World's End (6 page)

She didn't answer but he'd come to read the looks of her face. It was still his fault, he knew, that they were here at all. Well, maybe she was right – he'd wagered his life in the tower, when the tall, bald-headed wizard he'd never met before had advised him to fly to the castle. Now he almost heard Aziel thinking: Arch would know what to do. He'd know far better than you would.

Then Loup's voice was loud in his mind:
Shut your flapping gums, you stew-brained bastard. Think them dragons don't have ears? Don't go speaking your mind aloud! One of the great beasts possessed Aziel not long back. It may be in her right now, for all you and I know, listening to your every word …

They watched the dragon's huge silhouette a while longer, the air still heavy with its presence even at this distance. They began to wonder if it would ever leave. At last its wings spread,
beat the air and with apparent difficulty bore it aloft. For a horrible moment it wheeled in their direction, but instead turned a full circle on its way to a gap in the ceiling. At last it was gone from sight.

They looked at each other to confirm it had really gone. Then they laughed with relief. Joy and a sense of renewed freedom flushed wildly through them both. Aziel clutched him and drenched his shirt in tears. He stroked her hair till they both slept in the soft dust.

When his eyes opened the Invia roost was bathed in softly flickering white light.

There was peculiar quiet in the vast cavern, with no notes being played by wind through the roof tunnels. Instead there was the occasional sound from far away of stone creaking like the timbers of a boat at sea. The lone voice of an Invia called out softly somewhere in the gloom, as if not wishing to wake the dragon prison's two human guests. Eric coughed from breathing the cavern floor's dust, the sound an echo of Ventolin inhalers and doctor visits a world and a lifetime ago. That old plain world was now too alien to have ever been real.

The flickering light about the Invia roost seemed to have shut the rest of the cavern off in darkness, as if a kind of night had come to its vastness. His sight did not reach beyond the roost perimeter. Far afield, the other Invia roost was a small glowing thing on the horizon.

Aziel lay on her back in the soft dust, her lips parted and brow furrowed, one arm flung off to the side with its palm up, the other on her chest. Her breath disturbed the dust near her mouth. He smoothed away a strand of hair which had fallen across her face. Her necklace seemed for now little more than
a piece of plain metal, but when he ran a finger on it coldness pulsed from it like turgid heartbeats. It appeared to hang loose on her, giving the false impression that it could be removed. He swept the dust away from her mouth with both palms so she would not breathe it in, his hands making a faint sssss sound across the stone.

In the gloom outside their roost it seemed the sound was echoed, magnified: sssss. Something quite large slid over the floor out there, moving closer. Eric took the gun from its shoulder holster with one hand, keeping the other on Aziel's necklace. The gloom beyond the roost hid perfectly whatever was out there.

The sound of beating wings above made him jump. A lone Invia took her place upon the thin stone ledge stretched between two nearby pillars. She had scarlet hair and did not look at him beyond one indifferent glance. Nor did the two other Invia who fluttered down from the dark overhead and joined her. They sat further afield on the stone branches of something tall and tree-shaped. All three closed their jewel-bright eyes.

The sound outside came again, closer:
sssss
, without doubt something sliding across the stone. He thought he saw a patch of rippling darkness move sideways. There was the faint glint of a single gem briefly unclasped in the dark. Something's eye. He pointed the gun at it. A voice gave a faint exclamation. Amusement? Then silence.

When he looked about again there were two more Invia in the roost. They'd come silently. Both now looked beyond him into the dark, at whatever crept around out there. ‘Who's there?' Eric asked quietly, taking a step beyond the pillar. He felt no fear. After seeing Shâ, he doubted much else in the world could scare him.

It was half a minute's silence before something quietly answered: ‘Do you invite me nearer, Favoured one?'

‘I am in your home,' he said. He was sure that he spoke now with a dragon, for its voice was nothing like the speech of Invia. ‘Is it my right to invite you nearer, if I am in your home?'

‘This is not my home.'

‘Aren't you a dragon?'

‘A home is a place one chooses. Is it not? Otherwise it must be called a prison.'

‘To me, your whole world is a prison. I can't go back where I came from.'

