Dragon Rigger (60 page)

"Awwwk! Again we ride!" squawked the parrot.

"Indeed," said Windrush. "And now, my friends, let us return to the Dark Vale and join the others! I must see with my own eyes what has happened! Quickly, now—quickly as the wind, let us fly!"

And as they gathered and sped from the Black Peak toward the Dark Vale, Windrush blew joyous tongues of flame and realized that he hardly felt weary at all.

* * *

"
Rakhandroh!
" the dragon whispered, over and over, as they approached the Dark Vale. It was not just the sight of the vale itself that was astonishing—the air filled with shouting, triumphant dragons, and the floor below swarming with dragons, flyers, and shadow-cats who were staggering up from craters, caverns, and crevices, blinking at their newfound freedom. Looming over that sight was something even more astonishing, more rakhandroh, rising above the horizon far beyond the vale: it was a great, shimmering glass mountain, freed at last from the sorcery that had kept it hidden. The Dream Mountain!

All of the dragons wheeling in the air were drawn to the sight, gazing at it with great curiosity and desire.

Windrush bellowed out his joy. He called out to his leaders to report. He was answered instead by shouted questions: "Windrush, what happened?" "What did you do?" "The sorceries have vanished!" "How did you bring back the Dream Mountain?"

"
I?
I did nothing!" Windrush rumbled, laughing. He tried to explain, but his words came out in a hopeless jumble, and made no sense even to him. "Just say this!" he cried at last. "
Tar-skel has fallen!
He is gone
from the realm! The riggers Jael and Ar and Ed and the ifflings and FullSky and all of you helped to defeat him!
"

"Windrush!" cried a familiar voice. Farsight was climbing from below to greet him, and another dragon was limping behind him. "Don't forget WingTouch!"

"
WingTouch!
" cried Windrush in amazement, spiraling down to join the two in a dance of joy. "You're alive, WingTouch, you're still with us!"

"Indeed, thanks to FullSky," answered his youngest brother. "May he live long in the Final Dream Mountain! I had the privilege of destroying his killer."

"FullSky!" sighed Windrush at the reminder of who was
not
among them, at the reminder that many brave dragons had fallen here today, and one of them was their brother who had done so much to bring them this victory. "May all our dragon brothers live long in the Final Dream Mountain," he said finally. And for a moment, he felt an urge to fly a flight of grief for those they had lost. But now was not the time; they could grieve later.

Farsight and WingTouch greeted Ar and Ed on Windrush's back; then the dragons exchanged reports. "After you were gone, there was a great upheaval that shook both the sky
and
the earth," Farsight said. "When it passed, I felt that a great power had gone out of the realm. The sky and the earth became quiet. The drahls lost all spirit for battle. They began to take their own lives, or to surrender,
or to flee. The prisons fell open. And the Dream Mountain—reappearing, like a ghost, out of the air! Truly rakhandroh! And there have already been reports of lumenis groves sighted out beyond the vale!"

"Indeed," said Windrush, and on his shoulder the small, noisy parrot-rigger hooted and cawed in loud approval. "When we have restored some order here—and perhaps when we have fed—some of us must fly on to the Dream Mountain. There the spirit of Jael awaits us."

Those words sent ripples of excitement through the dragons flying nearby. "To the Dream Mountain," they whispered and rumbled. And slowly the rumble grew to a chant that filled the air. "To the Dream Mountain! To the Dream Mountain . . . !"

For the ifflings, it was a return to their source of being. Born of the dreamfire, they at last saw a true path out of their exile, a true path home. The Mountain beckoned, calling them in across the gulf that had divided them.

One iffling-child accompanied them, the one who might have been the last. And one other came with them: a strange one, a changeling sprite, who had once been their foe and now insisted upon being their friend. They accepted that one with a kind of weary puzzlement, as they made the long march home across the underrealm.

