4.

The drake nudged Eric awake. 'What is it?' Eric whispered, sitting up.

Case huffed a deep concerned breath as though to warn of danger. The others still slept, but Aziel shifted and moaned in her sleep, her sleeping face creased with nightmares. She seemed to fight for breath. The choking dream again, Eric thought. He was hesitant to wake her a peevish Aziel with not enough sleep was not the recipe for an enjoyable flight through Levaal. But when she appeared to stop breathing altogether he grabbed her shoulder and called her name.

As though in response the necklace poured pale blue light through the cavern and sent shadows scurrying over the walls. The air went frosty. Some of the runes seemed to catch the blue light that beamed around and hold it after the rest went out.

Eric shook Loup's shoulder. 'Loup, I think you should wake up.' He kept snoring. 'Aziel, don't let him go. Hold onto him. Please hold on.'

'Can't,' she whispered.

'Loup, wake the h.e.l.l up!' Eric tugged on his beard.

Loup snorted, came awake. He looked at the cave wall's glowing runes. 'What've you done now?' he said sleepily.

'It's Aziel, she's-'

There was a metallic sound like chain being struck and breaking. A burst of intense cold like a rush of wind blasted from Aziel; she fell back gasping. At the same time all the wall's runes gave a bright flare then went out.

As they were temporarily blinded by the light, it took a few seconds to discover someone else in the cave with them. Shadow's form was blurred and for a moment there seemed to be several of him all joined together. The images slowly converged, solidified. Shadow's face showed animal desperation. His mouth and black-pit eyes all opened wide; from the apparition's depths came a hissing noise of rage.

Eric took the gun from its holster despite knowing it would be perfectly useless.

Shadow's hand lashed through him, intended to cut him but having no more effect than a shadow pa.s.sing over him. Again and again Shadow tried to strike him before giving up and turning to Aziel. Before Eric could react and what could any of them have done? he later wondered the apparition had unleashed a dozen blows at her.

She was not hurt, though she cringed in fear. The necklace spat a noise like a blast of radio static. There was a shriek of fear or pain, and Shadow streaked out of the cave with a wail fading behind him, a line of fire in his wake quickly put out by the thin misty drizzle.

Aziel clutched at her neck, breathing deeply.

'What happened?' Loup asked her. 'What've you done, foolish girl?'

'Nothing!' she said. 'Don't you talk at me that way, filthy little man.'

It took a minute or two to calm her down to the point of explaining.

'I had a dream. He was burning me, pulling something around my throat, telling me to let go, let go. So I did! All right? It was just a dream, so I let go!' She burst into tears. 'None of you care! He's been getting harder to hold hour by hour. I just relaxed a little bit and he got away.'

'And he was angry with you and me, like I thought he would be,' said Eric. 'I think the charm protected you from him, Aziel, when he got free. I don't know what protected me. We're just lucky he didn't want to attack Loup or Case. We have to move! He knows where we are. Case, can you fly in the dark?' The drake regarded him silently with eyes like brown-green jewels and showed no indication of flying anywhere.

'He'll always know where we are,' said Loup, getting to his feet and p.i.s.sing out of the cavern into the night. 'Shadow's drawn to the charm, is my guess. But now he knows it's a trap. Made by old Vyin, if Stranger can be believed! Let's see if he can resist it. Maybe he won't want to find us. And maybe the charm'll grab him again. We'll see. Back to sleep, you lot. We'll leave in the morning.' Loup patted Case's flank. The drake set its head down, huffed a big breath and was soon snoring again.

Loup joined the drake in slumber, Aziel's shivering and crying of no more consequence to him than rain on a rooftop. When Eric put a consoling arm around the girl she didn't fight him off.

5.

Shadow did not return to them.

Still the castle was not yet on the horizon. The land they flew over seemed vast and empty, with just the odd skeletal sh.e.l.l of a town or village, as well as ruins far older, stone ziggurats and temples which no one dared explore, and which Loup said were full of bad magic airs and ghosts.

Now and then birds flew to meet them in the sky, carrying eggs in their mouths. They perched atop the drake's head, not minding his human pa.s.sengers, and gently set the eggs in the folds of his neck. 'What the h.e.l.l?' said Eric the first time this happened.

'Ah, hand it here!' cried Loup, reaching for the thick white egg. 'Silly birds want Case to sort out their disputes.'

'Birds have disputes?'

'Aye, never noticed? Over territory, just like people. They give drakes an egg from their nest. Or most likely stolen from a rival's nest.'

'And this achieves?'