‘Did you choose to come to this world?'

Again the familiar memory replayed: Eric jumping head-first through the door. ‘I don't know any more if I chose to. There are illusions and there's magic, things which can force a person to choose the wrong thing. All I know is I can't leave.'

‘My home is where light glints off melting glaciers, where the great ones beat shapes in the land and tossed their thoughts into the air as threads of wild colour. All for men to toy with ages after, it would seem. May I come near? I wish to see the sleeping one from closer. I shan't wake her. She is beautiful, in her way.'

‘I can't stop you.'

‘You can with but a word.'

‘In that case, no. You may not come closer.'

‘Why?'

‘I don't know who or what you are.'

‘I shall reveal it.' There were sounds in the gloom he could not decipher. It was like something made of cloth and metal being folded, flesh rubbing against flesh. A faint waft of heat came and went, and stepping into the roost's flickering light
he saw a woman with long curled hair like a black vine down her shoulders. She wore leather garb reminding him vaguely of Siel's clothes, though this version was what the queen of a forest tribe might wear, leaving bare her arms, flat navel and much of her thighs. ‘Have you a name, Favoured one?' she said.

‘Eric. Do you?'

‘Shilen, call me that.'

‘Are you an Invia?'

‘Do I seem to be one?'

‘No.'

‘What do I seem?'

‘Well, you
seem
to be a woman. I thought you were a dragon. If you're a woman, why are you here? I've heard no people ever come here.'

‘Some do, but not many.'

‘Are you a “Favoured one” too?'

‘I dwell here. For I am not of the lands beneath, and I have my own arrangements with the brood. At times I speak for them. You are known, Pilgrim. You are now deemed the foremost, the firstborn among the Favoured, just as Vyin is said to be firstborn of the brood. A spell shall be laid upon you while you are here. It will be for you to choose the others of your kind, those who are Favoured. There shall not be a great many chosen. A hundred, or a thousand. Maybe more. Maybe fewer.'

‘Let me get this straight. The dragons will be free. And I decide which people are Favoured.'

‘Yes.'

He became aware the gun was still in his hand. He put it back in its holster. ‘I won't ask why this duty falls on me, because I've learned that asking why is never, ever helpful. What happens to those I don't choose?'

Her laugh shook and sprung the glossy curls about her shoulders. ‘What concerns you about them? They will go as their choices take them. They may hide in their grooves and ruts. Let them cross World's End and live among those who dwell there. Or make more war among themselves, as they seem to prefer. May I see your friend? She who lies sleeping nearby?'

Eric turned to Aziel and saw yet more Invia had come in silence to perch upon the tops of pillars and stone trees. Shilen strode between the pillars and crouched by Aziel, the leather skirt falling back from one thigh. Her smile bloomed as if she saw a fine joke hidden in Aziel's sleeping face. Shilen's eyes gleamed up at him and he saw that her eyes were slitted. Or perhaps it had been a trick of the light, for now they were normal again. She said, ‘Do you like her hair better than mine?'

He didn't answer. Colour rippled through Shilen's curls till her black hair became the same flaxen colour as Aziel's. One long finger traced the line of Aziel's forehead, cheek and chin. Aziel didn't stir. ‘Do you desire me?'

The answer seemed pulled out of him. ‘Yes, I do.'

‘Do you desire her?'

He looked at Aziel for a little while. ‘Yes.'

‘Tell me of this desire.'

‘What should I tell you?'

‘Tell me what you wish to do to her.'

‘No. I want nothing.'

She laughed softly. ‘You are afraid even to speak of it. Why? You have surely had such fear today as to make mere speech a trifle.'

‘I don't know why.'

‘It is a private matter, of your kind, such business as this?'

Eric shifted on his feet, not wanting Shilen's gaze on him,
nor this talk. At the same time he wanted both those things equally strongly. ‘I want to protect her.'

‘That is not all you desire to do, Favoured one. Why do you not give in to this unspoken desire? If you are hungry and presented food, surely you eat? Say it, at least. Say what you wish to do to her. I shan't hold your words as an oath to act.'

His face felt hot and fevered. He stepped closer to them both, tried to swallow, his mouth dry.

