Dragon Ultimate (46 page)

"Baz! Wake up!" Relkin shook the fallen dragonform, causing it to rock back and forth slightly. There was no response.

Relkin stood back. The dragonform lay there, completely inert. Meanwhile the Intruder was closing in on the pyramids.

Helplessly, Relkin offered up a prayer to Old Caymo and all the other Old Gods.
If you can hear me, Old Ones, now is the time to help this worshiper of yours
…

There was no response. He was crazy to think there could be. They'd said the gods were no more. The world was without direction. It was hard to break with the old thinking, however, especially in this place of crystal cliffs and blinding blue light.

Awake, whispered the thought in the back of his mind.

Awake!

But how? Relkin had no inkling of how he had connected to that magical power on the occasions it had manifested itself.

He willed himself to be calm.

There was lightning discharging from the pink clouds onto the Intruder's crown as it marched on.

He tried to reach out to the dragon with his mind, calling on him to awake.

"Bazil? Can you hear me?"

Still no response.

He glanced at the Intruder, who was in range of the laggards now.

Baz?

The dragonform remained motionless.

Relkin dug deep, reaching for that part of his mind that had produced magical effects more than once. It was in there somewhere. He might have left his body behind, but he had his own mind. He had all his memories, even those of Ferla, the goddess of love in Mot Pulk's grotto. He recalled Eilsa's dear face, her beauty of movement, the sound of her laugh. He recalled old Macumber and the dragonhouse in Quosh.

No question about it, he was still Relkin of Quosh. And he knew he could do these things, if he could only tap into the power.

He struggled, and he got nowhere. He still had no idea how to actually connect to that power.

The dragonform remained facedown in the soft rock surface. Nothing Relkin tried seemed to work, and while he strove to perform the unattainable, the Intruder caught up with the pyramids still creeping toward the narrow canyon in the great cliff wall.

At the back of the crowd was Yelgia Goldenhair, she of the pure voice, one of Puna's closest friends in ancient Gelderen. Seeing that escape was hopeless, she gave up the attempt and set her 'struct squarely in the path of the Intruder.

"Waakzaam! It is I, Yelgia, Puna's friend."

"You poisoned her against me."

"I did not have to. Puna never loved you. You were always too cruel, too cold. Puna saw through your pretense. She saw your deadly flaw."

"There is no flaw!" The hammer rose high with a gleam of doom. The clouds parted momentarily, and the light grew very bright.

Down came the hammer, striking only a glancing blow.

"Bah! Your tricks with the clouds will not stop me."

The hammer rose again.

Relkin felt a tug in his mind, but it didn't develop; no thought followed.

Down came the hammer once more. Yelgia's 'struct was hit hard, the crust shattered and fell away. Vapor clouds rose from the damaged zone where a crater was left.

For a moment Yelgia cried out in fear. Then her courage returned and her cry turned into song, and fair Yelgia began to sing of Puna and of her beauty and her untimely death, strangled by the dark, fell spirit of Waakzaam in Gelderen long ago.

"Shut up!" roared the Intruder, and smote her 'struct again with the great hammer. Fragments fell away as the crust broke up.

Yelgia's great voice, pure and golden, continued to rise above the scene of her murder. Waakzaam had gone berserk, and his hammer lashed the pyramidal 'struct again and again as fragments flew off and the crust crumpled.

Yelgia's singing stopped abruptly. Her catafalque bubble had been punctured, and the searing gas had entered.

Relkin turned back to his own struggle.

There, somewhere in the blank void, which was all he felt when he reached out, somewhere in there was Bazil. Relkin refused to think that his friend was dead. He was in there somewhere, and Relkin had to find him.

The tug at his mind came again and suddenly there was that other presence in his thoughts. The Sinni was back, Yeer, or Sweetwater.

"Hurry, Relkin, aid us in awakening the dragon."

"I am trying, but cannot find the way," Relkin answered despondently.

There was a strange moment of disconnection. Relkin felt a sudden blur of emotions and was left with a sense of nausea, which left him dizzy. The sensation passed quickly to be replaced by another feeling altogether.

He felt as if he were floating, his mind bobbing on a vast dark sea, like the ocean at night. Relkin recalled long, lazy nights in the doldrums on the equator, when their ship was sailing for Eigo. He felt as if he could slide effortlessly in any direction, penetrate any barrier.

