Warrior (34 page)

“I expect you to do what the king called you to do.”

Jason looked away, resisting the urge to roll his eyes at the ghostly girl. With the lives of hundreds of slaves at stake, she wanted him to play a game of hot potato while Elyssa and Koren risked their own lives in the midst of dragons and wolves.

Cassabrie slid her hand into his. It tingled, not quite physical but enough to let him know she was there. “Come with me.”

Her pull felt more like a mental impulse than a tug. As she hurried up the stairs, he ran alongside. Her cloak flowed behind her, and her legs, bare from the calf down, churned, never slowing, never tiring.

After at least a hundred steps, Jason began puffing. He couldn’t give up. Not now. Not when they were finally leaving this place.

When they reached the top step, he stopped and let out a long breath. “What now?”

“You will meet the man you are called to heal.”

“Will he be angry that I didn’t bring the stardrop?”

“Angry? That’s probably not the word for it. But
you
will be.”

Before he could ask what she meant, she marched ahead. Jason followed, once again entering the foyer where he and Uriel had first come in, but the old man had not returned.

Cassabrie breezed into the corridor to the right, and Jason joined her, the sword now hanging low at his hip and scraping the floor. He hiked up his belt and tightened it in place. If he were ever to meet the white dragon, looking like a warrior might help in more ways than one.

As Cassabrie strode through the spacious corridor, Jason angled his head to check her expression. Since she was only a moving outline of light, reading her face proved difficult. With her lips pressed in a tight line, she seemed upset, perhaps disappointed. He had let her down.

They passed under a high arch and walked into a smaller chamber, dim and quiet. It seemed that light from the corridor was unable to penetrate the archway, leaving them in a room that felt like a cemetery just before nightfall.

Cassabrie stopped, and, except for her cloak flowing in a slight draft, she disappeared.

Continuing with slow, cautious steps, Jason walked onto the new room’s floor, a network of twisted vines and branches. About a hundred feet long and fifty feet wide, and with tall trees lining the walls to the left and right, the room looked like a small jungle. The floor bent slightly as he pressed his foot down, but it seemed stable.

“Explore,” Cassabrie said as she gave her cloak a gentle swirl. “You will find what you have been called to save.”

Jason walked to the first tree on his left. As he drew closer, another object came into view. It looked like a bed with someone lying under a blanket, motionless and quiet. Jason stopped at the side of the bed and waited for his eyes to adjust. Soon, the occupant became clear, an old man with deep wrinkles and watery eyes. With a large leathery hand, he rubbed his bulbous nose, smearing his finger with mucous.

He coughed hard, bringing up more mucous, but he swallowed it back down.

Jason forced himself not to cringe.

“Did you bring it?” The man’s voice sounded like a deep gargle, pain-filled and tortured.

Jason looked at his burned hand. Now the wound seemed miniscule. Showing it to this man and explaining his failure would make him sound like a whining child.

He lowered his head. “No. No, I didn’t.”

“I see.” The man heaved a sigh. “The white dragon said as much, but I hoped for better.”

Jason’s cheeks flushed hot. “The dragon thought I wouldn’t bring it?”

“He said you were a fine young man, but …” He hacked up another phlegm ball and spat it into a cloth in his hand. “But you lack a crucial quality.”

“What quality?”

“He didn’t say. I assume it’s none of my business.”

Jason averted his gaze. How could he look this man in the eye? He had failed. But how could he have succeeded? The dragon had given him a test beyond his abilities. It wasn’t fair.

Clenching his fist, Jason fumed.
Not fair?
What a childish thought! Fair or not, he failed an important test, and that was all that mattered.

He slid his wounded hand into the man’s grip. “I’m sorry. I’m very sorry. If there is anything I can do—”

“Get the stardrop.” The man jerked his hand away and pointed above his face. “Put it there, and I will be healed.”

Jason looked up. The tree wasn’t a tree at all. It was a tall, elongated man with spindly arms. With his eyes closed and his face expressionless, he appeared to be asleep or perhaps dead. Just above Jason’s eye level, one of the tree man’s arms extended over the bed, his hand open as if checking for rain.