—
Draconae!
—

—
We glimpse you!
—

—
Open your hearth!
—

—
Give us your fire!
—

Visions of strength, of new iffling-children, of freedom to wander the realm, to visit the draconi, to grow and blossom . . . the visions loomed before them like mirages on a desert, but mirages that now could grow into reality. The vision gave hope, and in that hope they found the strength to move forward across the bleak plain where at last their underrealm met that of the dragons.

A chasm broke the plain, a black rift in the underrealm where the power of the Enemy had fallen, and had streamed away out of the realm. When the ifflings reached that place, they floated across it as though riding on a warm updraft of air. At first it seemed as though the air currents would snuff them out like so many dying candle-flames; but across the emptiness a beacon flared and then paused, its beam touching them and strengthening their fires. It was the touch of the draconae-tended dreamfire, and it drew them onward in a rippling coruscation, across the chasm and the plain, in a great cascade of light flashing in circlets over them, pulling them, drawing them in.

And then the Mountain was around them, and the chiming voices of the draconae greeted them, and the regenerative fire of the Forge of Dreams in which they had been born blazed forth with a white heat that filled them, and consumed them in a welcoming embrace . . .

—
And in this
place
—

—
All things begin
—

—
Anew
—

* * *

In the gloom and the emptiness, after the reverberations had passed and the distant cries had faded to a background mutter in the underrealm, Hodakai drew himself down into a small, silent bundle in the Cavern of Spirits. He felt lonelier than he had felt in a long, long time. He missed Jarvorus. He missed Ar and Ed. He missed Windrush, and even, in a way, he missed Rent. Most of all, he missed Jael.

He knew now that she had survived her death, and not only that, but had, astonishingly, toppled the vast empire of power that belonged to Tar-skel. Hodakai was glad of that, really he was. But just now in the silence and emptiness of this warren, he was finding it a little hard to enjoy the victory.

Sprites!
he sighed.
Won't even
you come out to keep me company? Where are you all?
But there was no answer, no taunt, no teasing, from the hidden corners of the cavern. It seemed that even the sprites had gone away. Perhaps they too had fled to the Dream Mountain, as the ifflings had. As Jael had. As the dragons all probably wanted to do.

For a while there, he had felt useful. It wasn't that he had done much—he'd just shouted some helpful encouragement through the underrealm to the Dark Vale—but it was a lot more than he had ever dared to do before. And maybe it really had helped in the battle.

Kan-Kon,
he thought wistfully, peering out of his silent jar into the cold silence of the cavern,
I think
you would have been proud of me at the end. I hope that fellow Ar makes it back to tell you about it.

Truthfully, there didn't seem much else to do, think, or say. There was just the silence. He had thought briefly of his rigger fantasies; but whatever escape they might offer now seemed empty and meaningless against the memory of what he had just been through. He supposed he could try to reach out again through the underrealm, but it was all changed now, all stirred up like a lake after a storm, and he didn't have the skill to see through it.

He huddled, and waited—but for what, he didn't know.

When it came, he was so absorbed in the silence that he didn't really even notice at first. It was a voice, calling softly. But from where? Outside the cavern, that was for sure. Perhaps it was drifting up through the crack in the floor that marked where the rift had gaped, before the shaking of the realm had closed it again. It seemed to be calling his name.

Hello?
he whispered, his voice quavering. He was half afraid that he was talking to himself.

Hodakai? Can you hear me?

Yes, he whispered, even more softly. Was that the voice of—?

There you are!
said Jael, her voice growing stronger. Suddenly her kuutekka appeared in the underrealm beside his spirit jar. It was just her face—but how good it was to see a human face!
I've been trying to find you!
she said.
I
wanted to see if you're all right.

Hodakai laughed convulsively, with churning emotions.
See if
I'M all right! YOU'RE
the one we killed, don't you remember!

Jael laughed with him, but she seemed to have noticed the melancholy tone underlying his answer.
I
remember, all right. Hodakai, a lot has happened since then. I don't know how much you were able to see or hear
 . . .

Well, I . . . I saw some. I felt it happen, in the end. I know you won. Congratulations.

