Between (36 page)

The best plan he could come up with was that if anybody came in, he’d make a dive for freedom while the door was still open. If he was too late to save her, he could avenge her. And for that he would need to spare his waning strength.

Remembering, he put his hand into his pocket and brought out the cloth-wrapped object.
Open only at the end.

Not quite yet. Not the end so long as there remained the smallest fragment of hope.

Resting his head back against the wall, he closed his eyes and focused on his breath, waiting.

V
ivian looked out across the closely trimmed and carefully tended grass, emerald green and weed free, to where the stadium walls rose sheer on all sides, the seats beyond that, tier after tier, filled with shouting humans. Above, blue sky, without the shadow of a single cloud.

Across the field she saw the red upthrust of stone. She could feel its power flickering at the edges of her reality, despite the blunting effect of the silver. Her guards, still careful not to touch her, signaled that she should walk the length of the field to the stone. Steadying herself, she stepped out onto the grass.

The vox humana crescendoed into a roar. A fanfare floated out of the stands.

Last night, she had been a spectator. Tonight, she was the show. Head held high, not willing to let the maddened crowd see her fear, she crossed the stadium. The longest walk of her life, but not long enough, a duality of time expanding and contracting, both eternity and an ephemeral breath.

She pressed her back against the stone, feeling its power pulsing against her skin. The guards fastened a heavy chain around her waist and left her there. The silver bracelets were loose around her wrists; she could slip them off at any time
and—do what? Hope withered under the gaze of thousands of hostile eyes, thousands of voices shouting for her death.

Jehenna had the key.

She, Vivian Maylor, the last of the Dreamshifters, had failed in every possible way.

Trumpets blared. The priest paraded to the center of the field. He raised his staff and waited for the crowd to quiet so that his voice could be heard:

“In the last night and day, portents have been written across the sky. Strange creatures have appeared and disappeared. Reality twists and bends in on itself. Is it coincidence that these things should come to pass at the same time this sorceress appeared in Surmise?”

The crowd moaned, pressing forward against the barrier. “Death, death to the sorceress,” a single voice shouted. The crowd took it up as a chant.

The priest raised his hands for silence. It took longer this time for the ebb of sound, but he waited, master of the drama, until all tongues were stilled, all ears listening. “We hereby give this woman in sacred ceremony to the Dragon, that the portals may be closed and the evil be driven from our kingdom.”

A deafening response from the crowd.

“Let it be so!” He turned and joined his entourage, crossing the grass to a small postern gate that opened to let them through to safety.

A grinding of gears and pulleys, and the great door at the far end of the stadium began to rise.

The noise of the crowd intensified into a solid wall of hatred that beat against Vivian with a physical force. Mellisande’s massive head emerged from the dark doorway, swinging side to side at the end of her long, scaly neck. Amber eyes blinked in the sudden light. She didn’t hurry. One slow step at a time she half-crept, half-slithered into the arena, improbably big and unspeakably ugly. A barbed tail furrowed a long dark scar in the grass. Batlike wings lay furled along the long, sinuous spine, fastened in place by the silver mesh fastened around her belly.

A retinue of white-clad maidens followed, half-fainting with fear, driven forward by men with swords, then abandoned to press screaming against the unyielding stone barrier in frantic efforts to escape.

The dragon paused, turning her head to the side and surveying the selection of maidens. A small flame jetted from her nostrils. She opened a mouth full of bloodstained teeth, flickering a thick black tongue as though tasting the air.

Then, unhurried, Mellisande turned back toward Vivian, dragging her ungainly body across the arena, emitting little puffs of smoke from her nostrils.

I am about to be eaten by a dragon.
About to become a spray of blood on the wind, a stray bone, a fragment of flesh. It was the old nightmare, finally come to claim her. Vivian watched, quiescent, mesmerized, as though the eyes in her head and the brain that processed the images belonged to some casual bystander. As in every nightmare, she was unable to run, to scream, to offer up any defense.

Take off the bracelets,
the voices all shouted, but she continued to stand passive, shocked and beaten by the enormity of her failure and the hatred of the crowd.

And then another door opened and a man burst into the arena. His black hair hung loose on his bare shoulders. He wore nothing but a pair of cotton breeches. Scars slashed across the muscles of back and chest. In his right hand he carried a hunting knife; a ridiculous weapon, a toy, compared to the size and ferocity of a dragon.

The crowd fell silent for a moment, and then a cacophony of sound went up—cheers and shouts and sounds of dismay.

The Warlord’s eyes met Vivian’s, unflinching. Improbably, a smile lit his scarred face. He inclined his head toward her, ever so slightly, then moved to stand between her and the dragon.

Spewing fire that blackened a wide swath of grass, Mellisande lunged forward. Her long neck stretched and snaked, jaws opening over razor-sharp teeth. The Warlord dropped and rolled between her clawed feet, leaping into the air as he slashed upward at the exposed belly with the knife. A gash
followed the blade, black blood steaming onto the earth, pouring over his naked arm.

A gasp rose from the crowd as the arm dropped limp and the knife fell to the earth. The Warlord bent and picked it up with his left hand. Bellowing, the dragon twisted into a circle, reaching for him, her head weaving from side to side.

Another gout of flame, a roar of rage and pain as again the knife drew blood. The dragon’s neck bent into a deep curve, bringing her head low to peer between front legs as wide as tree trunks.

The Warlord threw the knife, end over end on a direct trajectory toward one of the enormous eyes. But already the head was moving and the blade struck against the skull, inflicting nothing more than a shallow cut before bouncing off and to the side. He was undefended now—there was no way he could reach the blade.

