Dragon Rigger (3 page)

Spreading his wings, he glided cautiously down the passageway, slow-flying between its twisting walls. There was a certain comfort in being surrounded by stone, even unfamiliar stone. As deeply as he loved the wind and sky, he also loved the feeling of solid mountain around him. It reminded him of his own cavern, with its weavings of protection. But here, he knew, he must keep his senses sharp for danger.

The walls gradually closed inward and at last forced him to land. Ahead, the dark passage constricted sharply and crooked to the left. Windrush drew a slow breath, smelling for treachery. There was a dank mustiness here, and a cobwebbing of old magic, but nothing he could identify as a danger. The thought of squeezing through a tight passage did not much appeal to him, but if this was the passage the iffling had referred to, he saw little choice.

Still, he was vulnerable here; he could no longer fly away. He sank his thoughts into the underweb of the world, probing to see if he could craft an escape spell if he had to. What he found was an astonishing murkiness in the underrealm; he could not probe far at all. But he felt a distinct tingle; he was approaching a change in the passage spell. It felt like an old-magic spell, not specifically familiar to him. But he suspected that it might lead him, through a twist of the underrealm, into a cavern deep within the mountain—and thus, perhaps, to the one he was looking for, a demon who possessed knowledge of the Dream Mountain.

He crept forward into the constriction, his nails rasping on the stone. As he craned his neck around the bend, he felt the new spell wrinkling open. "Someone inviting me in?" he rumble aloud. There was no answer.

He squeezed past the bend, and felt a shiver from head to tail as he pulled his massive body out of the constriction. He blinked in confusion, gazing suddenly into a dazzling, unnatural-seeming yellow light. With a hiss, he stepped forward.

"WELL, DRAGON," boomed a voice that seemed to reverberate from an enormous space. "HAVE YOU COME BACK TO CHALLENGE AGAIN THE ONE YOU ABANDONED?"

Blinking slowly, Windrush tried to focus through the hazy glow. Gradually he became able to discern the outlines of a large cavern. He still could not identify the source of the light, or of the voice. But the smell of magic was strong, ancient, and unmistakable. "To whom," he rumbled, "might I be speaking? Do I know you?" What had the voice meant by, ". . .
challenge the one you abandoned
"?

He was answered by harsh, reverberating laughter, then a sound like a claw being drawn across stone. Windrush squinted and saw movement. Something was dancing, just out of focus. Something enormous. Some great enemy warrior? Or perhaps merely a shadow.

He shrugged. He had not come here to be intimidated, and he didn't care if the thing outsized him. He probed again in the underrealm and, to his surprise, found a recognizable tangle of a simple spell of obscuration. He tugged the threads apart with his thoughts.

The haze of light abruptly shrank; and a small, glowing, crystal-faceted thing became visible, floating in the air directly in front of him. It looked alive; it pulsed and changed shape with a fluid movement, growing tall and slender with only a few glowing facets, then collapsing and billowing out to the sides with a great many facets. Inside it, a much smaller thing moved—a thing of dark, dancing fire. Windrush thought he recognized that shadow-fire. It looked exactly like the moving shape that, just moments ago, had appeared so huge and menacing.

"So. You are not without powers." The dark fire spoke in a smaller, but not friendlier, voice. "To answer your question—
you
I might not know, but I know your
kind
well enough."

"I see," the dragon murmured. He knew now what he was facing. It was a spirit jar. It was a cell containing a consciousness that had been stripped from its original body. Dragons in past times had used them for the capture of demons, or those believed to be demons. Though Windrush had never actually seen a spirit jar before, he recognized its appearance from tales told over the years. It was not a physical vessel of any sort, but rather a powerful confinement spell. He probed briefly, but could not make out the precise weaving in the underrealm; it was a highly complex crafting, far beyond his skills. Probably it was beyond the skills of anyone left in the realm—anyone on the side of the true dragons, anyway.

How did one deal with a spirit in a jar? He had no idea—nor did he know how dangerous it might be. He didn't think he could free it by accident, but then again he wasn't sure. He assumed there was a good reason for its imprisonment.

