Part 11 (1/2)

2.

It felt like he clutched her loosely and that any moment she'd slip free of his arms. Lights whizzed by, the world whizzed by at impossible speed. The Great Dividing Road was beneath them for a time, dead straight. They veered off from it over downward-sloping plains, across more roads, miles and miles eaten up. She tried to find the air to speak, to tell him to stop, to scream in fear and sickness. Then just as suddenly it was over; she was on the ground gasping, unable to move, sick and dizzy. She threw up while he stood there and watched and waited.

It seemed a long time before she recovered. She wanted to attack him, spit curses at him, but had no power to do it. 'You can see back along the axis,' he said. 'So now I can too, but I can do it better than you. I shadowed you, see? We can look back together. You're not as hard to shadow as that thing was, in the woods.'

'Where are we?' she said.

'It's where we have to be to learn about the green dress. I cheated. I looked forward on the axis to when we'd learn about it. That's how I knew to come here. Then we came here and we'll make it happen, by looking back. It's like bending a little part of the axis into a circle. Why can't you do that?'

She looked about, half recognising the country. 'Wait you can control when and where to look, in the past and future?'

'Some parts of it,' said his deadpan voice. 'When you leave, I'll forget how. I can do more things than you can. But I couldn't do most of the stuff that thing in the woods could do, when I shadowed it. Do you understand?'

'I think so, Shadow.'

'I've taken us back along the axis.'

'Back in time you mean.'

'Time? Sure, call it that.'

'How, Shadow? How did you do it? We can't really be here. But we aren't in our present time any more either. So where are we?'

'I don't know. It's the same as moving around fast. I don't understand things, I just do them. Look up there if you want to learn.' He pointed at the sky where a long shape loomed, visible only because little points of light glinted off its dark flanks.

'A dragon!' Siel's jaw dropped. It was bigger than a horse, bigger than a drake. It seemed to ripple like a boneless creature swimming through water, with a wide span of pinioned wings, a sleek head. Its long body was of slender proportion but thick with muscle.

It landed near them with the feline grace of a cat's leap, shook itself like a wet dog, its mane of fins and leathery spikes slapping against its flank with a sound of whipping leather. A serpentine tail snaked out behind it, ridged with spikes. Its long mouth was set in a curved grin. She recognised its eyes, the same ones that had peered at her from the woods. Its head swept around, gazed at where she and Shadow stood ... but if this was the past, a glance back, surely it didn't see them.

Nonetheless its gaze lingered on their spot, its brow furrowed. It sniffed deeply, frowned at some anomaly. Then its head reared up and with impressive noise it sneezed a white foamy spray into the air, made a gagging sound, cleared its throat of a blockage, spat, yawned.

A Minor personality, Siel thought with amazement which swept aside almost everything else she'd seen and felt tonight. She knew so little of dragons, had only once seen a drake from her father's shoulders as they walked home, not long before the city's invasion. It had been so distant she'd doubted since that it had been more than a bird. There were no dragons, not free to roam like this in the human realm!

On four legs, the dragon Smaller than she'd have expected! Weren't they rumoured to be enormous? moved forward with a crab-like walk, covering ground quickly. Without warning it slipped into a groundman hole she hadn't even seen.

'I know where it's going,' said Shadow, his voice again making her jump. He grabbed her before she could reply. They sped down the groundman tunnels, right through the slithering dragon's body, which barely fit through the narrow s.p.a.ces. Suddenly they were in the underground chamber which Anfen had described all too clearly: the place Stranger had taken him. There were those trapped souls, caught up in claw-like hooks on the wall. She did not feel the place's horrible heat; but she remembered talk of those hot hooks burning the flesh of 'new mages' being formed. And there in their midst was Stranger, naked like the rest, her eyes closed, her face like that of a sleeper with troubling dreams. The claws holding her had not wormed their way as deeply into her flesh as had those in the bodies around her.

'Can they hear us?' said Siel.

'No. The dragon's coming.'

They waited. Minutes later, a cloud of smoky light flowed turgidly into the chamber. It crystallised slowly into the dragon's shape, solidified like mist becoming ice. 'It couldn't fit through the tunnels,' said Shadow. 'That's why it changed to gas. It doesn't like doing that. Hurts it.'

The dragon did indeed look nonplussed once it had finally changed back into its true form; it spat and licked its teeth as though it had tasted something vile. It hopped down from the upper perch to the floor level, then strolled up and down the line of bodies, not bothering with the men, but pausing before each of the women to examine them closely. Every so often, it would very gently nudge one with its nose or paw. When it got to Stranger, it gave an odd s.h.i.+ver, stroked her with the dark tip of its tail, then seemed to weigh up a choice: her, or another it had lingered over before, a few bodies back.

It hooked its tail behind the claws pinning Stranger in place and, with a strain that made it s.h.i.+ver for a second or two, ripped them out of the stone wall one by one, also employing its teeth for the task. It caught her arm in its mouth as she slumped to the ground, then laid her carefully down, stroking her from head to toe with the point of its tail.

The dragon turned about, glanced again directly at them, frowned (How human the frown seemed!) in disquiet before examining its prize again.

'You know what it does now,' said Shadow.

'What?' she whispered.

'It started with you, till I interrupted it. It makes you its house.'

'I don't understand.'

Shadow considered his words. 'The dragon wanted to ride inside you. So it can stay hidden. It's like if you were riding on the dragon's back. It can only do it if you let it. Like you could only ride its back if it let you. That's why it was doing what it did to you, making you feel good so you would let it in. I could tell that much when I shadowed it. It only rides women. It likes your bodies. The shape, I guess. I do too. They're nice.'

The dragon's head bent low. It he, Siel felt quite sure it was male whispered in Stranger's ear, and she showed signs of stirring. 'It has to ask. Has to get permission. She'll be scared at first, then she'll agree, and be happy. Until it leaves her for the wolf to find. Then she'll hate it. I've seen enough now. I'm going.'

'Wait!'

'What for?'

'Take me back to the tower.'

Shadow looked at her with his hole-eyes. 'I don't want to go all the way back there. I want to see what else there is around here.'

'Don't you dare leave me here. Take me back. Like you said you would.'

'Only if you make that sound you made. With the dragon, back in the woods. I liked that sound.'

'What?' She spat at him instead. Then he was gone and she was alone in the chamber.

HER RAIN FALLS.

1.

Tempest's mood s.h.i.+fted like the restless pulse and heave of the world's water. She had many homes. The rivers and lakes were hers.

The skies were hers in part, their wind and rain and cloud. She could be many places. She could be spread thin as scattered raindrops, millions of eyes collecting little glimpses of the world as they fell, to coalesce later and be seen as a whole. Or she would howl in wild temper, las.h.i.+ng down on the further seas where no people went, where there were only wild forces. So-called Vyan's sea (his no longer!) was a favoured place for wild moods, for smas.h.i.+ng glaciers and bergs together, screaming her voice as winds that blasted the heaving waves.