The Dragon Circle (13 page)

Crystals and rough-cut gemstones dangled from the crossbeams of the stall. Agates and polished metal pendants were strewn about the counter. A beady-eyed merchant kept one hand on a dull green object the size of his palm while fixing his gaze upon Dalleena's face.

Konner's sensor went berserk, flashing lights and beeping in chords of tones.

A second dull green object nestled into a pile of gems in the back of the stall. Two of them? Where had the second beacon come from?

“How much?” Konner asked the merchant. His jaw trembled and his hands wanted to shake. He put Dalleena behind him, away from the lustful eyes of the thin man wearing a robe of garish-colored stripes and a matching turban. Unlike most of the people he had encountered in the
souk
, this man had pale eyes and sun-burned pale skin. He looked very much out of place in this land of dark-eyed and swarthy-skinned natives. Even his blond hair was too fair, almost artificial.

“The girl. I trade you the artifact for the girl.” He grinned, revealing too-white, too-perfect teeth.

L
OKI THRUST aside the leather curtain from the doorway of Taneeo's hut. He did not bother rattling the strands of wooden and clay beads hanging outside, nor did he ask permission to enter.

“Taneeo?” Loki called as he ducked beneath the low lintel of the circular reed hut. For some reason these people seemed to think that priests needed a dwelling without corners. Or amenities, by the look of the spartan interior. A reed mat on the floor. A single blanket of cowhide. A fired clay beaker of water on the dirt floor, and nothing else.

Nothing.

Not so much as a window to let in the glorious sunshine and fresh air.

The place smelled of sweat and vomit and sickness.

Loki did not believe Kim's tale of Taneeo possessing a second aura that separated from his body. Not one little bit. The boy had hit the Tambootie a little too hard in his magical experiments.

Taneeo hated Hanassa. He'd never allow his old master's spirit to possess his body.
Never!

Loki refused to believe Taneeo capable of harboring the enemy in any form. If he did, then that would mean . . . that would mean that Taneeo had beaten himself in order to get rid of the offending spirit.

Impossible. No one could inflict that degree of injury to themselves.

Loki squinted and blinked, trying to force his eyes to adjust to the dimness. His mind knew Taneeo was here. He could “feel” the man's fearful shrinking against the wall.

Where else could the young man be but here where Kim had left him last night. He could not walk. Not with a broken leg and various other injuries.

“Taneeo,” Loki said again, more gently.

A startled gasp came from the farthest curve of the hut.

“Didn't mean to scare you, Taneeo.” Heat flushed Loki's ears. He squatted down, closer to eye level with the man.

Taneeo struggled to sit, dragging his splinted leg. He nearly collapsed twice as his arms and shoulders weakened with the effort. The pain in his cracked ribs must be excruciating.

Loki rubbed his side in memory of a vicious brawl on a bush planet notable only for its horse-piss beer and ugly women. He'd fought with a man twice his size, over the “honor” of a barmaid who did not want either man's attentions. Loki was lucky to walk away with only a cracked rib and a few bruises. The pain had taken his breath away and made his knees wobble until Konner got him to an ER. The medicos had bombarded his body with micro amps of electricity and ultrasound tuned to healing frequencies. Loki had whistled as he left the hospital mere hours after entering.

Taneeo did not have the luxury of modern medicine. Only Kim's limited magical talent that sped healing but did not cure. The portable ultrasound unit in
Sirius'
medi kit did not have enough power or life in its batteries to do more than indicate if Kim had set the bones properly.

Loki moved to help Taneeo to a sitting position.

The priest's instinctive jerk away from him kept him in place. “What do you want?” Taneeo's voice cracked with dryness. “To accuse me of treachery, as your brother did?” He glared at Loki with resentment.

Loki pushed the water beaker closer to him. The priest lifted it and drank long and deep. When he put the vessel down, he looked at a point above Loki's head and to the left.

“What do you want?” His voice was stronger, and clearer. “I am clean of the tainted spirit. I have fought him off and suffered the consequences.”

“I need to know what happened to you,” Loki said, careful to keep his voice even. “Who beat you?”

“I do not remember.”

“You have to know something. Our enemy fought with you, broke your leg, cracked two of your ribs, and left you with a black eye that might permanently impair your vision. How could you forget that experience.”

“I . . . I fainted. He came from behind.”

A growl tried to climb from Loki's gut to his throat. He swallowed heavily to suppress it. “Did you see the man who attacked you?”

“Dark. Too dark.” Taneeo turned his head away.

He started to slip back down to his previous reclining position.

“Was the man dark?” Loki seized upon the adjective. “Dark hair, dark eyes, swarthy skin, like a Rover?”

Rovers, the local version of Terran Gypsies, used the blown-out volcano and the cave system as a way station in their endless wandering. They would have been the first humans to enter the scene of Loki's last battle with Hanassa. The spirit of Hanassa might have taken over one of their bodies.

Hanassa would then use that body to move closer to his enemies. What better way to strike at the heart of the Stargods and their followers than to possess the body of their priest and friend?

Loki liked that explanation. It put a lot of his fears to rest and gave him a concrete enemy to hunt down and neutralize.

You mean murder,
a little voice in the back of his head sneered at him. It sounded a lot like Mum.

No. He'd never take a life again. Even a miserable sadist like Hanassa had a sacred life force Loki must respect. His sanity would not withstand another episode like . . . like that time in the caves two months ago.

