Books Of Barakhai - The Lost Dragons Of Barakhai Part 13

Though Collins now stood squarely on bare feet, Falima still held his shoulder as she asked, "Did Aisa get Vernon out safely?"

*He's with me,* Prinivere confirmed. *From what I can get, the royals have identified Zylas.

Then, Carrie Quinton ordered Ben killed and locked up Zylas.*

Collins wriggled feet becoming dangerously cold and wondered where they had left his backpack.

"Locked him up? He was already locked up." He glanced directly at Falima, then at Ialin from the corner of his eye, wondering if he had missed something. The woman nodded agreement, and even Ialin seemed interested in the answer.

*In a rat-sized cage.*

Falima gasped; and, this time, Collins knew he had failed to consider something important. He kept his mouth shut, hoping it would come out in context, but he could not help wondering, What? Is he a claustrophobic rat?*At noon...* Prinivere started, then left Collins to finish.

"He turns into a human and... and what happens?"

Ialin said gruffly, "If the iron's st.u.r.dy enough, it crushes him dead."

Something wet splashed Collins' cheek, and he glanced at Falima. Spidery red lines wound through her eyes, the lids half-closed in pain.

"Not Zylas." Collins put a comforting arm around Falima, and she folded against him. Though well-muscled, she felt strangely small and helpless to Collins, who could never have imagined her surrendering to despair. He wondered if her relationship with the albino went deeper than he had known, despite the vast difference in their ages, surprised to suffer a flare of jealousy. He could no longer deny his feelings for her. He drew himself up, willing a determination he did not feel. "So we have to rescue him before noon tomorrow." He shrugged, as if it were the simplest matter in the world. "We can do that."

Ialin nodded, though the gesture seemed more habitual than rea.s.suring. He had clearly weathered a lot for this cause, and it never seemed to end.

*You still have the right to go home whenever you wish. You don't have to risk yourself for this.*

Though cautiously sent and clearly intended out of fairness, Prinivere's reminder irritated Collins. He turned on the dragon with a tone that surely baffled his companions, who had not received the message.

"I'm not going anywhere till I know Zylas is safe. I got him into this mess-"

Falima interrupted, "No, he got himself into it. He insisted on going, and-"

"It was my fault." Collins' voice cracked, and he felt tears building, "I got us caught. I did something very very stupid."

Ialin's head rose and swiveled toward Collins. His expression still presented an image of sorrow, but his eyes gained the stormy darkness that had become so familiar to Collins. Even Falima stiffened.

"There's a mirror in Carrie's room. It reflected me as me-the real me, not the illusion. I thought the disguise had worn off. I... thought my cover... gone, and I panicked. I didn't think things through clearly and... " Collins swallowed hard, and the tears dribbled down his cheeks. "I'm sorry." Now, he could almost feel Prinivere scanning his mind for details.

*A mirror that sees through illusions is magical.*

"Clearly." Ialin scratched his head, rearranging the disarray of his hair into further chaos. "But why would Carriequinton have such a thing?"

Prinivere squinted, and her eyes disappeared amidst the scaly folds of her aged face. *Seeing through illusions may not be its primary power. Any magical mirror would cut through to the truth.*

Falima removed her hand from Collins, using the back to wipe tears from her cheeks. "So what's the real purpose of this thing likely to be?"

Collins appreciated that the conversation had gone from his blunder to the significance of the mirror.

"If I had to guess, I'd bet it shows her face the way it used to look."

*Very likely.* Though Prinivere agreed with Collins' a.s.sessment, she still appeared pensive, eyes lost amid the wrinkles. *Though that, too, might simply be a function of it being magical. It might not have anything to do with its intended purpose when it got magicked.*

Ialin made a thoughtful noise. "So, if it has another power, Carrie might not even know about it."

Now Collins frowned. As a scientist, he would examine and experiment with that mirror until hediscovered its every secret. He doubted Quinton would have done less. "In any case, is it more likely to give away that her facial repairs are illusion? Or to show her her original face before the scars?"

*I... don't know,* the dragon admitted. *This is a distinctly unusual circ.u.mstance. If I had it here to examine... *

Stepping out of Collins' embrace, Falima continued to mop up tears with her sleeve. She had seen Quinton's repaired features and had, apparently, figured out the rest by context. "Carriequinton obviously never planned to cooperate with us anyway, so it hardly matters when she realizes we tricked her."