He thought of Bazil, remembered his dragon from times long past.

By the gods, that time we were up on the hills and he ate those berries! He was such a sick dragon!

And at that moment he felt something in the darkness. A familiar mind surfaced and snapped back at him.

"Why do you have to bring that up? Boy never forgets that one."

"Baz!"

"Boy! This dragon lost in the dark."

"You're facedown in the ground, that's why. Pull up your head."

There was a long moment. Relkin glanced back to the distant cliff wall. The Intruder was pounding on another pyramid. Lightning blasts were discharging almost continuously as great shards of the 'struct were sent flying. The scene was starkly lit from the ferocious blue sun above, but Relkin saw the horror coolly, almost impassively. Somehow the destruction did not panic him. His thoughts were only for the dragon.

"Pull your head up, Bazil."

Slowly, Bazil lifted the huge head; hot rock clung to his face like threads of taffy.

"That better. This dragon can see again."

With pauses at each stage, the dragon pulled his enormous body upright and onto its feet.

"This dragon is weary. It hard to wake up."

"You can do it Baz. Think of Jumble; he killed Jumble. That's how he made this huge thing of his, he used Jumble's spirit. Dragon spirit is the strongest there is."

"Kill Jumble?"

Bazil came erect with a snap. The huge body was in motion. Bazil was finally back on his feet.

"Hurry!" came the cry from the Sinni.

Now the Intruder swung, and down came the huge hammerhead to smash into the shell of Empessi, the patron of weavers and tiers of knots. Empessi made no protest, only continued to lend all his strength to the effort to break the lock on the Intruder's integument. At this range, if they could unhook the magic, they would disintegrate the golemoid in a matter of moments. Alas, the spell holding it together was extremely powerful.

The hammer slammed into Empessi's pyramid. A great flash of light threw the scene into harsh relief, and left rocketing afterimages even on Relkin's and Bazil's adapted eyes. A heavy boom rocked through the dense gas. Shards of the pyramid fell away, then the bubble was smashed, the catafalque destroyed. Empessi ceased to exist.

Bazil wobbled a moment, then got a firm grip on his great body and set it to scrambling over the crystalline ridge.

It was a huge effort, but the dragon was still agile enough. Getting down was a little tricky, since the crystal outcrops tended to shatter under his enormous weight, but he reached the plain again on his feet, surrounded by a lot of shattered crystal.

He found the great sword lying on the floor of the plain. The eerie light had gone out. The blade was notched and bent, but still in one piece.

Bazil tore it free from the hot-taffy rock.

"Sword is battered…"

Relkin bounced in, having recovered much of his energy.

"But still whole…"

Bazil swung the great weapon experimentally a time or two.

"Still a good sword."

Ecator's sparkle returned with a hesitant flicker.

"Ecator!" it said, faintly.

"There, that better! By the fiery breath, we finish this now!"

The dragon turned and set off after the Intruder as fast as Bazil could make it go.

The Intruder continued to hammer the pyramids into scrap. A line of broken pyramids now lay behind the huge golemoid, thin tendrils of smoke rising from the interiors of the smashed 'structs. Slabs of their shells littered the flat plain. Inside each 'struct, the fragile bubbles surrounding the catafalques of the Sinni had evaporated, along with their creators.

Gel-Marj Bos, he of the sparkling dawn light, patron of sailors and sailing ships, brother of great Zizma, was the next to expire as his 'struct was shattered and his catafalque broke asunder. The heat and pressure extinguished life in an instant.

"Now I bring you the justice of Waakzaam! How do you like it, oathbreakers?"

The Sinni made no response, except to redouble their efforts to disintegrate the integument of the Intruder. At last they found the right path. The Intruder was suddenly stuck fast, hammer high but immobile while the surface integument stiffened rapidly from the feet upward. A golden light sparkled over the surface as it did so. The Sinni had finally found the frequency. In another few seconds the integument of the Intruder would slough away and the whole thing would unravel, leaving Waakzaam helpless.

Alas, Waakzaam spotted a weakness in the Sinni's effort. He struck at the lacy, open structure of their spellsay and broke it asunder. The integument regained flexibility. The golden light blinked out, and the harsh green light within returned.