Don't just congratulate me, Hodakai. I understand you were helping out
at the end, too. And you helped
me get to where I am now.

Er
—
yes,
Hodakai said,
And you are, I assume—

Her voice seemed full of music as she said,
In
the Dream Mountain,
Hodakai, the Dream
Mountain.
And the joy in her voice sent a spike of sadness through him, sharpening his loneliness—until she added,
I've been trying to think if there's some way I might be able to help you, Hodakai. Some way to bring you here.

Hawwww!
said a parrot, its tiny head visible in the pupil of her eye.
Yessss!

If you'd like to come, I mean . . .

Hodakai seemed to go blind and deaf as her words echoed like gongs in his mind; and she had to call out to him again, before he finally was able to stammer,
Yes
 . . .
I . . .
I think I might like that. Since you ask.
If it's not too much trouble. But only if it's not too much trouble
—!

And when she went on to explain that he might have to wait a little while before she could work out a way to do it, he hardly heard, hardly cared. He could wait as long as she wanted him to. He could wait very nearly forever, as long as he knew that he was not forgotten, as long as his time in this lonely cavern was at last coming to an end.

* * *

The ship's bridge was terribly silent, as Ar rose at last from his rigger-station. Even Ed was gone, sleeping in the data-memory until he returned, or perhaps holopresent in the ship's commons. Ar had never in his life felt such physical exhaustion; he had no idea how long he had been in the net, but it was many times longer than his longest previous stint. He could scarcely focus his eyes, and every muscle and joint in his Clendornan body seemed on the verge of spasm. But he was alive, freed at last from the net by the collapse of Jael's section.

Never in his life had he felt such grief, and such joy. He stood for a few moments beside the second rigger-station, gazing down at the still form that had been his crewmate and friend.
No,
he reminded himself sternly,
that body was not my
friend.
My
friend is alive still, alive . . . out there . . .
But he could not complete the thought. Instead, he broke down at last, kneeling and raising his face to the ceiling, crying out his grief with open, shuddering gasps of pain. The ceiling sparkled with scintillations of grief-light from the backs of his eyes. He remained in that posture until the explosions of light in his eyes faded, and his cries gave out, and then he was silent for a time in the gloom of the bridge, mourning the sight of his friend who had given her life for the dragons.

At last he rose and opened Jael's rigger-station. There was, he thought, an expression of peace on her face. Slipping his arms under her, he lifted her from the station and bore her at last from the bridge. She would complete her journey in a stasis box, cold and silent, until he could bring her to a final resting place. Which ought to be . . .

He had no idea, he realized. He would have to ask her when he saw her.

Ar went to the galley and ate, not even noticing the taste of his food. Reluctantly, he went to his quarters and lay down to rest. But he knew he could not sleep, not thinking about Jael. Besides, he needed to perform a thorough check on the ship's systems, without much more delay. And in truth, he wanted to return to the net as soon as possible. Windrush was looking after their safety on the outside, but it would not do to be away too long.

The dragons would soon be flying to the Dream Mountain, and he didn't want to miss a moment of it.

* * *

The process of healing had already begun, Windrush noted as he gazed over the land from the air. Even here, in this devastated land that had been the stronghold of the Enemy, the effects of Tar-skel's sorceries were fading. Trees and lumenis had returned to view, and the dragons had wasted no time in feeding on the latter. It was the first lumenis feeding in a long time that was full of joy and not desperation. Quite a number of drahls and other altered beings had been found, struggling to adjust to the crippled bodies that were left when Tar-skel's spells of distortion had fallen away. They were being gathered together, their fate to be determined in due time.

In one respect, the land had been sharply altered by the final battle, and as Windrush flew over it, flanked by his brothers and bearing the ghostly rigger-ship on his back, he thought that the change looked permanent. The rift in the underrealm through which Tar-skel had disappeared was mirrored in the outer world, a long dark chasm that was somehow impossible to look into with a probing eye. It deflected the gaze somehow, or drew it away to a confused nothingness.