And Jon-Joras in the tree realized a few sudden things. For one, the dragon was not hunting him. For another, the dragon was not hunting for or with the men. And for a third and last, it was hunting
against
them. It was clear that they knew it, too.

This hunt was short-lived, for the weapons the men were carrying were not the local model hunt-guns. They had not come loaded for dragon; at least, he knew of no reason why they should have. And in any event this one was not marked and was not even running erect so that they might guess at where its vital spot, where the fatal shot, might be and might be placed. So far as Jon-Joras knew, they had only come loaded for Jon-Joras, and his body rattled in a sudden spasm of fear when he saw one of them level the thick and snub death-weapon and blow the dragon’s head into a mash of blood and brain and bone and pulp that flew all about. And then, then, oh, how horrible! to see the dying dragon, the dragon that should have been dead, still stumbling along, and groping and clutching for its prey while all the while fountains of blood spurted from its broken arteries and torrents of blood poured from its severed veins. It was as though the headless body still remembered what its eyes had seen and still knew where to go and what to do.

Pounding, now, pawing the stained grasses, it came on, came onward, still came on, while the man it approached scrambled backwards and stumbled backwards as though not daring to turn his head; and the other two retreated, took their stances again, and blew great chasms and abysses into it. Off in the woods another dragon called, briefly, abruptly, cut off in mid-cry. Were all the dragons of The Bosky being massacred? “… in the egg, and out…”? as, even now, this one, its spine exposed and smashed, fell at last to the ground, which shook to receive it. A short moment more the fore-limbs tore at the bloody turf and tried to pull the bleeding mountain of flesh further. There was a spasm, a flurry, and the ravaged hulk lay still.

The three, shaking their heads, came cautiously together and surveyed their kill. And the other dragon, walking fully erect—
walking
fully erect!—and again with that curious stride upon the tips of its toes—passed beneath Jon-Joras as he clung to the tree and peered in numbed more-than-fright through the soiled integuments of the abandoned nest. Beneath him, beyond him, nodules swollen in silent rage, and then it bellowed the rage that made the forest quake as it fell upon them. And ripped and tore. One died where he stood, one fired upwards and vanished into the giant, trap-like mouth even as the limb his shot had shattered dangled and spurted blood; and one fled, shrilling as he ran, and was almost immediately followed down and dragged and torn and trampled. And so ended the last dragon hunt that Jon-Joras was ever to see.

What happened next was less terrifying, but no less amazing. For the great beast, pushing aside the corpse at its feet, with one of its forepaws seized hold of a branch and transferred it to the wounded limb which grasped it convulsively but held it firm. Then it rooted out another. Then, turning around and around, and looking up and looking down and looking all about it, it began that beating together, that clicking and rustling, which could only have been a deliberate attempt at imitating the methods of the Old Man interpreter. It was capable of no other meaning than a desire to locate Jon-Joras. And a desire to indicate that its desire was not hostile.

Quaking and trembling, he came down from the tree. The faceted eyes flashed at him. It moved off, he followed, it turned and saw that he followed, and so it turned no more until at last they reached the castle. But he had not followed until, forcing his quivering stomach into obedience, he turned over one of the mangled bodies on the bloody forest floor. Only one, but that one was enough. Jetro Yi. No wonder his voice, his manner, had seemed familiar. Flunky Jetro. He would bow and scrape no more.

Thus far, the door onto the mysteries had opened. But up there in the castle, it had swung shut in a manner forbidding it should or could ever be opened in any near time again. The Old Man, his poor grimy forehead battered and blue where, presumably, the butt of a gun had struck it, lay face upwards and mouth open. He had been afraid and he had been rightfully afraid, but Jon-Joras was very glad that he did not seem to be afraid any longer. It was simply too bad that his release had been so long in coming.

The Kar-chee looked at him with huge dull eyes. It seemed, somehow, to be crooked. Jon-Joras looked more closely and saw that it, too, was hurt. The three “proper men,” with Jetro Yi one of them, had done a fine day’s work. It was possible to reconstruct it, almost as though the gaunt, hurt creature was able to tell him of it. They had appeared and spoken to the castle’s keeper. They knew that Jon-Joras must be here, or—perhaps—they had only guessed that he might. Perhaps the timorous Old Man had somehow given it away.

They had demanded him, the one who stole their flyer, had caused the death of the crew of the other, the crashed flyer. Of course it was not that alone or even mostly that which brought them after him. But—

Almost certainly the Kar-chee had confronted them with their perpetually broken promise. Had, likely enough, demanded that it be immediately fulfilled. Had refused to surrender someone else who had promised that promise to fulfil. Blows were struck. They left the castle looking still for Jon-Joras and certainly it had never been their intention to allow him to escape. He had a quick, over-vivid picture of his own head struck by the same shot which had killed the first dragon out there in the woods. The first dragon, the first and second dragons. Like minor players in an archaic play-drama… but their roles had not been minor, but their roles had been and still were things of the mystery. He thought that, finally, finally, he was beginning to understand. But with the Old Man dead (and perhaps, with his ruined mind, even if he had not been dead), he could never be fully sure that he had understood or ever would, entirely.

As for the Kar-chee—and he found it not hard to pity it now, wounded and alone, despite all that its kind had done so long ago to this the home of all man’s race—it understood this much, at any rate: that only in and through Jon-Joras it had hopes of survival and escape. Therefore it had sent the dragon, not only to save him, but to bring him back.

Therefore
it had sent its other self!

The flyer in which Jetro Yi and his two fellows had come was in the clearing where it had landed and which smelled of the stale fuel of its many prior comings. Perhaps forewarned against leaving it alone by Jon-Joras’s theft of the other one that morning, they’d left a man on armed guard. But he was dead now, too, and from the shape (or shapelessness) of him, it would have been neither grace nor favor to him if he were still alive. Jon-Joras, infinitely weary, glad of the excuse given him by the slow and limping Kar-chee, slowed his own walk. It was almost dark when they reached the craft. He put its lights on and the two of them entered. Fortunately it was a larger craft than the one he’d made off with this morning, but even so the alien had to crouch, looking not less fearful because he was huddled instead of erect. But there was no longer, so it seemed, fear between them. And Jon-Joras made a wry smile at the thought that perhaps the Kar-chee was even now reminding itself that the fact that Jon-Joras had a bad smell did not mean that Jon-Joras was therefore bad!