Reaching up, Jason touched the tree man’s skin. Rough and segmented, it felt like bark. In fact, the man was completely covered with bark, concealing any anatomical details and making it appear genderless rather than male. Yet, with two clearly defined arms and legs as well as humanoid facial features, it definitely wasn’t a normal tree, although its roots stretched out in a complex network, creating the room’s floor.

“The stardrop goes in his palm,” the old man said. “That’s all I know. The dragon said the tree would do the rest.”

Jason looked again at the man. Of course he needed the stardrop. Of course he needed to be healed and get out of that bed. But the stardrop would just burn another hole. It was impossible.

“Again, I’m sorry,” Jason said as he backed away. “I wish I could help, but I just can’t.”

“Can you not?”

Jason spun toward the new voice. A white dragon towered over him, his sleek ivory neck supporting a hoary head of smooth shiny scales.

His legs trembling, Jason took a step backwards. He almost coughed out the dragon’s name, but at the last moment, he sputtered, “The … the king?”

Alaph lowered his head to Jason’s eye level. His ears pointed straight up, rotating as he spoke. “More than a mere guess, I assume.”

“Cassabrie …” Jason’s voice squeaked like a rusty hinge. “Cassabrie said you wanted me to …” His thoughts fled away.

“Ah, yes. Cassabrie, the Starlighter, the talebearer, the conjurer of images that make her stories come to life.”

Nodding, Jason kept his stare locked on Alaph’s blue eyes, so different from the dragons in the south. Should he say something else? Alaph hadn’t asked a question. Maybe he could ask his own now. “I was wondering something. Arxad, a dragon in the …” Again his words failed him. Alaph’s eyes seemed to drain his thoughts.

“I know who Arxad is. Feel free to pursue your question. Do not let my presence intimidate you.”

Jason cleared his throat. “Arxad said we … that is, Koren and I … could find someone here who could help us free the slaves. Might that be you?”

“I am able to help. Yet I am not the one to whom Arxad referred.”

Jason offered a courteous head bow. “Then please, sir, would you tell me who that is and where I can find him?”

“Certainly.” Alaph turned and, using his wings, half walked and half flew toward the far side of the room.

Jason followed. He glanced back at the old man, but in the dimness he had faded to a shapeless mass.

Another tree and bed took shape on the left, but no patient lay there. This place seemed to be a hospital ward, with perhaps four beds on each side.

Alaph stopped at the farthest bed on the right, apparently oblivious to the branches bending under his weight. A man lay there, and a humanoid arm extended over him with its palm begging to be filled.

Before the man’s features became clear, Alaph blocked Jason with a wing. “This is the man to whom Arxad referred, but I fear that he is not well enough. In fact, he will likely not survive the night. I pulled him out of icy water, and he had sustained a head injury that has caused severe swelling. Only a stardrop can help him now.”

Jason leaned to the side but caught only a glimpse of Deference carrying a suction bulb to the bed. “Deference mentioned him. Who is he?”

“I will answer your question if you will answer mine.”

“Okay. I’ll try.”

“You wish to know the identity of this patient. Will you kindly tell me the identity of the first patient you visited?”

“You mean his name?”

The dragon nodded. “That will be sufficient.”

“Uh …” Jason ran the conversation through his mind. The man never spoke his name. Cassabrie had said the white dragon had an obsession with names, so his question wasn’t too surprising. “I’m sorry. I don’t know.”

“Did he refuse to tell you when you asked?”

Jason shook his head. “I didn’t ask.”

“Interesting.” Alaph blinked at Jason and cocked his head as if confused. “Since you did not tell me the other man’s identity, I will not tell you who this man is. Yet I think you will be able to guess if you ask other questions that still prick your mind.”

“You can read my mind?”

The dragon brought his head directly in front of Jason, close enough to send twin streams of cool air across his cheeks. “I do not read minds, but I know the primary reason you journeyed here. Once you admit this, you will have taken your first step toward the answer you seek.”

Jason stared at the strange dragon. His blue eyes and cool breath made him appear to be a member of a species other than that of the southern dragons, but his delaying tactics were just as annoying. “I came here to rescue the slaves and take them back to my planet.”

“I said
primary.
That is your
secondary
reason. If not for your primary purpose, you would not have come at all.”