“Rover?” Taneeo's eyes brightened and cleared a little. He rested a little easier on his mat. “Yes! Yes, I do believe 'twas a Rover who attacked me. A very tall Rover. Nearly as tall as you and your brothers, Stargod Loki. But dark in every way. Dark of complexion and of spirit. His clothing . . . black tunic and trews. Black shirt. How do you suppose the Rovers mix a black dye for cloth and leather that does not fade?”

“They probably use the squid ink.”

Just last week Kim had found a multilimbed blob of flesh on the beach that had produced a body fluid he could use for indelible ink in his endless scratchings and recordings of events and thoughts and who knew what else. He'd named the creature a squid after some long extinct denizen of Earth's oceans before pollution killed them all.

Loki frowned. He did not like the idea of Kim leaving behind so much information that could be deciphered by the locals. All three of the brothers had agreed that in order to keep this planet agrarian, prevent them from developing industry that would eventually cause pollution and drive them to quest for the stars, they had to forbid reading and the wheel from their culture. Otherwise, they'd become just another colony of the GTE.

Kim seemed bent upon violating the agreement. Loki made a mental note to gather up
all
of Kim's records and journals and take them with them when they left.

Otherwise, everything that was good and honest about this place would disappear. And so would the supply of fresh food Loki intended to sell on the black market back home. One cargo hold full of fresh vegetables would make his fortune for life. He'd finally have enough money to buy back his citizenship and marry Cyndi.

Loki could not allow this place to be despoiled. He had to stop Hanassa. All he had to do was find him.

”I will bring Pryth to you. She was born a Rover.

She may be able to give us more information about your attacker.” Loki rose from his crouch. He could not stand upright, even in the center of the conical hut.

“The old woman speaks not the truth. Born of Rovers, bred as Rovers. Truth eludes their kind as mist in sunshine. We . . . I will not speak to the woman!” With great effort, Taneeo turned his face to the wall.

“Pryth used to be your friend, Taneeo. She has helped us all with her wisdom and her knowledge.”

“No more. She speaks for the tribe that shelters our enemy. She has
become
our enemy.”

“How can you know that?”

“Even now she corrupts your brother. Together, they will bring change that destroys you.”

“Kim,” Loki whispered. “He's teaching some of you how to read.” The truth washed over him like a cold dip in the river. He knew that Taneeo spoke true. He “felt” it in his mind as clearly as if he had read the priest's thoughts.

“Have you found anything interesting, Bruce?” Martin dictated a brief message to his friend.

Within femtos of sending his reply a message appeared in his mailbox.

“Couldn't wait to hear from you, Marty. My dad just accepted a contract with your mom. Usually he tells me where he's going and something about who or what he is supposed to find. This time he left abruptly without telling me anything. He didn't even come home between jobs. I thought maybe you could give me a head's up on what is so important that your mom hired a ‘Sam Eyeam,' ” Bruce's voice and image came through the computer screen.

“Now that is a good question,” Martin muttered.

“This news comes right on top of finding a delete in the marriage records of Meditcue II. That delete has my dad's computer telltales all over it. I'm digging further. Too bad neither of us has a Klip. We could track Dad's activities a lot easier then. But, of course, they are illegal.”

Martin gulped. A marriage record deleted by Melinda's private Sam Eyeam. Melinda was up to something. The timing was too coincidental. She didn't want key information to come up at the custody hearing.

If Melinda and Bruce's father had negotiated a sensitive contract, perhaps the man had come to Aurora for a private meeting. Data waves could be intercepted no matter how much security Melinda paid to put on them. Financial transactions tended to be more secure than private correspondence, but even then the data had to cross open space at many times the speed of light. Dedicated hackers could find even those messages.

He accessed his mother's appointment book for the previous month. Many meetings. Many contracts. Nothing resembling Bruce Geralds, Sr.

What about the AM before that?

Martin had to go through three more AMs and nearly a thousand entries to find what he was looking for. A cryptic remark, “Freelance. Midnight. Altered beacon,” followed by an estimated expense account that allowed considerable travel was his only clue.

“Travel. He had to enter and leave Aurora space.” Martin sent his snoopers over to the port authority. Sure enough, at 0600 hours the next morning, a private, one-man transport left the port. It carried Melinda's personal ID on the logbook.

“But Melinda was home that day. I remember because she introduced the new math tutor to me personally.”

“Master Martin, I believe you are supposed to be working on wave differential equations at this moment, not playing with your friends.” The image of the hated math tutor appeared in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. A twenty-something man with a sallow complexion and thin hair, who tried to look and destroy it before the IMPs landed. Five and one half hours from now. Max.

“Let's go.”

T
HE AIR AT the head of
Rover
shimmered. Dalleena gulped. She dug in her heels. The caked dirt of the hillside crumbled under her feet. She continued her downward slide toward the dragons—the white one she could see and the red-tipped one that was almost visible in the harsh noontime glare.

“Now what?” Konner grunted and moved forward at a faster pace. He barely left a footprint in the ground at the speed of his passing.

“The Stargod does not fear the dragons. They are his messengers and allies,” she whispered to herself.

“If he has no fear, then neither should I.” The thought did not reassure her. If the dragon wished, it could blast her with fire and eat her in one gulp.

Last night it had ignored her. Today it might be hungry.

The beast bent its head toward Konner. Steam or smoke rose in small puffs from its nostrils. Dalleena guessed it spoke to Stargod Konner in some mysterious way.