Vivian wanted to close her eyes and shut out the inevitable outcome. What had happened to Esme was bad enough; she didn’t think she could bear to see Zee ripped apart before her eyes. The voices surged in her head, but she couldn’t make out words—they were dulled by the silver bracelets.

The dragon lunged forward, flaming. The Warlord dived to the left just ahead of the gaping jaws, but the flames caught his breeches and he rolled in the grass, extinguishing the fire. For an agonizing moment he lay still. Then he rolled onto hands and knees, got one foot under him, and staggered upright, swaying.

Vivian had to do something, take some action to help him. She slipped off the bracelets. At once, a deeper awareness flooded in. The power of the stone at her back. The excitement and fear of each separate person in the crowd. Above all, the consciousness of the dragon—the pain of her wounds, her long, deep anger, and behind everything a yearning beyond words for the clear cold mountain air and empty sky.

Free me,
Mellisande said into her mind.

The dragon swung her head low for the killing blow.
Free me or he will die, and you after him.

Vivian flung herself against her chains, shouting, “Break the binding!” She could scarcely hear herself above the roar of the crowd and screamed the words again, tearing her throat with the effort to make him hear.

The Warlord leaped up from the earth, both arms raised above his head, and caught his fingers in the bindings that held the wings. Clinging with his left hand, he fumbled at the silver harness with the burned fingers of his right. Mellisande reared upward onto her back legs, the man dangling high above the earth.

His hold on the silver slipped, and his body lurched and swung.

The crowd went silent.

And then the Warlord plummeted earthward, lost to sight when he struck the ground between spiked claws. Behind him fell the silver mesh, striking out sparks of light.

The great wings of the dragon expanded twenty feet into the air.

Withdrawing as one body from the sudden menace in the ring, the crowd shrieked in terror.

No longer slow or cumbersome, with one flap of her wings Mellisande lifted into the air and circled the stadium. Then she dove, blasting flame as she flew low over the crowd. A pall of smoke rose, stinking of brimstone and burning flesh.

Screaming, the crowd stampeded in all directions—tripping over each other, trampling the fallen and leaving them where they lay.

Mellisande flapped harder, driving her heavy body high above the stadium in a smooth circle. Then she spiraled downward to land, unexpectedly graceful, in the grassy field. Close up, lighted by the sun, the dragon’s scales were not black but dark purple, veined with green and gold, more beautiful and rich than any gem Vivian had ever seen.

Mellisande lowered her head, turning it to one side so she could look directly at Vivian out of one huge eye.

She is coming,
the dragon’s voice spoke into her mind.
You must kill me now.

What? Why? You are free to go back to your mountains, to fly with the stars.

It is fated. You must kill me.

Vivian tried to back away, but the stone at her back blocked her. She shook her head in denial.

This is the only way.

I have no weapon. I wouldn’t know how to begin to—

Slay the dragon? You must change, Little One. I have lived too long—it would be a gift. Quickly. She comes.

Vivian’s eyes flickered away to the mass exodus out of the stadium, a stream of humanity trampling the fallen, some few shielding their loved ones or trying to drag them to safety. The priest had vanished. Somewhere in the midst of that crush of bodies and feet, the Warlord lay where he had fallen. Vivian tried not to picture his trampled, battered body.

Right through the center of the crowd, against the flow, came Jehenna. Not stalking with her usual proud gait, but running, a wicked-looking blade in her right hand, black, carved from stone. She used it like a machete to clear a path, felling anyone who didn’t get out of her way. Her lips moved as though she were shouting, but the noise of the crowd drowned her out. At her heels ran Gareth.

As she approached, Vivian finally understood the words. “Mellisande! Do not kill her. I have need of her yet!”

Now,
the dragon said.
Before the chance is lost forever.

Still, Vivian stood, stupid and dull. Jehenna slowed as she approached and placed a hand on the dragon’s front leg, possessive. “Mellisande. Hold.”

Gareth stood a little back, and behind. No time for more than a glimpse to see a green fire of desire burning in his eyes.

“Dreamshifter,” Jehenna panted. “An amusing little spectacle you and your Warlord arranged. Pointless, but amusing. Did it please you to watch him die?”

Vivian felt her blood heating, rage burning hot in her belly. She bit her tongue and did not answer.

Jehenna’s eyes narrowed, scanning Vivian’s bare wrists. Her nostrils flared. “Who freed you?”

Vivian held her silence, kept her eyes from flicking toward Gareth. She owed him that much. It seemed to her that there was fear in the hazel eyes, along with a wild desperation. “I thought you wanted me dead.”

“Pah.” The Sorceress spit on the ground at her feet and then flung the stone key down to lie in the muck. “This key is not the one; it doesn’t work. He tricked me, yet again. And until the one is found, I need you alive. You and your mother. Mellisande, go back to your den.”

The dragon, no longer bound by silver, didn’t move.

Power surged into Vivian from the rock at her back. Voices filled her head. The rage in her belly flared, burning, heating her blood. Her skin began to itch and stretch.

Smells burgeoned into color. Mellisande appeared with a breathtaking clarity—every scale a prism, emitting a vibration not felt before. Off in the distance Vivian perceived other systems of vibration, other beings of wings and light and fire. Each of them responding to this awakening. Each altering the path of flight to fly in her direction.

The chains snapped as her body grew too large and powerful for the links to hold. Jehenna appeared far away and oh so small.

Mellisande clapped vermillion wings together over her back—once, twice, three times—a thunderclap of sound that rolled through the stadium. A challenge.

You must kill me.

No.

Swift as thought, Mellisande struck, her teeth raking a line of fire down Vivian’s neck. Acting on instinct, she struck back, slinging her head toward the dragon, her own neck grown long and powerful.