We? Collins appreciated that Falima accepted his deceit as a group decision. It made him feel like an integral part of the renegade operation, though he suspected her word choice had more to do with the fact that Prinivere had decided to a.s.sist in the duplicity. In college, he had supported liberal causes with the unambiguous moral certainty only a neophyte to the big bad world could muster.

As his personal burdens grew heavier, he had become essentially apolitical. He wondered what his friends and family would think if they knew he had deliberately embroiled himself in the sticky and perilously deadly affairs of another world.

Prinivere opened her enormous green eyes and rolled her gaze toward Falima. *I'm not so certain she never intended to cooperate. She did trust Ben enough to come with him alone. And she did eventually tell us where to find the dragons.*

Collins shook his head, having difficulty making sense of the matter. "Why would she tell me, then try to have me killed?"

Falima and Ialin remained silent, without the necessary information to partic.i.p.ate fully in the conversation.

Prinivere paced out a cautious circle and lay back down in a new position. *She whispered the directions in your ear, remember? Then you left right away, without the chance to tell anyone else. Once you died, you couldn't pa.s.s it on. Or, if you lived, she figured you'd forget all those unfamiliar names before you could pa.s.s them along.*

Collins realized he already had.

*Even if you remembered, she knew it wouldn't do us any good.*

Collins recalled the earlier, unfinished conversation. "Because this place is warded against switchers?" A light dawned. That's got to be the place Carrie considered a "third world."

*Right.*

"Why?"

Prinivere glanced at Ialin, who sighed, shrugged, then nodded wearily. Not long ago, he had cautioned the dragon not to tell Collins about this place at all and now she had pa.s.sed him the job.

"Because it's basically a dungeon, and a long-ago king worried that people might either try to release prisoners or blunder in and get themselves killed. The warding works both ways, so it also kept the prisoners from escaping."

Collins paused to consider the words before asking any questions. The more he figured out on his own, the less Ialin would judge him. He knew the king had never warded his dungeon in a similar way, if for no other reason than that it would also exclude guards. However, the current king had nothing to do with the magic that kept switchers from the royal bedchambers either. In fact, he had written decrees banning the possession or use of magic by anyone in the kingdom, which suggested he might not know about Quinton's mirror and explained why she kept it hidden in the wardrobe. He guessed some ancient king had wanted prisoners housed farther from the castle while later ones preferred to keep enemies close and had moved the lockup to the bas.e.m.e.nt. Collins tried a different tack, "Perhaps that kingwanted to keep the more violent criminals as far as possible from his home and family."

Ialin's nostrils flared, and the corners of his mouth bent slightly upward. He did not seem disappointed with the direction of Collins' questioning. Yet.

Prinivere provided some a.s.sistance without giving Collins the answer. Perhaps she sensed the blow that might cause to his self-esteem. *And the most violent prisoners would be...*

meat eaters? Collins guessed, then cringed at the understanding that answer brought. "It's the lockup for the Randoms who take the form of obligate carnivores?"

He cursed himself for answering too quickly. "No, that's not right. King Terrin has them executed."

"King Terrin," Falima said, "and several kings before him. But long ago, rulers tried imprisoning them."

She glanced at Ialin, as if willing him to go easier on Collins. "Without much success."

Collins remembered something the current king had told him. "I did know that. The king said most of the carnivores preferred execution." He narrowed his eyes. "But locking them up occurred generations ago. Even if they got to live out their natural lives in prison, wouldn't they all be long dead by now?"

Ialin shifted from foot to foot. "Unless they bred."

Prinivere added the finishing touch. *A long-ago king who didn't believe in executions had an "inescapable" catacomb engineered to house the most recidivist and wicked criminals. After one trickster still got out, he hired dragons to ring it with magic. Some of his successors continued to use it. After the Curse, the wards operated mainly to prevent switchers from entering or, more importantly, leaving and to imprison cannibals.*

After nearly getting hanged for ignorantly eating a rabbit, Collins preferred the term "carnivore." It all made sense now. Likely, the earlier criminals were all male, and the king had expected them to destroy one another or starve. At best, they would die of old age without bothering the honest citizens of Barakhai. Once the worst crime became uncontrollable cannibalism while in animal form, the proportion of men to women would presumably become equal. Thirteen-year-olds not yet used to their new forms would find themselves ripped from loving, protective families and thrust into a lawless world filled with uncivilized people and man-eating carnivores, never to see their loved ones again. He shivered at the implications. The wild animals would instinctively produce more of their own. Rape seemed inevitable, and some would deliberately pair off in human form, creating Random offspring that might find themselves the only rabbits or zebras in a den of lions, tigers, and wolves. No telling what kind of horrors might lurk in such a h.e.l.lhole.