“If you mean finding Adrian,” Jason said, “I didn’t even know he was here until after I arrived.”

“But you did not even believe this place existed at first. What changed your mind about coming here? You are not such a fool that you cannot discern your own purpose.”

Jason thought back to the critical event, the moment he identified Frederick in the Courier’s tube. Then and only then did he finally believe in the existence of this world, and seeing his brother planted the slave-rescuing obsession.

Sighing, Jason nodded. “I see what you mean. I came here to rescue my brother Frederick. That’s why Adrian came, too.”

“Ah! Good! Now tell me, whom else do you know who might be similarly motivated?”

“Well, my father, of course. He was so upset about losing Frederick he didn’t even want to say good-bye to Adrian when we left the commune. But he’s got a bad leg, so he could never …”

The words died on his lips. An image came to mind, his last encounter with his father, that afternoon he and Adrian left home. His father had said, “I wanted to tell you something,” but he never spoke it. Had he wanted to speak a message other than good-bye?

The dream Jason had in Koren’s presence returned, the visions of his father saying good-bye to his mother. A Starlighter-influenced dream?

“My father!” Jason pushed the dragon’s wing aside and leaped toward the bed, the twisted vines bending and cracking under his weight. After four long strides, he stopped at the bedside and quietly drank in the sight. His father, Edison Masters, lay there with his eyes closed. His chest moved up and down in a steady rhythm, but a gurgle accompanied his respirations. The suction bulb, an aspirator, lay near his neck. Deference’s fingers appeared as she rolled it back and forth nervously.

Jason laid his hand on his father’s forehead. It was hot, much too hot. “Father,” he whispered, “can you hear me?”

“He has been unresponsive for several hours,” the dragon said. “I fear that he will not survive long. Deference has tried every appropriate medicine at our disposal, but his condition has only deteriorated.”

“There has to be something we can do. Is there a hospital anywhere? I’ll carry him on my back if I have to.”

“Well, there is a cure that never fails, but its accessibility …”

“What is it? Where is it? I’ll get it no matter where it is!”

“I am afraid you have already deemed that impossible.”

“Impossible?” Jason stared at the hand of bark that hovered empty over his father’s dying body. “The stardrop.”

“Yes. Placing one there would surely cure him, but it is too great a task. In any case, his time is short. Even if one were to travel to a place where an appropriate container exists, he would be too late. In fact, I believe only moments remain.”

Edison’s chest stopped moving. As his mouth fell open, a spasm lifted his body. The gurgle altered to a choking rasp.

“He can’t breathe!” Jason shouted. “What do I do?”

Deference picked up the aspirator. “I will try to clear the airway!”

“I’ll get the stardrop!” Jason jumped away and ran. His foot broke the floor and plunged through, burying his leg in the vines up to his hip. Thrusting his body forward and clawing at the woody matrix, he jerked himself out and scrambled on all fours until he reached the hallway’s solid floor.

Cassabrie helped him to his feet. “Shall I join you?”

“Can I make a stardrop with my own hands?” he asked as he cast off the cloak.

“Yes. Just do what I did. But it will burn you more than it did me.”

“I don’t care.” He stripped off the sword and sprinted through the corridor, pumping his arms and legs. No time to give Cassabrie a reason. Wasting a single second could cost Father his life.

When he reached the open throne wall, he burst into the stream of whisperers and galloped down the stairs. Their voices entered his ears, but he shook them away, not allowing the words to pierce his mind.

Time seemed to stretch out. How long would it take to get to the bottom? His legs ached, churning so quickly he nearly slipped off the stairway a half-dozen times. Finally, the bottom came into sight, and he leaped over the last three steps. He dashed through the tunnel and slowed to a halt only inches in front of the brilliant star.

Gasping for breath, he dipped a cupped hand into its surface and withdrew the milky substance. It felt like fire. He clenched his teeth and marched back toward the stairs as he watched the radiance congeal. Every second brought more pain—burning, tearing, torturing pain. When it finally shaped into a ball, he broke into another run and raced up the stairs.

The stardrop scalded his flesh, forcing him to switch it to his other hand. As it began sizzling in the new hand, he blew on the wounded one. Smoke rose from a bloody raw hole in the center of his palm.