The Dragon Circle (40 page)

A feeble spark died before jumping onto the kindling.

(
Allow me to light the fire, please.
)

“Go away. You do not exist.”

A sharp prod to her back brought her to her feet, swinging the blade.

The dragon had lowered the tip of its spiral horn level with her chest. (
I exist!
)

“Okay, okay, I believe you.”

(
No, you do not.
)

”Well . . . I can barely see you, and then only in certain lights. All the science I know proves that dragons cannot exist in this dimension within the physical laws of the universe.

(
If you ride on my back and see the ley lines, will you believe?
)

“Now I know you are a product of my imagination.”

(
You said this to Stargod Konner.
)

“But . . .”

(
Come. Mount. I will show you.
) The dragon crouched down and extended its foreleg.

Kat gulped. Then she squared her shoulders, anchored the knife inside her belt, grasped one spinal horn, and heaved herself aboard. The dragon did not wait for her to settle her butt before it bounded three steps across the clearing, flapped its giant wings, and leaped above the trees. Chill wind and rain rushed past them. The ground and trees fell away. A cloud enveloped them in thick mist.

She swallowed, trying to keep her stomach and its slight contents in place. She clung to the horn in front of her with both hands. Another horn braced her back. She clamped her knees tightly against the dragon's back. Through the insulated cloth of her uniform she felt the animal's muscles ripple as it worked the wide wings. She risked a look at the translucent marvels of flight.

Fascination overcame her fear. In her mind, she saw the air currents vector across the wings. The beast would not tumble from its flight path unless injured. She was as safe here as in any craft built by the Imperial Military.

Maybe safer.

Then she gloried in the sensation of freedom. How often had she dreamed of flying without a craft surrounding her?

“Which direction?” she shouted over the rush of air in her face.

(South and east.)

“Why there?”

(
Because it does not rain in the desert.
)

“No rain. No clouds. We can see the ground.”

(
And the ley lines.
)

“What exactly are ley lines?”

(
Life.
)

“What is that supposed to mean?”

The dragon banked into a wide circle, moving farther east than south. If her sense of direction was correct. Up here, shrouded in mist, nothing seemed real. She'd lost her horizon and landmarks.

“Why are we changing direction?”

(
To avoid the place of Hanassa.
)

“I've heard that name somewhere.”

(
Your brothers.
)

She could not remember in what context she had heard the name, only that she had. Painstakingly, she dredged up every word of her conversations with her brothers. Nope. No mention of Hanassa.

“Why do we have to avoid this place?”

(
Evil. Can you not feel it? Can you not hear it?
)

Then she sensed a vibration that might be a pinging in her ears. The sound of a distress beacon.

Adrenaline shot through her. “We have to help them.”

(
Hanassa lies. Never believe anything that comes from Hanassa.
)

“Is Hanassa a man or a place?” A burning sensation on her right shoulder drew her attention. The distress beacon broadcast to all of her senses, demanding she come to it.

(
Both.
)

“But the beacon . . .”

(
Is false.
)

“The second beacon. Why are there two? I thought the bounty was for only one.”

A mental shrug from Irythros. Good thing only his mind responded. If he'd rotated his massive shoulders, she might lose her grip.

They burst clear of the clouds. Bright sunshine pelted her eyes. She closed them tightly, then opened them slowly, getting used to the change in light by degrees.

Jagged mountain peaks tipped with snow stretched from left to right in a broken chain. They seemed close enough to touch, yet so far away as to be unreachable, even on dragon back. She tried to pick out a pass through them. Faint traces of trails showed possibilities, all too rugged for any but the most intrepid traveler.

Her uniform had not been designed for high-altitude open air flight. The cold settled into her bones and would not let go. Her fingers and toes grew numb. Her teeth began to chatter.

The cold squeezed her bladder.

Did Irythros increase his speed?

She hoped so. She did not know how much longer she could endure without losing her grip upon his horn.

Without a chrono, Kat had no way of determining the passage of time. Flight across the mountain range could have taken digital hours or mere femtos.

Then, quite suddenly, with no warning at all, the mountains fell behind and a vast desert opened before them. Irythros shed altitude. The air temperature warmed. As they dropped closer to the scrubby plateau, Kat forgot her physical discomfort. She forgot her need to relieve herself.

“Hundreds of square klicks of nothing but a few low shrubs, rocks, and dust.”

(
Look more closely.
) Irythros skimmed the surface.

She caught a glimpse of movement. A lizard scurried beneath them, frantically seeking shelter from the huge predator. It finally crouched in the shadows cast by a cluster of rocks.

“So there is life in the desert. It isn't empty.”

(
Look more closely.
) Irythros surged upward and stabilized about one hundred meters higher. He flew a lazy circle.

Kat peered down. “What am I supposed to see?”

No answer.

She checked the horizon. Mountains on three sides, in the distance she caught glimpses of a deep river valley emptying into the sea. A magnificent landscape. But then hundreds of bush planets had awe-inspiring vistas.

(
Look deeper.
)

“Beneath the soil? Are there subterranean streams?”

(
Deeper into your self. Look with your other sight.
)

The hot desert air penetrated the synthetic fabric of Kat's uniform. She began to perspire. Sweat dripped into her eyes. The salty moisture stung. She dared not lift a hand from her grip of the horn to dash it away. She blinked it away and wiped her cheeks on her shoulder as best she could.

When she looked again, her eyes detected an altered spectrum. Reds shifted toward blue, greens toward yellow, and the light slanted in from an angle at odds with the westering sun. She blinked again to clear her eyes of salt.

Colors became prisms. Individual drops of moisture became crystals.

And then she saw it. Them.