Then, the realization hit home. Suddenly Collins found his eyes so widely rounded they hurt. "I'm supposed to go... I mean, you expect me to face that... alone?" Suddenly, sneaking into a castle and rescuing a caged rat from dozens of guards did not seem so hard.

Eyes still enormous, Benton Collins glanced around the room, scarcely daring to believe his companions could even consider such a task possible. Each looked back at him with such desperate hope that it tugged at his heart. Maybe if I had an army, a couple of bazookas, and a whole fleet of war-planes. He shook his head in dumbfounded disbelief. "I want to help. I'll do everything I can. But...

I just don't think... " He continued to glance around at his companions, who remained stoically silent. "...

it's possible to... " The tears puddled in Falima's eyes again, and it cut Collins to the heart. "But I will help with Zylas."

They did not need Collins for that mission.

"But I'm not sure you'd want me. I don't have any experience. I might mess up again, and-"

Prinivere spoke first, with a mental communication that did not disrupt the uncomfortably heavy silence of his companions. *I could send you home and bring you back for... those things you thinkyou need.*

Collins sighed, not wanting to explain modern weaponry, even to one as intelligent and intuitive as Prinivere. "Armies, bazookas, warplanes. I don't actually have access to those things, although... " He could barely believe he was considering this. "... I could probably scrounge up a gun." Get around the three-day waiting period in the wake of September 11th? Fat chance. Unlike the renegades, he had no sources for illegal goods. Wait, isn't it just handguns that require a permit? Having never purchased such a thing before, he had no idea of the details. He had gone target shooting with his friends a few times but had always borrowed one of their rifles. No one in his family that he knew of had ever owned a gun of any kind. "I suppose I could look into it." It was a flimsy dodge at best. A single shot was unlikely to stop a charging lion, and anything could get him while he reloaded. He did not even know if he would find the dragons tame enough to follow him once, or if, he found them. "How about if we save Zylas first, then worry about how to get the dragons from the catacombs?"

Each of the renegades nodded and, for the moment, Collins found himself free of an impossible burden. It was a temporary reprieve at best.

And Collins knew it.

Chapter 7.

PRINIVERE lumbered forward, revealing a shadowy cavern containing several sacks as well as Benton Collins' overstuffed and battered backpack. Korfius trotted over to sniff at the contents, but Collins got there first. He could scarcely wait to paw through his things again. First, he wanted his watch.

Then he would look for anything else he had brought to this backward world that might aid in rescuing Zylas. He could no longer recall every tiling he had packed.

Collins jerked out the rolled up T-shirts first. Uncomfortable in the wet, grimy clothing he had worn through the swamp, he tugged off his shirt without worrying about propriety, more concerned about not smearing slime across his torso. He pulled on a clean, black pocket tee and his only other pair of jeans.

He added a pair of dry socks. Though he needed a bath, he felt much more comfortable in clothing steeped in the familiar essence of Era Ultra. He still worried that the perfumy aroma of deodorant might give him away, but he could not resist brushing his teeth.

Around Collins, his companions plotted with a solemn thoroughness that revealed their desperation.

He missed much of the conversation; Prinivere did not always generalize her sendings, and Vernon could communicate only with her. From what Collins could gather as he sorted through his possessions, Ialin planned to impersonate a particular merchant with a macaw switch-form. Aisa would play his wife. They would have to disguise Falima as a mule, since all Barakhain horses worked only as guards for established governmental ent.i.ties. Vernon would remain a mouse until Zylas' return to man form and could hide in any pocket or crevice.

Collins found his watch buried with his keys and beeper under his clothing. He flipped it around to look at the face. To his surprise, it read almost 5:00 a.m. He had not realized how much time he had spent traveling back and forth from the castle to Prinivere's various hiding places, and he now understood why even his frantic excitement floundered through hovering exhaustion. He strapped the watch to his wrist. Falima, he knew, would switch next, which explained why she was the only one the renegades planned to disguise in a form different than the one she currently held. It also meant they had to wait until6:00 a.m. just to start working on her. That still left them a solid five hours to free Zylas, but any delay seemed intolerable.

