The Dragon Circle (6 page)

“Someday, I'm going to prove that I can fly a jump by myself,” Kat muttered to herself.

The klaxon sounded again. Three loud and annoying blasts that no one could ignore, including Judge Balinakas. He threw himself into the jump seat and secured his safety harness, every millimeter of his posture shouting resentment. He'd called the captain's bluff and lost the bet.

Lights flashed red and dimmed with each blast.

Kat's own jaw began to ache from clamping her teeth together to avoid biting her tongue.

The ship surged forward. Two gs, three gs. Acceleration pushed Kat hard against her chair. The high back kept her neck from whiplashing. Pressure built. She fought for every gulp of air.

Black stars crowded her vision. She forced her eyes open. She had to watch. Just once she had to see what jump was truly like.

Dry grit weighed heavily against her eyelids. She had to blink. Just once.

Before she could open her eyes again the pressure ceased. Gravity dissolved. Light vanished.

Kat lost contact with her body. She was only a soul drifting in a vast nothingness. Her mind tricked her into believing she witnessed bright coils of light pulsing with life. Each coil was a different color and brightness. They chained and twined together, braided and looped back upon themselves in an intricate mesh.

She could almost reach out and touch them. If the harness did not restrain her. If she had a body to be restrained.

Time passed. Aeons of memories flitted past her mind's eye. She tried to sort them, catch hold of one for longer than a single heartbeat. Each evaporated. Space ghosts without form or substance or purpose.

(
Why do you come?
) a deep sonorous voice that was many voices and minds combined echoed around her skull.

“Who are you?” She could not hear her words. A space ghost? Who else inhabited the empty places between the stars?

(
We are who we are. Who are you and why do you come?
)

“I come to find . . . myself.”

(
Welcome.
)

The ship burst free of jump. Sensations slammed back into Kat's body, all at once, too quickly to absorb. She welcomed the headache as proof that she lived. The moment she had something to see, and eyes to see with, she scanned her instruments. Nothing looked familiar. The computer looped through incoming data from the ship's sensors. It found nothing familiar and repeated measuring the scan.

“That was definitely a jump point,” Commander Leonard said. Her voice shook. The unflappable captain looked disoriented and uncertain.

“That was one hell of a jump,” Chief Navigator Kohler said. He rubbed his eyes with trembling hands. His normally dusky skin looked gray.

“Longest jump I've ever endured.” Ensign James Englebert, the communications officer on duty, said on a choking laugh, as if he had more than two or three jumps notched on his belt.

But he was right. The jump had lasted longer than usual. Although the ship's chronometer showed the passage of only a few seconds, Kat knew her body had passed through perhaps as much as an hour.

Jumps played hell with linear space and time.

“So where in Murphy's continuum are we?” Commander Leonard asked.

“I wish I knew, Captain,” Kat whispered. “I think we are lost.”

“I track the Stargods,” Dalleena Farseer stated simply to the village headman. She had observed the protocols and sought him out first. But the tug on her senses drove her onward. Those she must find did not dwell here.

“Many seek the brothers from the sky. Why do you
track
our lords?” The middle-aged man with the heavy muscles of a warrior looked her up and down with care. The interest in his eyes had little to do with her femininity and a lot to do with her choice of words.

Not much of her body showed beneath her leather breeches, boots, vest, and linen shirt. Unlike most women of her acquaintance, she did not need to highlight the swell of her breast or the nip in her waist to earn her keep. She had other talents.

“ 'Tis something I need to do,” she replied.

“Why?”

“I need not explain anything to you without the courtesy of a name or hospitality.” She stood firm, not wavering under his fierce gaze.

“Forgive my lack of manners, Tracker.” The headman bowed his head slightly. But he never took his gaze from her eyes. “We have learned caution. Many seek the Stargods and their chosen people, the Coros. Some do not wish our saviors well.”

“I have heard that the three brothers descended from the stars to save your people from a deadly plague. They also ended slavery among you.” She scanned the array of houses behind the headman. The town was nestled between the bay and the river, a half hour's walk above the flood line of either. Nearly one hundred sturdily built homes and a temple. No mistaking the huge building with the silver bloodwood columns topped by carvings of dragons. These people had worshiped the bloodthirsty Simurgh before the coming of the Stargods.

“My father still resents the loss of his slaves.” A younger man with a hooked nose to match the headman's and a similar cast to the brown eyes, sauntered over from the largest of the homes, at the opposite end of the town from the temple. “I am Yaakke. My ill-mannered father is called Yaaccob the Usurper. You will not find the Stargods here.”

“But they have been here. Recently.”

“Your tracking senses are correct,” Yaakke replied. “They came to bless the pregnancy of my wife. My sister is mate to the youngest of the Stargod brothers.”

“Ah,” Dalleena said. She turned in a slow circle, right arm extended, palm raised. West of this riverside town. Not far. Too far after a long journey afoot before sunset.

“I go to visit my sister,” Yaakke said. “Would you care to join me in the boat journey? Company relieves the tedium of the travel.”

“Boat? Yes, I will join you,” Dalleena said with a sigh of relief. She could rest her aching feet. Gratefully, she followed the man to the riverbank.

After weeks on the road, he had offered the first evidence of actually having seen the Stargods. But everyone who lived south of the big river and north of the fiery mountains had heard of the three brothers who descended from the stars on a cloud of silver fire. Their great deeds done liberating the tribe of the Coros had become the subject of song and ritual.

