Dragon Sword Series - Dragon Sword Part 2

This is what we 've wanted all along.

"No, a.s.shole." For a moment, she stood again on the sun-drenched commons, the Victory Bell tolling over and over in her ears as it summoned the students to protest, to betrayal, and to death. "No. That's what you wanted. Not us."

"Miss?"

She came back to the library. The clerk had returned. "All this stuif is pretty valuable."

"Yeah ... I guess it would be. It's copies of the original notes and diagrams from Layc.o.c.k's Cadbury exca- DRAGONSWOMD.

25.vations." He was staring at her. Old hippie. She pushed the words out through her headache. "And an original of Gildas's De excidio et conquestu Britanniae. " She let the Latin roll off her tongue. She was no punk undergraduate. She knew what she was doing.

"Well, we've got instructions here to release it only to Dr. Brakhwaite. A student won't do."

"I'm his f.u.c.king research a.s.sistant."

"Uh . . ."

"Come on, you know who I am."

"Well, yeah, but . . ."He seemed about to relent. A decade before, he might have. There had been a camaraderie among students then, one forged out of shared concerns and a horror of a society that had turned increasingly impersonal. Today, though ... "But it's my a.s.s if something goes wrong. I can't do it."

Behind her, the Greeks were giggling with one another. Suzanne pressed her lips together in frustration. The headache had made her temper short, and the dream had taken her back ten years. "When the revolution comes, motherf.u.c.ker," she snapped, "it's gonna be your a.s.s up against the wall, too."

His eyes widened, but she had already turned away. She knew Ml well that she had accomplished nothing. The rhetoric was dull now, without the bright, razor edge that had cut through so much complacency in the 60s. Her words were impotent, just like her actions.

As she descended the steps, she decided that it might be good for Braithwaite to fetch his own books. True, her job was to help him, but it would not do him any harm to run some of his own d.a.m.n errands and remember what it was like to be a student who had to listen to braggart professors as they governed their miniscule fiefdoms.

She paused in the shadow of Rolfe Hall and rubbed her eyes. The headache was gaining on her, and she still had a full day ahead. More than likely, Braithwaite would blame her for the clerk's refusal, and the planning session in his office would turn into a chance for him to continue his interminable cataloging of her deficiencies.

At times, she hated him. He had money, a nice house, 26.an old established family in New England with which he could talk about the horrid groundlings who were causing so many problems these days. When the revolution came-if it ever did-his a.s.s would be up against the wall, too.

And yet, she could not but envy him. Safe and secure, he had weathered the troubled waters in which she herself had foundered. Where he was tenured, respected, well-known and even admired in his field, she had had difficulty convincing the UCLA registrar that Kent State cla.s.ses and credits over ten years out of date could still count toward a degree in California. And when she had eventually presented herself to the graduate school with a B.A. in history, Braithwaite had all but sneered at her. "Kent State, eh?"

But she was now his research a.s.sistant. Her feet scuffling through puddles left by the night's rain, she trudged along Bruin Walk toward his office, wondering what she was trying to prove.

Ventura Boulevard took Solomon to the San Diego Freeway, and the freeway took him south and over the hills. The morning was clear, and the mountains to either side were green and glowing in the sun.

On the seat beside him, propped safely in a fold of the unused seatbelt, was the paperweight with Silbakor coiled inside it. Today, the Dragon looked almost relaxed. Its wings were folded, its tail wrapped about itself, and only the glowing eyes showed that it was anything more than a sunbathing lizard.

Solomon's Buick had no trouble forging up the long pa.s.s, which was more than could be said for the Volkswagen ahead of him. Between the traffic and the Bug, he was going to be late for his first appointment. But he did not have to worry: it was just Suzanne. She would wait. She always did. She did not have much choice.

Suzanne.

He stole a look at Silbakor. The Dragon, he knew, had not been joking when it had suggested her for the Guardianship, and Solomon was baffled by its choice. Suzanne?

27.Even if he ignored the fact that she was a woman-which Vorya and the others would most certainly not-he was revolted by the idea that Silbakor would suggest someone who had once tried to destroy the same educational system he considered it his duty to defend.

"If she were in Gryylth, Silbakor, she'd be a Dre-mord."

The Dragon closed its eyes.

Fretting in the slow-moving press, he tried to keep his thoughts away from Suzanne, and wound up staring at a particular office building that rose up in mirrored splendor across the intervening miles of gray city. Helen's lawyer. That b.a.s.t.a.r.d was probably still doing quite well. Helen was probably still doing quite well. And Solomon was- He gripped the steering wheel and forced himself to stare straight ahead. Solomon was doing quite well, too. Thank you very much.

His eyes were on the road, but his thoughts strayed uncontrollably to her. He had no idea what she was doing now. It had been ten years. He might pa.s.s her in the street without recognizing her.

No. He would recognize her. Without question.