The Sinni strove to reweave their spell, but in the end his power was the greater. Was he not one of the Seven? And he resumed full control.

The Intruder came back to life, and the hammer descended to smash upon the pyramid of Narshoon, the King of Flowers. Narshoon continued to give all his strength to their joint effort to disintegrate the integument, but before long the bubble around his catafalque was breached.

Bazil had gained ground during that interval and was closing at a vigorous pace. The vapor had ceased to pour from the shoulder wounds, and both legs were working properly. He pushed the huge body to what felt like its maximum effort.

The Intruder took no notice of their approach, intent upon the destruction of the children of Los.

Relkin raced ahead to try and distract the vast Intruder. After running at top speed he bounced up toward its face. With a scream of rage it swatted at him with a huge hand, but missed, and he landed on the massive belly region. A huge area there was permanently blackened now, vapor and fluid escaping from several large tubes that had been severed. Relkin stabbed home within the wounded area and cut another conduit, which rewarded him with a blaze of green light from the damaged spot.

Again he had to leap free as a hand came up to crush him. He barely evaded capture and fell back to the ground. But the Intruder took no notice of him.

Doom rose with the giant hammer and fell upon Vuga the Mild. A huge flash of light broke across the scene accompanied by a great dull boom. From the crater came an immense puff of vapor.

Vuga's terror rose in their minds.

The hammer fell again and broke right through the crust, and Vuga the Mild was no more. The pyramid settled to the plain with dark vapor seeping up from the ruined area.

The Intruder went on, carrying the hammer with both hands, stepping up to the pyramid of Yeer, or Sweetwater, himself.

Yeer turned his mind to meet his doom as calmly as possible.

"I have served the worlds all my long life. I will surrender to the void."

"You will soon be void, fool!"

The hammer rose high. With Sweetwater's death would go the spirit that protected the waters of the worlds.

And then Bazil arrived. He came in with the sword deployed, his arms strong once more. The Intruder had ignored him for too long. He brought the sword down in a great overhand stroke into the back of the Intruder's neck.

Any lesser thing would have been decapitated. On the vast Intruder the sword merely stuck fast, while Bazil was carried forward by the sheer impetus of his charge and lost his grip on the sword.

The Intruder screamed and dropped its hammer, which sank partway into the soft ground. Reaching up with huge hands the great golemoid tore the blade free while it screamed again to the heavens. From the wound streamed a great cloud of dark vapor.

Bazil reached back, got a hand on Ecator's handle, and ripped the blade out of the Intruder's hand.

Taken by surprise, it was late in riposte, and its huge hand swung past him harmlessly as he ducked away. He came back with Ecator in another driving thrust, this time right into the midriff of the thing.

The sword went home. To pull it out Bazil had to put a foot up on the Intruder's clifflike chest and heave. There wasn't quite enough time for this maneuver, and the Intruder seized him by the neck and struck him with its fist.

Bazil went backwards—still holding the sword—then sat down with a crash. Hot rock flowed away from the impact point.

The Intruder, visibly slowed by its wounds, bent down to pick up the hammer.

Bazil suffered a momentary loss of his senses. He could see nothing, hear nothing. Panicked, he almost succumbed to fear; but then he forced himself to reconnect, as he had done before when boy reached him. It took a few anxious moments, but then he had it and recovered his faculties with a snap. Slowly he began to move, but the Intruder had pulled the hammer free of the surface rock and was moving toward Bazil, hammer raised high. Bazil would never make it in time.

The wound in the Intruder's head was a near-vertical slice, like a crack in a cliff wall. As the Intruder hefted the great hammer, the crack widened and flexed. The Integument was self-healing, but it would take time to recover from a blow like that, in particular from Ecator.

Relkin leaped once again and got a foot on the giant's leg somewhere and boosted himself to the shoulder. He heaved himself to his feet and caught hold of the upper edge of the wound.

As it stood over the fallen dragon, the Intruder was intent on raising the hammer. Relkin heaved back on the integument and the great gash widened. He raised his own sword and severed a cluster of thick tubes embedded in the dark material. Everything was shriveling and sending up black smoke as the hot air entered the wound. Relkin cut down even farther and was able to push himself into the wound, cutting deeper as he went.