Alaskan Fury (58 page)

“Of course not,” the creature
said.  “You’re still all bound up.  Your strings are all tangled.”

“My…strings.”

“Yeah.  You’re like a great big
hairball, with lots of little ends, and all of them are connected to the stuff
around you, tugging and pulling.  Or should be, but aren’t, because something
knotted you all up.  Right now, it’s only a couple that got unraveled, but the knots
are coming loose, so we’ll have to watch for people trying to stone you while I
keep you prisoner.”

This is what going insane
feels like,
Imelda thought, feeling the pulsing of her migraine increasing,
fuzzing out the edges of her vision.  God, what she wouldn’t have given for a
handful of pills and a glass of water. 

“Let’s back up a second,” Imelda
said.  “You asked if I had headaches, earlier.  How did you know that?  Do all
Fates have headaches?”

“I think so,” the unicorn said. 
“At least until they get unwrapped.  Sometimes they’re born knotted up—like one
of the gods goes and does it before they’re born—and sometimes the gods send
someone to knot them up as little kids.  But it’s a
good
thing if you’re
having headaches.  It means you can’t be making volcanoes go off by accident.”

“By…accident.”  Imelda did
not
like the sound of that.

“Yeah,” the unicorn said.  “I
told you people don’t like Fates.  There’s a certain amount of time between
when they get their hairball unknotted and the time that they can start
controlling their tugs that things just really go wrong.  A lot.  That’s
usually when they get stoned, but the one in Pompei was an old Fate.  She was
going to die soon, anyway.”

“Why do things go wrong?” Imelda
insisted.  “A Fate brings bad luck?”

The unicorn snorted.  “No, you
make
bad luck.”  As if she was a simpleton for even asking.

“
How
?” Imelda gritted,
fighting the impulse to grab the unicorn by the soft white ears and twist his
head around to face her.  “I would like to
know
why people would
stone
me.”

“Oh.”  The unicorn seemed to
consider a moment, then said, “Well, I think it’s because anything they want to
happen will happen.  They actually have to learn how
not
to work their
magic, because if they don’t, bad stuff happens.”

Imelda felt her throat closing
up.  “How long does it take?” she managed, through the tightness of her horror.

The unicorn shrugged.  “A few
seconds to a few days…  However long it takes the Fate’s cords to yank stuff
around so it happens.”

A few seconds…
she thought,
in dismay.  Most people, Imelda assumed, would sit there in her place, riding
that unicorn, and think about how wonderful it would be to have everything they
wanted in Life happen as soon as they wanted it.  She, schooled in the many
ways to be
cursed
by those she hunted, knew that it was a certain sort
of Hell to get what you wanted, all the time.

Things like, oh, say, idly
wanting a bottle of migraine medicine while traveling through the forest, and
getting it immediately—along with the helicopter crew and the Fury aboard that
came to deliver it, in the midst of collecting her up for a return visit to the
dungeon?

“How do I stop it?” Imelda asked
quickly.

The unicorn gave her a funny
look.  “You can’t.  That’s what you
do
.  That’s why you’re
here
. 
Fates only show up when they’re needed.  They spend half their life learning
the world, their hairball bound down real tight as they mature, and then, when
it’s time, they have to learn to start using it.”

“How do I find someone to bind it
back down?” Imelda demanded.  “I do
not
want that.”

The unicorn frowned at her. 
“Only an agent of Fate can do that.”  Like she didn’t know anything at all.

“Like who?” Imelda demanded. 
“Where can I find one?”

He sounded confused.  “You
don’t.  They find you.”

“What if I
want
one to
show up and bind everything back up?” Imelda demanded.

“Oh,” the unicorn laughed. 
“Well, Fates can’t change their own Fate.  Not really well, and it always snaps
back.” 

Imelda considered.  “So that Fate
in Pompeii was Fated to die in that volcano.”

“Yeah,” the unicorn said.  “She
was old, and she probably needed to be born somewhere else.” 

“So that’s it?  A Fate can only
not
change her own Fate?”

Then he frowned at her.  “Well,
there’s other things that a Fate
shouldn’t
do.  They
can
do them,
but it makes the energy sick, and as soon as they stop tugging on it, the flow
of things slides back to the way it was.” 

