Dragons on the Sea of Night (24 page)

I am that I am
.

It was all that stood between her and absolute oblivion. She had known this risk from the moment the insane plan had been born in her mind: that the inimical world into which she would crawl would swallow her whole, that she would cease to exist – not merely the death of her corporeal body, which was already a foregone conclusion – but
everything
, whatever it was that made her unique, that made her Chiisai.

Now it was about to happen.

I am that I am
.

Was it a prayer or a mantra? What matter, as long as it kept her safe from utter dissolution?

Night was like brilliant noontime compared to the darkness that surrounded her. She might have been lost in the vastness of space for all the sensation that came to her. The pulsing of her own body continued on, inverted and distorted out of all reason, yes, but she abided, and that was something. On the Other Side where home and hearth lay she would have already expired, so she had something to be thankful for. Life continued, although its form had yet to be determined.

Contact with the dimension of Chaos had not killed her – as it had not killed her when Phaidan had come crawling through and she had felt the change shocking her through the conduit of the Bridge. Why hadn't it killed her? She had no idea. Perhaps it was because there was so much death inside her. Death was life here.

But what would she become here? A creature of Chaos? A profound sense of dread threatened to overwhelm the one tiny spark of hope that had been kindled in her core.

I am that I am
.

But what if she could not live with what she had become?

She listened to the pulsing and gurgling of her newly exposed heart, lungs and stomach and, as she did so, she thought she discerned a kind of language. And, if she was right, that new-found language was telling her the toxins were being purged from her system. Exposed to the non-atmosphere of Chaos, which ate poisons as if they were exquisite delicacies.

I am that I am, but what is that?

She yearned for comfort but there was none; she ached for even a single spark that life as she knew it might still exist for her but darkness persisted; she longed for companionship with such torment that eventually even the prospect of a companion such as Phaidan or some monstrous thing like him became acceptable.

Perhaps that was not a wise thought, and she moved to strike it from her mind when she heard something. Heard? That was the wrong term for she had no ears with which to hear and, in any event, what sound could carry in the non-atmosphere of Chaos?

No, what it was was this: she became aware that she was not alone.

Deaf, dumb and blind she nevertheless saw in her mind the image of a woman, diaphanous gown flowing about her, tattered, ripped and shredded yet beautiful still. Her golden hair and blue eyes peered up into a sun that could not exist here. She was bound to a living tree from which had been stripped all leaves, branches, and bark, revealing naked cambium grown hard and wizened from exposure to the non-elements of Chaos.

This woman, at once beautiful and familiar, seemed blind in a way that Chiisai herself was not. Thick tears of blood leaked from her eyes, and her mouth was open in a soundless scream. Except that Chiisai, like some primordial sea creature, was aware of those screams. They fell upon her inverted form like waves upon a shore, and they pained her in a way she was unable to describe. It was a horrible feeling, like watching one's own death in a dream, slipping off a cliff and falling, falling …

Except this beautiful and familiar woman was not Chiisai – she was Sanda, Moichi Annai-Nin's sister. Chiisai had never met her but during her adventures with Moichi he had spoken of her often enough so that she could imagine she had. The truth took a moment to register: Sanda was also in the dimension of Chaos. And yet, this vision was subtly different.

Chiisai struggled to turn the vision in her mind, to see it at different angles. In succeeding, she discovered her answer. Unlike her face, Sanda's form could not be defined. In fact, Chiisai became aware that beneath the shredded gown it did not exist. Then what was here, in the dimension of Chaos? Was it Sanda or …?

And then she knew and her heart contracted with sadness. Sanda was dead. At least, her corporeal body was gone. Yet she remained, a wraith, a ghost bound and chained, her spirit imprisoned within Chaos. What mad beast had done this to her? It could have been any of the minions of Chaos, and that meant there must be at least one other Bridge to the world of man than the one she had crawled through. What unthinkable horror was being readied against mankind? Was Phaidan only a part? It would seem so.