Collins separated out a handful of Turns and Tylenol. Concern for Zylas kept him wide awake despite the wee morning hours. The constant state of alert stress had not yet touched off a headache or a boil of stomach acid, but he wouldn't be surprised if it did soon. He could feel the early p.r.i.c.kles of beard on his face, but it was not yet enough to bother with shaving. He put the matches in his pocket. He could not think of a use for the mini tape recorder and fold-up binoculars, but he believed the jerky, Snickers bars, and dog biscuits might prove useful when he faced off with Barakhai's carnivores. When? Collins groaned at the realization. He had already started planning for something he had just dismissed as impossible. His friends would talk him into doing it, he felt sure; and Prinivere's attempts to remain neutral, to leave the decision wholly to his conscience, would only make him more certain to agree. He wondered how this group of Otherworld creatures had come to know him better than he knew himself.

Believing Prinivere entirely ensconced in three other minds, Collins did not expect an answer; but he got one. *Because you're an easy read, Ben. A good man with a good heart.*

Warmed by the compliment, Collins flushed, biscuits clutched in his fist. "I-I didn't know you were listening in on me."

*I have to. Once again, you're our only hope.*

to free the dragons, Collins finished, turning his gaze, as well as his attention, to Prinivere.

*Yes.* As if feeling his eyes upon her, Prinivere lurched around to face Collins. *But also to rescue Zylas.*

Collins nodded, then realized he did not understand. So far, the plan Ialin and the others had outlined left no place for him.

*The king will be expecting us to attempt a rescue.*

Collins' mouth set in a grim line, and he pa.s.sed the dog biscuits from hand to hand. He wondered why he had not seen it before. King Terrin could have executed Zylas immediately or tortured him for information. Instead, he had given the renegades a limited amount of time to come to his aid. There could be only one logical reason for such a strategy. King Terrin knows we'll come and even when, within the s.p.a.ce of half a day. He wants to catch more renegades, ones who'll be easier to intimidate and question than Zylas.

Collins had no experience with reading dragon expressions, and that unnerved him. When she gave no reply, he continued thinking his part of the silent conversation to her.

We can't let anyone go.

*What choice do we have, Benton Collins?*

We Collins started and stopped. We could... He shook his head to clear it and only realized Korfius had approached when one of the biscuits jerked in his hand. He watched the dog gently ease it free of his grip. There was no prudent way to finish the sentence. They could either attempt a rescue or leave Zylas to die. Suggesting they could risk lesser figures in the movement seemed judgmental and cowardly at the same time. What do we do?

*We,* Prinivere measured the word so that it referred only to herself and Collins. *We free the young dragons.*

After- Prinivere's raised claw stayed him. *Once the dragons are with me, we can use magic to save Zylas and anyone else captured in the meantime. If their rescue attempt fails*we'll still have you.*Collins barely felt Korfius tug the second biscuit from his hands. His mind went utterly blank.

Prinivere did not press. In the background, Collins could hear the discussion growing more heated.

Switch times and switch-forms did not match, and they debated the pros and cons of representing themselves as a new group rather than trying to pa.s.s for a known ent.i.ty.

Finally, Collins managed to think, I'm the ace in the hole? He rolled his eyes. G.o.d help this mission .

*You can do it,* Prinivere's faith came across as unwavering, to Collins' chagrin. It seemed far more likely that all of them would die.

Prinivere sent Collins nothing more, and the gaps in the other conversation told him she had turned her attention back to them. As promised, she left the decision to him, though she had burdened him with understanding. He would rather have remained ignorant. He wished he had something more than raw guesses to bet on, some knowledge of the future that could guide him to the course most likely to bring all of them out alive. Prinivere had a definite point. At some point, Collins would have to make the decision about whether or not to enter the lair of the carnivores. Serial plans depended on the success of the first one, while simultaneous ones did not. Rescuing Zylas did not require Collins, since no one had to enter the royal chambers. Freeing the dragons depended entirely on him.

If they don't get to Zylas in time, if Falima gets hurt or killed, I'll blame myself forever for not going with them. Collins bit his lip at the thought of his friends dying because of his decision. Frantic worry a.s.sailed him, making concentration even more difficult. It astounded him how swiftly these people had become his closest companions, how Barakhai had become every bit as real as the world he had once considered unique in the universe. But if I'm the reason the plan fails, I'll suffer worse. He looked at the objects around him. None of them could help with freeing Zylas. If he still had Ms mult.i.tool, he might feel otherwise; but that had vanished at the castle.

His fear of death receded beneath the horror of living with the knowledge that he had let his friends die rather than a.s.sist them. Collins knew he could not leave until he saw as many as possible to safety.

"Prinivere?" he called.

The dragon swung her enormous head back to him. Huge, emerald cat's eyes steadied, gleaming with anxiety but demanding nothing.

"When you said 'we' would free the dragons, you meant-?" Collins had no words to finish the question disguised as casual statement.