"Have you come to release me?" the thing asked curtly, as though reading his thoughts.

"I hardly think so," Windrush answered. "I don't know who you are, or why you are here. Perhaps you would like to tell me."

The being hissed and danced violently in its squirming prison. "Why should I tell you, dragon?"

Windrush cocked his head, blinking first one eye, then the other.

"You don't answer," the thing said.

"I won't answer," Windrush said, "until I have an answer to give." The dragon peered again around the enormous cavern, which was lit only dimly now by the glow of the spirit jar. It had the look of a dragon stronghold, but one musty and long abandoned. There were many forgotten holds scattered through the southern parts of the realm, but he had heard of none so large. Windrush felt dwarfed by it, and that made him uneasy.

With a rumble, he asked the spirit, "Have you done some wrong, that you are imprisoned—?"

"
I
have done
nothing
wrong!
" the being cried, interrupting him. "It is
your
kind that holds me here! Imprisoning me and then abandoning me!"

Windrush deliberately opened one eye wider than the other. "You have done nothing wrong? You are an innocent captive?"

"That's what I just said! If you wish to challenge me, then first free me!"

The dragon drew a silent breath and studied the demon. "Allow me to pose a question. I have been told that there is a creature living here who is possessed of . . . certain knowledge and wisdom. I was wondering if you might
know
of this creature."

"Who told you that?"

"A being of my acquaintance. An iffling."

The spirit hissed. "Iffling! If that is supposed to be a recommendation, I hardly think—" It shuddered with rage, then suddenly calmed. "Still. A being of knowledge and wisdom? It may be that
I . . .
could be described as such a one as you mention. But you have not told me who
you
are."

"That is true," Windrush said. Nor did he have any intention of giving his name, at least not yet. Sharing one's name was a risky proposition. It
could
lead to a sharing of enormous trust, as he had learned once, when he'd shared his name with the human Jael. But he had no reason to trust this being. "It appears," Windrush noted, "that you have been alone here for some time. And that you do not often have the benefit of civilized company."

"I have all the company I need," the spirit retorted bitterly. "If your only purpose in coming here is to quote ifflings at me, then you can leave now, thank you very much."

Windrush wondered at the bitterness, and wondered if he didn't detect an air of false bravado in them. "I would guess," he hazarded, "that my departure would leave you quite alone."

The being shivered.

"And I would guess that I could learn what I wish to know in other ways."

"Oh? How is that?"

"By peering into the binding spell that holds you. I would guess that your secrets cannot withstand my gaze."

The being danced nervously in its prison of light.

Windrush stepped closer to the glowing jar. He cocked his head, searching for the best angle. Within the shifting facets of the jar, he thought he might find doorways into the being's mind. The jar's glow flickered as he narrowed his focus into one facet, exactly as if he were searching the gaze of another dragon. The demon hissed with alarm. Windrush searched the layers of the binding spell, and eased them apart just enough to touch the glinting threads of knowledge on the inside.

The demon reacted with blinding rage,
waves
of rage. Heedless, Windrush continued to probe, seeking the memories of the being. He soon realized that the rage was not a deliberate defense, but a rush of pent-up anger that had grown during long years of captivity in this cavern.

Windrush found himself moved almost to pity. But he reminded himself: Is it so terrible to keep a demon in isolation, where it can't work evil upon the realm?

Certainly not.
If
it is a demon of evil . . .

Doubt rose in his mind like groundwaters in a subterranean cavern.
If it is a
demon
 . . .

The spirit lashed futilely, trying to resist his probes.

Beyond the pain and rage, in the misty reaches of the spirit's mind, images began to form: memories of long years of lonely emptiness, of humiliation, of hatred toward all things dragon. Still they did not reveal who this being
was
. Windrush probed deeper, further back in time. The mists parted, and Windrush glimpsed movement, the quick movement of dragons in the air, the slower movement of something that glimmered silver and gold, large as a dragon, but undragonlike in form. He heard the sounds of a challenge and knew that he had found the memory of a duel.