'Used to be lords of the skies, were drakes, as far as birds and animals had it figured,' said Loup. 'No one told poor old Case by the look of things. Confused old drake! Get used to it, you scaly old man.' Loup patted the drake's side then cracked the egg sh.e.l.l on his teeth, greedily slurping its contents. Aziel looked scandalised, but Loup only belched. 'There'll be more birds, more eggs. Easy food! Good reason to ride a drake. Better than horses, oh aye they are, la.s.s. Next egg's yours.' Strings of yolk stretched between his grinning gums.

Aziel shuddered.

Case charted a course for the cloudier skies to hide them from sight of war mages when the creatures' shrieking again carried to them on the winds. Visible behind them now and then were wheeling specks in the sky.

Beneath them pa.s.sed what looked like a meteor crater, as though enormous jaws had taken a bite from the earth, and the gash had since filled with rubble. Lonely hillsides stretched around it, begging Eric to go down and explore them, the land about thick with big wreaths of magic air winding over it like dark mist.

'Strange airs here,' Loup murmured. 'I've known good mages who come to lands like this, meaning to farm the powers they find. They never come back. Something gets hold of em, uses em for its own designs. You have to be careful near these big dead plains, Eric. G.o.ds or dragon-youth have traded blows in such places, ages back. Or other things besides I'd soon as not mention. Loose effects here still, or spells that now and then re-cast emselves, with no mind for what they do to the poor silly mages, eager to watch great magic at work and learn from it. Quick, look down there now, lad! A Lesser Spirit!'

Eric gazed where Loup pointed but saw nothing more than a swirling effect like a whirlpool in the midst of a dark blanket of magic. Then Case took them up into a cloud and they saw no more of the land below.

The war mages did not find them again. But there were other shapes among the clouds, which had Loup frequently craning his neck, muttering to himself. 'Can't be Invia,' he muttered. 'You're Marked, lad. But they're not war mages. So I don't know what they are.' Loup slapped his own forehead. 'How could I forget? You're Marked! We can't go further north! Eric, they'll kill you, foolish boy! Turn around! Ask the drake if he'll take you back.'

'I've still got the gun, Loup. Invia don't like guns.'

'No! Not one more mile north.'

Eric said nothing for a while. 'What the h.e.l.l else am I here for, Loup? Is there some purpose to it, or not? What's in it for me to tell you guys about guns and electricity and flush toilets? So far not much. Everyone who mattered in my life is dead or lost to me forever. I don't really care any more if I'm sent to join them. Maybe I'll save your world the same way I came into it, by accident.'

'Spare me rousing speeches, lad! Skin, veins, beating hearts, give me those! Many a time I've had to keep idiots alive in spite of emselves. But I don't sense a safe path north, where you're taking us. There ain't one. Safest way's back behind us to a thousand better places. It was a quick decision you made, to hop on old Case and jump out that window. Just like you jumped through that door, and look where that got you! All blood and gusto, oh aye, I remember the feeling. Loins like jugs o rum, you fool drunk! Sleep on it, would you?'

'Sure. But I'm going to keep going.'

As night came Case sniffed out a drake's den in a range of barren hills, where several nooks in the grey cliff faces said this had once been something of a city for the creatures. The nook he chose led out to a platform overlooking a sheer drop to what looked like glittering black sand below. Within the hour smoky fog rolled over it like a cotton blanket.

The same shapes they'd seen earlier wheeled in the skies as the last light faded. 'Loup! Those are Invia. Why aren't they attacking me?'

'No idea, lad,' said Loup grimly. 'Maybe they will in the end. They're close enough to see a Mark, unless there's strange business about I've not clued upon. You should duck out of sight.'

They had a small fire at the cave mouth. In a little tin cook-pot Loup boiled the eggs which half-a-dozen birds of varying kinds had brought that day, then he blessed them so well that even Aziel had no complaints when she was at last persuaded to eat of them. Loup happily gobbled down the sh.e.l.ls under Case's envious gaze. They lay down to sleep after Eric told them Hansel and Gretel.

He lay awake a while after, wishing he'd read more Shakespeare so that if the opportunity arose he could plagiarise his way to glory. He sat up at the sound of beating wings outside.

The drake stirred but no one woke. Eric stood, eyeing off the gun in its shoulder holster, which he'd removed, and weighed up whether what he'd said to Loup earlier was true: was he quite ready to die? If so it was a matter of walking outside the cavern, where the end waited for him with wings. Did he wish to kill more of those beautiful creatures?

