Part 29 (2/2)
The unconditional trust shook Alouzon, but she kept her right foot pressed to the floor. ”I love you, Dindrane.”
”And I you, Great Lady.”
This early, the freeway was mercifully clear, and Alouzon had no difficulty keeping her speed up by switching lanes and pa.s.sing slower vehicles. But while she drove, she was calculating. A ten-gallon tank of gas, freshly filled, and twenty-five miles to the gallon. Two-hundred fifty miles then, at least. Far enough to make, say, San Luis Obispo, or maybe even Monterey. But what then? The Specter did not have to worry about gas, or about eating, or, in fact, about anything save killing a certain Alouzon Dragonmaster and bringing to a final, hopeless conclusion the tale of blood and destruction that had started with hound attacks on Vaylle and the bombing of Bandon.
A crash. The VW careened to the side. Alouzon fought with the wheel and barely succeeded in pulling out of a fatal skid. Sweeping ahead and out to the right, gaining alt.i.tude after its attack, the Worm was beating great wings and swinging around for another pa.s.s in spite of Silbakor's efforts to intercept it.
Dindrane struggled to turn around. ”How can I get to the rear of this . . . automobile?''
Speeding, pa.s.sing cars, braced for another clanging impact from the Worm's talons, Alouzon explained how to recline the seat. Dindrane nodded, flopped it back, and clambered into the rear. Darting a quick look upward, Alouzon noticed that the Worm's claws had left dents and holes in the roof.
Another crash, but not from the Worm: Dindrane had smashed the rear window with her staff. A pause, and then the sudden sense of warmth and health that infused the car told Alouzon that the priestess was drawing energy into the consecrated wood.
”Steady, G.o.ddess ...”
With a soundless concussion that was so ephemeral that Alouzon sensed it with her mind more than her body, Dindrane's staff flared and sent a bolt of healing straight at the white face and eyes of void sweeping in from behind. A scream from the Worm told of a direct hit.
” 'Tis backing up,” said the priestess proudly.
The VW strained up the slope of the pa.s.s, its speed, maddeningly, decreasing. Alouzon dropped to a lower gear, and die automobile responded with a lunge. ”Thanks.”
” 'Tis my duty, G.o.ddess.”
”Well, thanks anyway.”
The Worm and the Specter were undeterred. Mounting abruptly into the sky, they struggled once again with Silbakor, and the Great Dragon's belly was sliced open by the Specter's sword. Blood welled out, and pieces of Dragon were shredded into the air, pinwheel-ing against the dawn like chunks of night.
The Worm plummeted down on the VW. Alouzon swerved across three lanes, but the talons found her hood, lifted, and threw the VW onto its back. The car skidded madly up onto the shoulder of the road and bounced off the guard rails, then, with a shriek of metal on asphalt, it lost speed and finally dumped itself off the pavement and onto the bare dirt, righting itself with a final lurch.
Alouzon's vision was swimming. She blinked stupidly at the mountains and the sky.
And from somewhere close by came a voice: ”... weather service indicates no let up in the heat wave before the weekend. High today is expected to be a sizzling one hundred and five, with a low tonight in the mid-eighties ...”
She blinked again, shook her head, found herself staring at the dashboard radio. The voice and a trickle of blood winding its way down the side of her nose told her that she must have struck the on/off switch! with her forehead.
”... KHJ News Radio time is seven-thirty . . .”
Her hands were not working, and she lay as one anesthetized. Memories and thoughts drifted through her mind, random and incoherent. She saw bits and pieces of Gryylth, of an army of healers and warriors forming up and a.s.saulting the slopes of Kingsbury Hill. She saw the grinning faces of hounds and the impa.s.sive, vacant eyes of the Gray faces. And-lastly and most strangely-she saw the rotting features of Solomon Braithwaite, still and dead in his coffin.