Now Chiisai knew what she must do at all costs, even if it meant becoming one of Them. She had knowingly entered the realm of Chaos and she had not perished as it had long been believed a human would. She did not want to ask why. She knew instinctively that no answer would be tolerable. She needed to act, and for that she needed to become – what? In the end, it mattered very little. Life as she had known it was finished. But existence, that was another matter.

So slowly that at first it was undetectable, she began to revolve, to break the stasis that had bound her healing form, to create her own gravity where before none had existed, to create her own form of physics, a world of chemical reagents and chimerical reactions, a biological fluorescence neither of man nor of Chaos.

Something was coming.

She was emerging like a sun being born out of the starfield, out of the sea of night.

Soon … Soon …

It was only to be determined now what that Something was.

I am that I am
…

TWELVE

B
JORK

Moichi, clinging like a lover
to Ouwlmy's furred back, sped across the evil fen of the Khashm.

‘I want to get the others,' he had said, but the Shakra had shaken her long, triangular head.

‘I can take only you to see Bjork.'

‘But these people–'

‘This is not a negotiation,' she had said.

The wind brushed the hair back from his face. He could feel the play of muscles in her withers and croup and he closed his eyes, dreaming. It was a delicious sensation to be borne across inimical terrain by so powerful an engine, to lose oneself in the effortless motion, to lie down upon gravity as if it were an eiderdown bed, to drift away from the myriad aches and pains of the body, to drift …

And in his languor, the bear came to him. Its predatory head, with haunted eyes that chilled chickadee and rabbit alike, was striped black and white. And its arms, when it opened them, seemed to encompass the entirety of the Khashm. Then Moichi became aware of encroaching flames, rising high enough to engulf an entire city. As powerful as the bear was, it did not move. Even when the flames licked and singed its fur, it seemed incapable of movement. Instead, it opened its mouth, canines glowing, and cried out, and he knew that it was speaking directly to him.

‘Ouwlmy,' he said, opening his eyes. ‘What beast was that?'

‘The master of the Khashm and its prisoner,' she said enigmatically.

‘I do not understand.'

‘It is significant that she came to you in the drift-stage,' Ouwlmy said. ‘I was right to insist on transporting you alone. How many intruders Bjork has bade me destroy in order to maintain the sanctity of the Khashm.'

‘The Shakra do Bjork's bidding?'

‘The Shakra do as the Shakra may,' Ouwlmy said. ‘Bjork knows this. Just as he knows that each action we take has a reaction. For what we fulfill there is a price.'

‘Would you do the bidding of others – for the right price?' Moichi asked, alarmed.

Ouwlmy tossed her magnificent head. ‘You mistake us, but do not anger us. Special you may be, but I still have the power to trample you underhoof if that is my desire. The Shakra belong to the Khashm, just as the Shinju do. A subtlety the Syrinxians never appreciated. Thus, in their arrogance, they perished. There is a connection between each and every species of the Khashm. We are it and it is us. Inseparable for eternity. This is our life and our power. Those who ignore this immutable fact do so at their extreme peril.'

Moichi stroked her long, powerful neck. ‘Would you truly trample me underhoof?'

Ouwlmy's lips pulled back from her muzzle revealing three rows of formidable teeth. She began to laugh. ‘I am an unforgiving master,' she said. ‘You have only to ask Bjork. But the truth is I like you. Inside your strange form, your power meridians are accurately aligned. That is in your favor, so worry not.'

‘Good,' Moichi said. ‘I like you, too.'

The sun was already a white orb in a yellow and red sky filled with scudding clouds as long as war streamers of the gods. The horizon remained an unbroken line in all directions. Below, Ouwlmy's slender hooves made almost no splash as they moved in and out of the sluggish water. Moichi, who had fallen into that strange dreamish languor, had no idea how far they had come from the camp he had made with Sardonyx and Hamaan. He wished he had been able to leave a note for them so that they would wait for his return and not worry. He wondered if Sardonyx could locate him as she had done with Dujuk'kan in the Mas'jahan sex palace.

‘Hold tight now.' Ouwlmy's voice broke into his musing. ‘We must cross a large sink hole. The water is very deep here and on either side are wide bars of quicksand.'