Dalleena settled into the hollowed-out log of a boat. “How did you smooth the inside so evenly?” She ran a hand along the inner sides, amazed that no splinters pierced her skin. Even the outside remained free of bark or ragged patches.

“A miracle of the Stargods.” Yaakke grinned hugely. “There are advantages to allowing Stargod Kim to marry my sister.” Then he handed Dalleena a paddle.

She looked at it skeptically. Tracking sometimes required her to travel long distances over a variety of terrain. The people who required a Tracker to find lost livestock, errant children, or missing lovers usually did all the work.

This time the quest was her own. Therefore she must work for herself. She dug the paddle into the water with strength equal to Yaakke's stroke.

Before long, her back and shoulders began to ache. Her palms blistered. The sight of the setting sun sparkling red upon the waters of the river numbed her mind and her talent. She knew nothing, felt nothing but the pressure upon her body each time she pushed the boat a little farther upstream.

“Nearly there,” Yaakke told her. He pointed to a muddy embankment. Many feet and more than a few boats had slid up and down it. Two rafts and another log boat were tied to large stakes driven into the dirt on either side of the slippery access.

To Dalleena's surprise, Yaakke continued paddling beyond the point. Her shoulders ached even more. They had passed their objective and her guide expected more work from her. This was more tiring than if she'd walked!

“Ease up on the paddle,” Yaakke called.

Finally.
She obeyed him, resting the paddle across the boat sides. Her back slumped and her head felt a little too heavy. She should not be this tired. She worked hard every day on the family farm when she was not tracking. She could match muscle and stamina with any warrior.

Why?

Yaakke let the boat drift back toward the landing area, using his paddle to steer them closer and closer to the bank.

At last the boat grounded. Yaakke jumped out, calf-deep in the water. He grabbed the bow of the craft and waited.

“Are you getting out or not?” he asked testily.

“Oh,” she replied dumbly. Heavily, she dragged herself out of the bottom of the little boat and into the water. The current tugged at her. She grabbed the boat for balance.

“Push,” Yaakke ordered.

She did so. He hauled. Together they brought the craft up onto the bank. A crowd of people gathered above them, watching. When Yaakke had tied his craft to one of the stakes protruding out of the mud, a young woman jumped down and grabbed him in an embrace. She had the same set to her eyes as both Yaakke and his father, but a more delicate nose structure. Her thick brown hair cascaded down her back, covering most of her body. At first Dalleena thought she and the other women adhered to the old custom of not covering their breasts until a man had claimed them. Slave women were never allowed to cover themselves except out of doors in deep winter. A shift in Hestiia's posture, a ripple in her hair, revealed a halter woven of red cow wool above her leather sarong. All the women seemed to wear the same clothing with little variation.

Dalleena suddenly felt too tall, too awkward and out of place.

“My sister, Hestiia,” Yaakke introduced them.

Dalleena gave her own name and talent, nodding her head.

“Welcome, Tracker.” Hestiia marched over and stuck out her right hand to her.

Dalleena stared at the hand wondering if she was supposed to touch it.

Hestiia took the decision away from her, grabbing her by the elbow and shaking her arm. Dalleena returned the gesture as well as the woman's smile.

“Come, the hospitality of this village is open to you. We have hot food ready. My husband and his brothers should return any time now.” The little woman led them up the bank and toward the cluster of cabins as if she held the honored place of headman.

Dalleena followed, curious about a village that allowed a woman to speak for them. At the top of the track, an ancient woman of impressive girth and swarthy coloring waited. She stood with hands on hips, legs spread sturdily, and a fierce scowl upon her face.

A Rover. What was she doing here? Rovers never settled in a village. Villagers never allowed them to linger near. Suspicion and distrust kept them always apart.

“I be Pryth,” the Rover woman announced. “You be Tracker. Why do you feel needed here?”

“I do not know, only that something, someone needs tracking.” Her senses awoke under the intense gaze of the old woman. Her hand burned and itched as it never had before. She raised her right arm and supported it with her left. Palm out she turned in a slow, methodical circle, pausing at every quarter of a quarter turn. Her head spun with the need to find the nameless thing before it destroyed itself. Or destroyed them.

But she could not find a direction to look.

K
ONNER STARED into the campfire. Villagers bustled around him. Women carried trenchers piled with roasted venison, chunks of wild yampion, a sweet tuber served raw or roasted or mashed with fresh milk, and globs of boiled greens dressed in fat and fruit vinegar.

The Tracker sat among the men across the fire from Konner. She did not participate in any of the usual female pursuits. Her eyes wandered restlessly around the village, across the sky, and toward the deep shadows beyond the fire.

Konner did not have the thoughts to spare this night to wonder why. All he could think about was the missing beacon and the audacious thief. Which led him back to Melinda and her betrayal of him.

Hestiia offered Konner a platter without meat. He waved it away.

She pursed her lips in disapproval and offered it instead to her husband, Kim.

He took it from her with a smile that lighted his face all the way to his eyes. Their gazes locked on each other, grew intense. His hand covered hers, lingered, and caressed before she relinquished the bark platter.

Konner turned his head away, embarrassed by their intimacy, jealous and lonely in his own isolation.

Fifteen years ago he had believed he and Melinda could learn to love each other like that. She'd offered him one million Adols, the most stable currency in the galaxy, in exchange for a legal marriage ceremony. She wanted control of her inheritance, the corporation that owned the entire planet of Aurora. But her parents' will had specified she could not sit on the board of directors or have access to capital funds until she married or turned thirty years of age.