The professor's eyes opened suddenly and fixed her with their glazed stare. Alouzon cried out and struggled towards consciousness, but the withered corpse-hands grabbed her and held her. ”I told you I'd help you, girl,” said the dead man in a voice like the rustle of rotting leaves. ”Take advantage of it.”
”H-how?”
The gla.s.sy eyes bored into her. ”I'm here, dammit. Use your pathetically over-educated head.”
”... and, turning to local news headlines: the body of the unknown woman found in the wreckage of the house of noted feminist author and lecturer Helen Ad-dams has been identified as that of Suzanne Leah h.e.l.ling, a graduate student at UCLA. ”
The vision faded. The VW came back. Dindrane was sprawled beside her, and the sound of far-off screaming was paradoxically loud. Forcing her hands to grab the steering wheel, Alouzon hauled herself up and stared through the winds.h.i.+eld. Thirty feet away, Silbakor was grappling with the Worm, and the Specter was cutting into the Great Dragon with its sword.
”Police say they know of no connection between the two women, and the cause of the destruction of the house is still unknown.''
Bruised and cut, Dindrane was struggling back to her senses. '' A-Alouzon?''
”Right here.”
”That voice Alouzon switched off the radio, reached for the ig- nition key. The engine coughed into life. ”Don't worry about it.”
”O G.o.ddess-”
Pain and fright had shortened Alouzon's temper, and she was tired of Dindrane's insistent formalities. ”Call me Alouzon, dammit. Now hang on: this is gonna be rough.”
Dindrane scrambled into her seat. After revving the engine for a moment, Alouzon popped the clutch, and the VW suddenly surged forward in a cloud of dust. The Worm, about to deliver a killing stroke to the struggling Dragon, jerked its head up at the sudden motion; but before it could move, Alouzon smashed the car straight into it.
The Worm was thrown off balance; and not only did it dump the Specter on the ground, but-wings flailing, head reared back-it left itself open for a lunge from Silbakor, and the Dragon's black teeth tore a gaping rent in the pale throat. Ichor and mucus spilled out onto the bare ground, smoking where they touched. Crippled, screaming, the Worm floundered.
Satisfied that she had given Silbakor a fighting chance, Alouzon guided the VW back onto the freeway. The car was damaged, but it was still mobile, and, lurching and coughing, it picked up speed.
She looked up through the winds.h.i.+eld. Police helicopters were circling. Ground forces would be on their way.
I'm dead, Solomon had said once. I'm supposed to know a few things.
Alouzon drove on. ”Didn't you say once that the G.o.d dies and is reborn, Dindrane?”
”Indeed. Surely. But Solomon . . .” The priestess pa.s.sed a hand over her face, struggling with her griefs. ”But Solomon was a man, and not a very good one at that.”
I'm supposed to know a few things.
”Maybe so,” said Alouzon, ”but I think he had more to him than we gave him credit for.” The front alignment of the VW had been thrown completely off, and the car shuddered down the asphalt as though shaken by a terrier; but Alouzon forced herself to accelerate. ”I think he's still got some things to do. You might find that your devotion wasn't so misplaced after all.”
She prayed that her words-and her suspicions- were right. For now she was following Solomon's advice and his offer of help. She was heading for the cemetery where he was buried.
* CHAPTER 22 *
Heartbeats before the sun rose over the eastern plains of Gryylth and severed all connection with Los Angeles, Kyria and Jia ran out of the gate in the Camrann Mountains. Panting, her robes soaked with sweat of her magical and physical exertions, the sorceress collapsed into the arms of Santhe and Marrha.
”I was afraid we had lost you, beloved,” said Santhe. His strong arms upheld her, and his smile, though strained, was as much a tonic as the cup of water he held to her lips.
She drank. ”No,” she said between breaths. ”Almost, but not quite.”
”What of Alouzon and Dindrane?”
”They stayed behind to draw the Specter away from us.”
Santhe looked grave. ”They are truly heroes.”
”Dindrane, perhaps, is a hero,” said Marrha. ”But Alouzon is a G.o.ddess.”
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