“Things like what?” Imelda
insisted. She had no more understanding of cords or energy than she had of how
the unicorn was managing to step
on
the snow without
disturbing
the snow.  Or, for that matter, how it had walked up the side of a
tree
…

“Things like…hmm.”  The unicorn
considered.  “Well, if someone’s supposed to die, you shouldn’t stop it.  And
if someone
needs
to die, but is being stubborn and
won’t
,
sometimes you’ll get a push from their gods to help them along, and it’s bad to
ignore that.”

“What, like Hitler?” Imelda
demanded.

The unicorn frowned at her.  “No,
more like your brother or sister or your mom or dad.  Sometimes, their patron
gods will take advantage of a Fate in the area and light them up like a flare
so the Fate’ll take care of the problem.”

Her gut sinking as she thought of
Padre Vega, Imelda said, “What would that look like?”

“I have no idea,” the unicorn
repeated.  “I’m not a Fate.”

“What else?” she demanded.

“Well,” the unicorn said, “Think
of it like there’s a really big Plan, and everybody can change the plan a
little bit, set it off track, but a Fate is the one who has to set it right
again.  The easiest way for a Fate to make things go sour is if they want
something to happen that
shouldn’t
happen because it’s not in the
Plan.”  He twisted to look back at her.  “They get a feel for it, though.  It’s
like a bird flying.  Nobody teaches them how.  They just figure it out before
they hit the ground.”

Imelda had to swallow down a
growing sick feeling in her gut.  “And you know all this from stoning a woman
in Pompeii?”

The unicorn laughed.  “No.  Just
about every lifetime I’ve had, the culture has stories of the Fates.  This is
one of the first where I didn’t grow up giving them prayers or sacrifices.  And
I
met
one.  Isn’t that funny?”

“Hilarious,” Imelda managed.

“So,” the unicorn said, “how
close do I have to get?”  He came to a sudden halt, though there seemed to be
no forward momentum on Imelda’s part, as she would have expected from multiple
flights over the neck of a horse.  It took her a moment to get her bearings.

They were standing in a windswept
white valley, with snow so deep it buried the highland scrub in dune-like
drifts, leaving nothing but flat, clean snow for miles.  On either side,
mountains towered above them in big, rocky crests.  A steady rush of icy wind
tugged at her borrowed trenchcoat, and Imelda had to duck closer to the unicorn
just to stay warm. 

“Where are we?” she asked, into
his mane.  She was pretty sure they had only been traveling a couple hours.  If
that.

“Oh,” the unicorn said, sounding
embarrassed.  “I thought you wanted to go to the dragons.  Was this the wrong
place?”

Imelda stared up at the windswept
hillsides as a slow wash of awe left her breathless.  “You took us to the
Brooks Range in two hours.”

“Yes?” the unicorn said,
nervousness tight in his voice.  “That’s where you wanted to go, right?”  As if
he was afraid she would stop being his ‘prisoner’ because he had taken her to
the wrong mountain range.

No wonder the feylords use
them as steeds,
Imelda thought, stunned.  “Um, yes, this is where I wanted
to go…I think.  Are there dragons nearby?”

The unicorn glanced up at the mountain
with all the anxiety of a rabbit eying a leopard’s den.  “They’re probably
watching us right now.”

Imelda suddenly got that
spine-prickling sensation that she’d gotten in training, whenever the
instructor was looking at her through the scope of a rifle.  “I think you’re
right,” she said, her skin tightening with goosebumps.  “Would we be able to
see them if they were there, but didn’t want to be seen?”

“I can’t,” the unicorn said, as
he pranced uncomfortably beneath her.  “That’s how that girl dragon almost got
me.  I was drinking by the river and then suddenly she grabbed me and
flew
… 
I thought she was going to eat me until she trapped me in her cave and tried to
wrestle me into a collar.”

“Well,” Imelda said, sharing the
unicorn’s unease as she eyed the utterly abandoned slopes, “maybe if we head
west a bit, one of them will say hi.”

“That won’t be necessary,” a
deep, rumbling voice said from the air nearby,
high
above their heads. 
As it spoke, a monstrous winged shape the size of a jumbo jet, deep mahogany
and gleaming like anodized bronze, appeared in the snow in front of them.

The unicorn cringed and backed
up, and Imelda grabbed his mane, fully sharing his sudden urge to flee.