He left the gun where it lay and, surprised at his own calm, went outside the cavern to the ledge. There was of course no moon, but it was light enough that there might well have been. The fog had thickened and spread as far as sight, so that the surrounding peaks were like islands in a white ocean.

Sure enough, two remarkably beautiful women with white wings were out there waiting. One crouched on the ledge while the other was up on the sloping mountain wall, defying gravity. Her hair was a deep orange fire blowing on the breeze; the other's was icy blue.

'Are you here to kill me?' Eric asked the blue-haired one, which jumped down from its perch and landed awkwardly to examine him from closer quarters.

'No,' she said. For a while they just stared at him.

'Are you sure?' he said. 'I'm Marked.'

'Marked!' There was a fluttering whistle from them both, perhaps laughter. 'Silly walker.'

'I'm ... not Marked?'

'Do you slay Invia?'

'Um, certainly not.'

'Silly walker!' They went back to staring. Curiosity was all he could discern in their faces.

He supposed it was not impolite to stare back so he indulged a good gawk at the blue-haired one's full-figured body. He sat with his back to the cliff side. 'You've been following us today,' he said. 'Why is it we interest you?'

'Your drake,' said the one with fiery hair. She spoke hesitantly. 'He's strange. He's not a normal drake.'

'How so?' said Eric.

'The charm the girl wears,' said the other Invia, before her sister could answer. 'Why do you have it?'

He shrugged. 'It was given to us. Actually the drake vomited it up. So maybe he stole it from someone. Are you here to take it back?'

'No!' answered the blue-haired one with vehemence he didn't expect.

'Vyin made it. Why did he?' said the other.

'I can't answer,' he said. Why did they think he'd know more of the dragons than them? He tried to remember what little he'd heard. Vyin he thought that was the one who was supposedly a friend to humans, but he wasn't certain.

'It has made them angry,' said the blue-haired one, pointing skyward as though this clarified who she meant. 'In parts, the lightstone broke away. A house was destroyed where the piece fell!' Again she made the fluttering whistle, laughter.

'Your woman carries Vyin's charm,' said the other.

'They know about it now,' said the blue-haired Invia, leaning closer to him as though to confide. Strands of her hair tickled his forearm. 'Dyan is still free! He told them. He is ... frightened. Whenever he comes, frightened! Now they argue with each other. It's dangerous to be near. Many of us flew away.'

'What will the dragons do?'

'Vyan went to his forges,' said the red-haired one.

'So did Tzi-Shu!' said the other, edging closer as though competing for his attention. 'I was in the s.p.a.ce beneath. Her feet moved fast. You can't go up and watch her. She doesn't allow it. Most of them don't.'

Eric said, 'Forges. What does that mean?'

'You are the Pilgrim!' said the blue-haired Invia.

'Yes, I am. Will you answer me? What does it mean that the other dragons went to their forges?'

'We do not say,' said the red-haired one. 'Walkers don't know these things.'

'Forges means they'll make things, doesn't it?'

'Of course they will make things,' said the blue-haired Invia. 'Silly walker!'

'The byaskhan seek you,' said the other. Eric understood this whistling sound to mean war mages. 'We don't like them.'

'Me either. What things will the other dragons make?'

'They are in a hurry,' said the red-haired one.

'Your drake is strange,' said the other. 'He's been touched by Vyin too. We'll watch you. It's interesting. We-'

At the sound of Loup stumbling outside, both Invia were gone with a rush of wind and beating white wings. Loup, shocked, stared at Eric with an open mouth, waiting for an explanation. 'You look like you're my dad and I brought two strange girls home,' said Eric, laughing.

'Inferno's charred d.i.c.k! Why didn't they kill you?'

'I wondered the same thing. I asked them if I was Marked; they said I'm not.' Eric frowned. 'Then for some reason I debated the point with them.'

Loup sent an arc of p.i.s.s flying over the ledge and into the sea of fog. 'I hope you had a mule's share of sense to keep your mouth shut.'

'Kind of shut.'

Loup listened to Eric's account of the conversation. He said nothing other than, 'Sleep, lad. More flying tomorrow. The castle will be in sight soon, if you're still sure we should go there.'

And with another full day's flight the Invia keeping their distance, little specks playfully darting through the higher clouds they made camp with the castle visible in the distance, gleaming as though reflecting a white sun.

For one fleeting moment as they stood gazing from their high perch, the light played a strange trick, spearing painfully into Eric's eyes and leaving the impression of the huge building shifting positions the way a person does in sleep.

Loup turned to him, studied his face, then said, 'I saw it too, lad. I saw it too.'

THE WARRIOR'S REDEEMER