It had been an excellent marriage at the outset. He and Helen had known one another since high school, and when he had volunteered to serve in Korea, she had vowed to wait. And she had. Fresh out of uniform, he had taken her to the altar, and she had pledged herself to him.

Twenty years of bliss. Well, not bliss, exactly, but a reasonable approximation. There were rocks in their road together, particularly when she strained at the bonds that held her at home, that dictated that she listen to what he said to her. Love, honor . . . and obey. She forgot occasionally, and he had to remind her. She cried in the bedroom, and then she made up. It was all very simple.

He had his teaching, and eventually his tenure, and she settled into the role of the professor's wife, smoothing the feathers that he ruffled, playing the hostess at faculty gatherings in the backyard, standing by his side when he 28.was made full professor. When the student unrest began to roil at Berkeley, he naturally expected that she would support his views. And, for a while, she did.

The days had been different then. Tenure was not the Holy Grail. If you did your part, rubbed the right backs, held to the right opinions, you got it. He had earned his reward, and he had thereby held up his side of the marriage bargain. He had fully expected that she would hold up hers, But something had come up. From somewhere.

Perhaps he could date her treason to a spring day in 1969, when the police, in clearing the so-called People's Park a few blocks from the Berkeley campus, had shot-gunned a young man as he stood on a nearby rooftop. Helen had always been rather tenderhearted, particularly when it came to children, and she could not understand the action.

"They didn't have any guns," she had said. "Why did the police kill him?"

"He was throwing stones."

"And that's enough to be killed?"

"You don't understand, Helen."

"What if it was our son who had been shot?"

"We don't have any children, dear."

And it had gone on from there. The seeds had been planted, and Helen had slowly grown more secretive, more sullen. Their arguments had taken a more political turn, and to his surprise, Helen had shown herself exceedingly adept at countering his opinions, growing as clever with words as the radicals she defended. Frequently, he had found it necessary to shout her down.

Changing lanes, he grimaced, shook his head. He had, in many ways, acted no better than had the students who had disrupted his cla.s.ses with their slogans and leaflets. But grappling for arguments with which to counter her sudden burst of treacherous logic, he had found his hands empty of all save a sense of Tightness and of tradition. No, he could not argue rationally, but neither could a martyr so defend his choice of death over falsehood.

Perhaps his bullying had been justified, though, for .

29.Helen had refused to listen to reason. She had given him no choice. She had violated the vows she had made to him with as much intent as he had kept those he had made to her.

And that lawyer, smooth and clever . . .

And the campus radicals, glib and deceitful . . .

"Braithwaite."

He nearly missed the red light at the bottom of the offramp, and the tires screeched as he pulled up short. "Dammit, Silbakor, what is it?"

"I do not wish to intrude upon your thoughts, but I felt you would want to know that the Dremords have attacked at the eastern end of the Great Dike."

"Casualties? Is it serious?"

"That is uncertain. The garrison from Dearbought turned most of the force, but a small party broke through and proceeded north."

"North?"

"Toward the Blasted Heath."

Behind him, a horn beeped. He clenched his jaw and managed to stall when he attempted to pull out. The Bu-ick was unused to such treatment, and it complained loudly when he turned the ignition key. The car behind swerved around him and pulled up alongside, and the young man at its wheel gave him an easy grin and a finger.

"Hey, grandpa, learn to drive. Pedal on the right." Laughing, he drove off.

Solomon muttered a curse under his breath and got the Buick started. "If we were in Gryylth," he said, "that puppy would change his tune."

He made the turn onto Sunset and headed for the campus, feeling Silbakor's unblinking gaze on him. "The Dremord sorcerer, Tireas, is with them."

"Fine. That's just fine. If the Dremords want to play with magic, then they'll lose the war all the quicker."

"I am not sure," said the Dragon. "It is possible that they have some plan."

Solomon did not reply.

The Dragon was almost hesitant when it spoke again.

30."I would venture to suggest that perhaps this might be a situation in which Mernyl's advice would be of some value."

First Suzanne, and now Mernyl. What was the Dragon up to? "That charlatan? Silbakor, you must be out of your mind.''

"Nevertheless, I-"

"If Mernyl gets within fifty feet of King Vorya, I'll kill him on the spot. Do you understand?"

The Dragon lowered its head. "Events are proceeding rapidly. It would be best if I examined them in more detail. I will leave you now." Its black, bat wings unfolded. "I will be back shortly."

There was a moment of turbulence in the paperweight, and when it cleared, the Dragon was gone.

Mernyl now. His arm twinged as he pulled into the faculty lot to find that someone had taken his reserved s.p.a.ce.

The sand beneath Flebas's feet was a h.e.l.lish unknown, and he was sweating as he wielded the light spade. It was a cold sweat, one born of furtive glances over the shoulder, of the knowledge that at any moment- "Closer to the roots, Flebas." Tireas stood a few feet from him, white robed, his arms outstretched. Flebas had little understanding of sorcery, but he knew that Tireas was shielding him and the other men of Corrin from the effects of the Tree. He complied, scrabbling in the treacherous soil inches away from the matted roots.