The sink hole opened up with breathtaking quickness, and they were plunged into deep water, black as night. Moichi, fully alert now, noticed swarms of white flowers floating upon a surface so dark it reflected the sky as accurately as a mirror. A pair of swooping craans left a visual trail in the water, then were gone across the fen.

‘Is this the White Lotus?' Moichi asked, pointing to the floating flowers.

‘A harvest yet to be,' Ouwlmy said, but when Moichi reached over and began to pluck one, she cried out, ‘Keep your hands to yourself! It is forbidden! You are not a harvester!' The tension in her normally calm voice caught his attention. The blossom he had touched had begun to shiver as with an ague.

‘Ah, too late,' she said almost as a lament.

Ahead of them, the still surface of the sink hole had begun to pearl and swirl. Then, quite frighteningly, it lifted up in a huge egg-shaped mound. More swiftly than the eye could follow, the mound became a knoll and then a hill off which cascades of water sluiced.

‘Râs Gharib!' Ouwlmy said.

Rising from the depths of the sink hole was an armor-plated leviathan with a long snout, three-foot jaws and tiny evil eyes glittering the color of emeralds. These double-lidded orbs with gold vertical iris slits peered at them in cold-blooded calculation as the leviathan catapulted through the water toward them.

The massive jaws opened wide, and now Moichi could see its thick tail acting as a rudder to guide it. Ouwlmy leapt forward. Moichi leaned down, putting his mouth against the Shakra's twitching ear.

‘Ouwlmy,' he whispered, ‘can you get around behind this beast?'

The Shakra did not bother replying but instead put on a burst of speed, surprising even the implacable six-legged Râs Gharib. Moichi drew out his push-dagger.

‘Closer,' he whispered, observing the thickness of the beast's armor plate. He prayed for strength. ‘Closer.'

Râs Gharib was closing the circle, propelled by its six legs and its powerful tail, closing the gap between them until Moichi could scent an odor that reminded him of the camp's privy.

‘Closer,' he urged, leaning over. ‘Closer!'

The tip of the leviathan's tail rose out of the water, and Moichi divined the Râs Gharib's intent. In a moment, it would swing its tail sideways like a scythe, sweeping Moichi off Ouwlmy's back and ripping the Shakra in two.

Now!

The moment they were in range, he plunged the narrow blades through the armor plating into the base of the monster's tail. As he suspected, there was a major nerve cluster hidden beneath the scales.

The Râs Gharib rose up, its six short legs thrashing water in all directions, then plunged back into the sink hole. Ouwlmy took off, the re-emerging monster swinging its head around, those evil eyes tracking the Shakra and her rider. It propelled itself forward with a furious leap, but almost immediately foundered. As Moichi had suspected, it relied on its powerful tail not only for direction but for balance in the water. Without the use of it, it beat itself around a small circle, snapping its jaws and wailing in a high-pitched tone.

At the far side of the sink hole, Ouwlmy fairly leapt out of the water into the shallows of a fen. ‘What you did showed courage and resourcefulness,' she said. ‘It has been such a long time since I have been impressed I had almost forgotten what a pleasant feeling it is.'

Hearing something in her voice, Moichi said, ‘You took me through the sink hole deliberately, didn't you?'

‘I beg your pardon?'

Once more, they were moving swiftly through the fen. Craans and somewhat larger birds, darker and more sinister-looking passed by overhead.

‘Tell me, how would you have summoned the Râs Gharib if I had not disturbed the White Lotus blossom?'

‘Whatever do you mean?' Ouwlmy said with that smile of hers. ‘However, I will grant that the blossoms of that particular sink hole are in need of harvest. They are so thick I fear you might have inadvertently brushed your leg against one.'

‘So it
was
a test,' Moichi said. ‘And a rather dangerous one, at that.'

Ouwlmy tossed her head. ‘Not by any means.' She bared her triple set of teeth. ‘Often enough I have had occasion to bite Râs Gharib where it will hurt him most.'

‘An evil creature, to be sure,' Moichi said.

‘Unthinking, perhaps. Single-minded, yes. But not evil. The Râs Gharib is governed by only two imperatives: food and territory.'