‘Show me what you wish to do,' said Shilen. ‘I shall give you something else you desire, in exchange.' She reached into a pocket in one of her skirt's leather folds, then was holding in long slender fingers a black key. She studied his face as he stared, puzzled.

‘What would I want with that?' he said.

‘A home is somewhere you choose. Did we not agree?'

He extended his hand. With warm fingers she pressed the key onto his palm, closed his fist around it. Her touch was as cold as its metal. ‘Tell me what you wish to do to her,' Shilen whispered, running a hand through Aziel's hair. ‘We have an agreement now. And tell me truly. I can see lies.'

His throat seemed to close up, but the words were drawn out of him. ‘I want to rip her clothes off.'

Shilen looked deep inside him and seemed to approve of what she saw there. ‘Then why not do it, Favoured one? You are the foremost of the Favoured. It is your right. Do it.'

Eric's hands trembled as he kneeled by Aziel's body. If a spell influenced him or not, he could not tell – but Shilen seemed at once a teacher to impress and a student to win over with daring deeds. He clutched Aziel's dress about the neck, pulled it till the fabric ripped, revealing cream-white skin beneath, breasts that were larger now they were freed
than they'd seemed when clothed. Aziel sighed but did not open her eyes. Shilen nodded, and his hands seemed to move on their own a long distance away: they tore the dress past her navel, ran a hand over her soft goose-pimpled skin, a fingertip nestling in her belly button. ‘Good,' Shilen said, her own fingers still playing through Aziel's hair. ‘Is that all you want with her?'

It was not all, but now he knew he was dreaming, and no harm could come from dreams. He took his own clothes off. His blood felt like a fevered liquid fire all through him as he ripped the dress away from her legs. He did not know at what point Aziel's eyes opened but found them fixed on him, as full of fear as of desire. She did not seem to notice Shilen, still stroking her hair.

Just for a moment Aziel struggled to get up, said, ‘Am I dreaming?'

‘Of course you dream,' Shilen told her. ‘You both dream.'

Eric hardly seemed in control of himself any more. It was a dream as he lowered himself onto her and pushed himself inside her. Aziel's legs closed round behind his back and held him there.

‘It's safe,' said Shilen softly. ‘You dream, man-god's daughter. Favoured one, this is yours to take.'

Aziel moaned, pushed herself up against him, grabbed his arms. Eric felt drunk, his arms full of powerful strength, his fists clenched upon the dusty stone to either side of her, sweat dripping from his face onto hers.

Sssss
: more things moved outside their Invia roost, more ripples of deeper darkness shifted around in the gloom. Invia wings beat the air as the creatures, curious, flew down from their perch and came closer, forming a ring about them.

The darkness fell away and Shilen no longer crouched there. Dragons had come. Claws scraped and clicked on the bone-hard floor, disturbing the dust. Lengths of glimmering, rippling scaled skin slid past them and seemed to house them in a moving nest. Fierce ancient eyes, beautiful as gems and filled with savage wisdom, watched the Otherworlder fuck the man-god's daughter.

Many dragons were about them now, some small, some large, scales of many gleaming colours. Eric felt as though he were one of them himself. For a brief time he saw himself through dragon eyes, and his limbs were dragon limbs, Aziel beneath him likewise a length of rippling scaled flesh, as joined to him (and as dear to him) as a limb he could control.

How long all this went on, Eric could never have known. Sometimes it was Aziel's face below him, sometimes Siel's, sometimes Shilen's, but always it returned to Aziel. Sometimes she cried out and fought against him, pushing at his chest as someone struggling free of a nightmare. But more often she pulled him nearer, sucked at his neck, cried and moaned his name, said crude things he'd not have dreamed she could say.

When he came, stars burst behind his eyes. He seemed in that instant transformed into a blinding, separating burst of white light, to float above the whole scene, blasted into the air by pleasure and now glimpsing his own naked body still on top of hers, glistening with sweat and bright Invia blood he did not remember being spilled on him. He saw the dragons leaning their heads over to lick the blood off Eric's and Aziel's bodies, then watched them run back into the gloom as if they'd now learned all they needed to learn of humankind. Shilen was not there.