He recalled the rush of another's memories, shared seasons ago. There was scant resemblance between his friend Jael and this wretched creature in the jar. And yet . . .

The outcome of the duel was clear. Windrush ignored it and peered deeper. It was difficult not to recoil from the touch of the alien thought, the touch of hostility and anguish. But Windrush wanted to know the nature of this being. He glimpsed fluttering memories that preceded the duel: boredom and careless flight into danger. Threaded through these memories were others, dark and incomprehensible, which seemed to arise from hidden lusts and emotions. Probing deeper, the dragon found a group of clearly focused images.

He was so stunned he almost broke the link with the creature's mind.

He saw it in its physical form. He saw it in its own mind's eye, as it flew into the dragon realm.
The being was a rigger—a human!
The similarity of body shape was unmistakable, and so were the glimpses of the ship in which it flew. Glimpses were all Windrush had ever gotten of his friend Jael's ship, but it was impossible not to see that the gleaming surfaces, the silvery sheen of the ghostly shapes, the sparkle of that magical thing that Jael had called a
net
, were very much like what he saw now in this being's memory.

This thing before him was a
rigger—
or had been, until its duel with the dragons. Windrush tried to look again at the duel, to see what had happened, to see why the dragons had imprisoned the human's spirit; but those images had receded out of sight now. Had the dragons considered the rigger an invading demon? Many dragons would, but especially Tar-skel dragons. Windrush could not discern any hostile intent in this rigger's memory; neither could he tell whether the dragons who had captured him had been true dragons or Tar-skel dragons.

But he did glimpse one thing that he hoped might help him coax the being into talking. He caught, in a stray flash of memory, its name.

The spirit thrashed violently.
Get
out!
it hissed.
You
have no
right!
It was trying frantically to close off its thought to him. Windrush shrugged inwardly; with a wordless mutter, he released the spirit from his gaze.

The figure sputtered with rage in its jar of light, mouthing incomprehensible words. Windrush regarded it silently. After a few moments he murmured, "I note your anger. But you would do well to control it, one named Hodakai."

The sounds of rage cut off, and the cavern was filled with silence. Then, softly: "So, you know my name. What good do you think it will do you? Your friends who imprisoned me knew my name, and I gave them nothing. I will give nothing to you, either." The voice was stiff with defiance.

"I know who you are," Windrush said. "And I know the realm from which you come. I know your people." That last statement was an exaggeration to be sure. He knew only three riggers, and only one of them human; but they were friends, and not just to him. The entire realm owed them a debt beyond measure. Without them and the breath of life and strength they had brought to this world, the realm would have fallen long ago.

Hodakai laughed flatly. "You know my people, do you? Do you think that they can't still come get me out? Perhaps it's what you
don't
know that should worry you. Do you think I did not see
your
thoughts, lizard?"

Windrush studied the shadow-in-light. Quite possibly Hodakai
had
learned something of Windrush's thoughts while they were joined. If the spirit knew enough to look, there was probably no avoiding it.

Hodakai chuckled. "I know what you're looking for."

"Oh? What do you think I am looking for?"

"Answers, answers . . ." the thing said in a crafty tone.

The dragon snorted.

"Keepers of the Words, and those who make the realm tremble," Hodakai said, dancing defiantly.

The dragon's blood chilled.
Keepers of the Words.
So Hodakai knew about the Dream Mountain. And the draconae. "Do not toy with me, one named Hodakai," he murmured softly.

The shadow capered in the light. "You know my name, you think you own me. But I am not yours. I have not
given
you my name. You may command my life, but not my thoughts."

Windrush exhaled steam. Hodakai clearly understood much—and not just of spells. Did he know and understand the ancient prophecies? Windrush faced a delicate choice. Whatever risks he might be taking with Hodakai, it could well be worth it. But it was going to be difficult to gain the being's trust.

The spirit interrupted his thoughts. "Dragon, I tire of your presence. You are no longer welcome here." The shadow seemed to leer at him out of its jar. It made stabbing motions toward him.