The Tree looked unhealthy, like something out of an evil dream. Barely twice as tall as a man, it stood, squat and bulbous, its twisted branches hung with gla.s.sy fruit that flickered fitfully, as though from inner fires. The very fact that it grew here, in the Blasted Heath, was enough to make him afraid. But, this close to it, he felt its powers crawling over his skin, probing questioningly at him, toying with potentials for magic."

Something brushed against the back of his neck, and he flinched away and whimpered. A few minutes ago, it had been a rain of bats. Before that, slime dripping from KRAGONSWORD.

31.his limbs. And before that, just after he and the others had entered the Heath, it was an empty feeling, one that Flebas could only describe in terms of things unfinished: a foal stillborn, a child dead of plague, the stump of an arm lost in battle.

Tireas was looking at him. "Easy, Flebas," he said softly. "I have made this place safe."

"The Tree is not safe."

"Safe enough for now. Dig. The Gryylthans know of our journey here, and word has already been sent to King Vorya. The Dragonmaster might appear soon."

The sand was light and easy to move, and the men scooped it away from the base of the Tree with broad strokes, exposing dark roots knotted like the web of a black widow. Tireas waved them back when they were done and regarded the Tree appraisingly.

Calrach approached him. "Your wish, sorcerer?"

"Bring up the wain, captain." Calrach motioned to Flebas and two others to draw up the wagon.

A whirring came out of the blank sky to the north, though Flebas could not see anything. And north was a debatable proposition here in the Heath. There were no landmarks except for those the Heath created itself, there were no directions. Likewise, distances shifted and flowed in a terrible way, and the Tree might have been a few feet, or a few miles, from the edge of the Heath. A step or two might have taken him back to a green world that he recognized, with mountains and rivers and- "Stand clear, men of Corrin." As usual, Tireas spoke abstractedly, his attention already taken up with the task before him. Flebas and the others gathered together some yards away and watched as Tireas raised his arms and murmured commands under his breath. In response, the Tree lifted slowly from the hole, paused when its roots cleared the surface, and floated slowly toward the wagon.

Tireas was trembling. The Tree tipped. Unthinking in spite of his fear, Flebas made as though to steady it.

Calrach grabbed his arm. "No, fool. To touch the Tree is death."

32.Flebas shuddered. "To stay in this place for another heartbeat might as well be."

"If Tireas is right about the Tree, it will be worth it."

With an effort, Tireas regained control and lowered the Tree slowly to the wagon's high-sided bed. Shaking with fatigue, he managed to whisper: "Lash it up. And do not touch it."

The men threw ropes from one side to the other, staying well away from the Tree. Only the ropes touched it, and where they did, they seemed to writhe of themselves, changing in an eyeblink from brown hemp to green scales to branches to iridescent fur. The transformations flitted across them like rippling water.

Flebas looked for a moment and then kept his eyes on his work, fastening the ropes solidly to the bronze staples s.p.a.ced around the wagon.

They were finished quickly. Calrach nodded to the sorcerer. "We will have to hurry."

"Indeed." The sorcerer seemed to be elsewhere for a moment. "I believe that Silbakor is near."

"Dythragor, too?"

"No. Just the Dragon. Watching . . ." Tireas lifted his head, scanned the white sky. "I do not see it. But it is, nonetheless, close." He gestured to the wagon tongue. "We will go."

The men seized the tongue and slowly pulled the wagon around. Tireas held up his hands as though feeling textures in the air, and at last he pointed: this way.

Flebas walked beside the wagon, his hand clutching his spear tightly, his eyes flicking from side to side. Bats, and slime, and wraiths that gripped at his heart. And what more could befall them in this frightful place?

Minutes pa.s.sed. The way out seemed much longer than the way in. They crossed sand, marshes, stretches of rocky ground and thora trees. "Almost there," said Tireas kindly. "Stay away from the Tree even when we are free of the Heath."

The men needed no prompting. Stripped, free of concealing sand, the Tree was an awful thing, tangled and twisting, the ropes that held it changing from moment to .

33.moment, lambent fire running up and down its trunk and out to the tips of its branches as though it breathed corpselight.

Another few feet, so Tireas said, and they would be free. But there came again the whirring from the north.

Calrach whirled, his hand seizing his sword. "Arms!"

Claws were already p.r.i.c.king at Flebas's neck, and he batted at the one-eyed thing that grappled with him. It seemed as unfinished as everything else in the Heath. Its teeth, gleaming in a yawning mouth of phosphor, were too thin, too numerous, too needlelike. Its very touch was unclean.

There must have been a score of the creatures, dropping out of the sky like great feathered spiders, pouncing on the men. Flebas killed one, then another, ripped one from the back of Calrach's head and pinned it to the ground with his spear.