“So,” the great beast said, its
many-horned head lifted several stories above them, “how is it that a human
stinking of the Inquisition comes to us riding a unicorn?  Did you brainwash
the poor creature?”

“She’s my prisoner,” the unicorn
said, sounding almost defensive, and Imelda immediately winced.  As if
that
didn’t sound like brainwashing…

The dragon, however, sounded
amused when it said, “You captured yourself a maiden, then, little stallion?”

“Um,” the unicorn said, “She
agreed to it.  Three years.  I’m going to treat her well and feed her good.” 
Then he lowered his head and looked somewhat ashamed.  “Though I haven’t been
able to find food for her yet.  I don’t eat the same as her.”

After watching the unicorn for a
long moment, the dragon cocked its head at Imelda.  “You realize that taking
advantage of an innocent will earn you many painful years in Hell, do you not,
Inquisidora?”

He’s speaking to me in my
mind,
Imelda realized, suddenly feeling utterly paranoid that the beast was
digging through her thoughts.  Her hands tightened in the unicorn’s mane, and
for the first time, her steed did not complain.  For his part, the unicorn
looked ready to bolt.

“Oh, don’t scamper off,” the
dragon chuckled, which was a booming rumble that reverberated through Imelda’s
lungs.  “You wouldn’t get far.  Why are you two looking for dragons?”

She had thought she would have
more time to compile her thoughts, more time to prepare, but it was now or
never, Imelda realized.  Straightening with all the courage she could summon
before this magnificent creature, she said, “I am a former Inquisidora of the
Holy Order of Angels.  I have come to tell you that you and all of your
kinsblood in these mountains are in danger of extermination.”

For a long moment, the dragon’s
light amber eyes pinned her with its stare.  Then, languidly, it said, “Have
you ever seen what happens to a human body when it is caught in a blast of
incienda draconis, Inquisidora?”

“She was just trying to warn
you!” the unicorn cried, dancing around the dragon.  “There’s helicopters
everywhere and Inquisitors are taking
everybody
and there’s a Fury
that’s draining their blood and Imelda
saved
me so you can’t kill her.”

“I wasn’t threatening your
mortal,” the dragon rumbled, twisting to follow their progress with its
horse-sized head.  “Stop prancing, fool.  You’re making me dizzy.” 

The unicorn ignored the dragon
and kept easily doing circles around the massive beast.  “I need her alive,” he
babbled.  “I can’t talk to her if she’s dead.  Go find someone else to kill, or
I swear I’ll poke you with my horn.”

“
Stop
!” the dragon roared,
slamming a front foot into the ground hard enough to make the unicorn stumble. 
“Or I will show you the inside of my stomach!”  When the unicorn came to a wary
halt, off to one side, the dragon slowly turned its great bulk to face them
again.  Imelda felt the very
mountains
shudder as the massive beast
shifted in the snow.  Then, after a contemplative silence, the colossal beast
said, “All right.  I take it you haven’t been schooled in the subtleties of
conversation, so I’ll keep it simple.  What I was trying to tell the Inquisitor
was that there are two hundred and thirteen dragons in these mountains.  We’ve
spent the last two hundred years fortifying and preparing.  Should the humans
try to attack us, we are going to fry their bodies to little crisps and shit on
the remains.”

“Oh,” the unicorn said.  “Okay.”

“You can’t wait that long,”
Imelda interrupted.  “The Inquisition has technology you have never heard of. 
They have artifacts and poisons and magics from every creature the Order has
ever captured.  There
are
ways to capture a dragon.  Dozens of them have
passed through basement of the Vatican.”

“Then they were careless fools,”
the dragon said.

“Even the wisest master can
stumble and fall,” Imelda countered.

The dragon cocked its head at her
and gave her a narrow look.  “My name is Wyst the Red and I speak for my kind
when I tell you we have no fear of the Inquisition.”

“Yet you hide from it,” Imelda
said.

He stared at her, his golden eyes
blinking.  “Are you
trying
to annoy me, mortal?”

Imelda merely shrugged.  “I just
find it odd that you’ve been spending all this time fortifying, as you call it,
preparing for war, and when the time comes to defend yourselves, when you
know
that your fellow immortals are falling like flies, you decide to hide in your
holes and wait it out.”