A giant web of blue energy. Random lines crossed, merged, veered off in new directions. No uniformity or symmetry. Just pulsating life.

“I believe,” Kat breathed.

(
First you must touch a ley line and understand.
)

“It's getting late. Maybe another day.”

(
Now.
) Irythros shed the last hundred meters of altitude with a stomach-jolting dive.

Kat clung to the spinal horn with all her might. Acceleration flung her against the horn at her back with the force of at least two gs. Not so bad a pressure in an enclosed craft. Dangerous in the open, with no buffer from the wind that tore at her hair and ground her face with grit.

Blessedly, the dive lasted only a few femtos. Kat alighted from the dragon with shaking knees. “May a Denobian muscle-cat develop a taste for your flesh,” she cursed. Then added a few more in three languages.

Irythros glared at her, unappreciative of her creativity.

“And may the fleas of a thousand camels infest your lair,” she added for good measure.

The dragon's skin rippled the length of his entire back, as if it itched.

(
Find your ley line and learn it,
) he snapped and turned his tail toward her. It thrashed the ground in agitation.

She skipped away from him. Only when she was out of reach of the lethally spiked tail did she look around and assess the landscape.

“As soon as I find one of those ley lines, we can leave?”

A sense of agreement, but no words formed in the back of her mind.

Kat heaved a sigh of resignation and walked a little farther away. Her soft ship boots scuffed the loose red dirt. The light breeze picked up the loose grains and swirled them away. Heat baked the chill of flight from her bones and flushed her skin.

She wouldn't last long out here without water, skin protectors, and a hat. Best she get on with this. Stalling and denial would not get her out of the desert.

A deep breath inward and she allowed her eyes to unfocus. Nothing. Maybe if she let some sweat drip into her eyes again, she could let the fractured sight line reveal the energy beneath the ground.

Nothing. Another deep breath of the hot dry air. She almost coughed out the grit that permeated everything. Her exhalation went on and on. She couldn't get rid of enough tainted carbon dioxide. When she thought her lungs would collapse, her body shuddered and jerked and took in a huge gulp of fresh air. It still tasted of dirt but seemed to fill every crevice of her being with . . . clarity.

Blue lines jumped into view. Some fat, others skinny. Farther apart than she'd expected from her first glimpse from one hundred meters up.

Now what?

(
You must take the energy into yourself and understand it.
)

Kat took another deep breath, this time for courage. Was she about to be electrocuted? Torn apart by antimatter? Sucked into another dimension?

Well, if the lines killed her, she'd likely die more quickly and with less pain than from exposure in the desert.

She picked out a particularly fat line about one hundred meters to her left. As she approached it, she noticed that if she followed it back toward where the dragon crouched it met two more lines, forming a kind of pool or knot. Instinctively, she headed for the junction.

Irythros nodded as if in approval.

Keeping her eyes slightly unfocused and her breathing deep and even, she stretched forth her left foot, letting her toes brush the silvery blue that wanted to elude her, like mercury released in null g. A tiny jolt crept up her leg as far as her knee. She jerked her foot away. Not exactly a jolt, more like a thrill. Enticing. Probably dangerous.

She checked out the dragon again. He had not budged.

“Again?”

No response from the dragon.

This time Kat placed her left foot fully inside the pool. Tingles slid up her limb, climbing higher with each breath. When it reached her heart, gravity seemed to disappear. If she lifted her arms just so, she might truly fly. Alongside the dragon rather than atop him.

Addicting. She brought her other foot into the circle of arcane power.

The world tilted, colors shifted.

Her senses opened. A cacophony of insects buzzing, wind sighing, burrowing animals digging, the dragon's innards boiling, ready to flame something. She heard it all, became a part of it all, shared the life of each entity. Suddenly she knew what it meant to be a dragon and breathe fire upon a fresh kill and savor the rich flavor of broiled meat. She understood a mouse's need to dig a deep burrow to hide from the elements and predators. She became the air with a deep urge to flow from here to there to balance air pressure. Massing moisture buoyed her.

She had purpose. Life had meaning if only she reached out and grasped it.

Her mind opened and she knew how to reach out telepathically, to equalize weight and mass and lift anything with her mind. If she thought about the future, she could catch glimpses of possibilities. . . .

Like a king stone reaching out to its mother stone, Kat extended her senses upward, outward. She brushed past
Jupiter,
acknowledged
Sirius,
and sped onward, seeking something familiar. A home. Mum?

She conjured an image from memory of a woman nearing forty Earth Standard Years, taller than mid-height but nowhere near as tall as her oldest teenage son. Her features took on care lines from worry. Kat gave the woman her own nose and chin but softer eyes that lighted with love whenever she looked upon her four children. She had to have red hair, like each of her offspring, but with gray hints at the temples.

With the image came the brush of a mind. Just a hint. Nothing more than knowing that the woman existed, alone, frightened, worried, and . . . obsessed.

Her obsession turned inward. Grew malignant. Shifted focus. The need to amass more money outweighed the purpose for that money. She would never have enough wealth to go in search of her daughter. That quest might end in failure. She'd failed at so much already. The need to make more and more money was something she never failed at.

Abruptly Kat dropped out of the trance. She swayed as her mind plummeted back into her body. For one hundred too-rapid heartbeats reality took on the pallor of the unreal.

When she thought about the enormity of her mental journey, Kat stumbled.

She caught her balance on Irythros' muzzle. Then she straightened, more sure of herself and what she had to do than she had been in many years.

She blinked, puzzled by the uncertain light. While she had been . . . elsewhere, day had turned to night. Stars shone brightly in the skies, alien constellations teased her mind with mythical creatures and heroic figures behind them.

“How long was I gone?”

(
Not long. Day turns to night quickly here.
)